day 24 - is it any wonder?

i have written before that i am struggling with my faith, and that my daily practice is to read the next portion of scripture before bed, and that i have done so continuously for over 12 years.  i had chosen to read through isaiah a few month ago and it is killing me.  it's destroying my faith.  it's messing with my head.  last night was the straw that broke this camel's back.

i am living in a world that has gone backwards somehow.  the culture has somehow decided that it needs to address areas of victory for women that we have had for decades.  it is shocking and so discouraging.  i am so weary of it all, and heartbroken and tired that we're losing ground and instead of finding more of a place cf common-ness between us, the differences are being re-shoved in our faces.

last night i read isaiah 47:1-12 - in the message - i'm typing it out here to try to understand why a loving god, whose image i am created in needs to use this kind of ugly, shaming metaphor to portray his disgust in a nation.  why some other type of metaphor could not have been found.  why is it necessary to use derogatory, hurtful words like these? and is it any wonder radio personalities and congressman can dehumanize half of the human race when this is the best god can do?

"get off your high horse and sit in the dirt,
virgin daughter of babylon.

no more throne for you -- sit on the ground,
daughter of the chaldeans.
nobody will be calling you 'charming'
and 'alluring' anymore.  get used to it.
get a job, any old job;
clean gutters, scrub toilets.
hock your gowns and scarves,
put on overalls -- the party's over

your nude body will be on public display,
exposed to vulgar taunts.
it's vengeance time, and i'm taking vengeance.
no one gets off the hook."

is this really the best that the god of all creation can do?  this virgin daughter did nothing to warrant this kind of shaming.  she is innocent here.  why would you strip her and publicly humiliate her?  is it any wonder his people feel no shame in speaking like this even today?  is it any wonder that males feel uplifted by these words, and women downtrodden?

liam said that i need to put it away, that if it's not helping i need to find another place to read - but i can't understand why i can't be nurtured by the whole of scripture.  i have devoted my life to it.  i feel so betrayed.  i just want to belong.  i just want to feel whole and a part of something - i feel like i am groaning with all creation for things to make sense.  for the broken to be made whole.  for the humiliation to stop.  i know in my heart that the god of all creation is better than this.  my faith is bigger than scripture, bigger than the church.  but i feel crazy hoping.  is it any wonder?

deep in my bones

i love this picture, the press it's getting and how it makes me feel deep in my bones.

i have a huge disconnect with my own body image. i regularly have liam take pictures of me so that i can see myself without my minds eye getting in the way. i realized that this woman in the picture is the size my body is now, i can hardly fathom it. she is so beautiful, and so comfortable in her skin. i pray that we can raise our daughters and sons in a world that doesn't tell them that this is broken or fat or unlovely.

Glamour's Plus Sized Win: Tipping point for more to come?

time capsule

i have received and finally sat down to watch the documentary that i participated in long ago - september 2005. you can search my archives to read the posts from that time if you like. i am not linking to it here just in case someone connects my real name w/ this blog. i'm just not ready for that.

i was not prepared for the level of emotion that it brought up in me. seeing my face, my rosecea skin and seeing the face of the man who created the images that were so hurtful to me, and seeing the image again really flattened me out.

i don't have time for this today. i'm off to a retreat and have tons of responsibilities. i just want to crawl back into bed and cry. or slam the door shut and spend the weekend escaping and remembering that it isn't me any more. i forget sometimes how bad it was. this was a "good" reminder - good as in efficient, not good as in nice, warm and fuzzy. mean people suck. especially mean, mysoginists who mock women and their pain. the director told me that this prick has a young daughter. poor girl. i want to hunt him down and hurt him. i've never had a face before. never had a face for anyone who ever hurt me.

it will be very difficult for liam to watch this. i told him i wanted to see it alone first. i am so glad that i wasn't in a theatre at a film festival seeing it for the first time. what a relief. i haven't seen the whole film yet, just my episode. it is beautifully done and so gentle with my story. i am well spoken and brave. i am proud of myself for telling my story. i just wasn't prepared for having to listen to him. what a horrible man. i hope that the daughter's mum has enough sense to keep her away from him. prick.

well, i'm off to slam the door on this until next week. please pray that i am able. i really wasn't prepared to feel so leveled by this. b.r.e.a.t.h.e.

like i could be a tower

amy at pretty shiny has given me such a glorious compliment and the lyrics to a song that is making me float this morning. i wrote below about st. lucy day and how badly i long to be a light bearer into my community. i really got to do that on saturday night. we had such a wonderful time at the party - and there was so much laughter and joy. it was fun to have had a vision for this, put it together with my friends and blessed our community with a really fun night out.

the song amy gave me was "suddenly i see" by kt tunstall. i had heard it in stores, or on tv, but i've never really listened to it before and it's one of those songs that is so catchy and fun. this morning i looked at the lyrics and found in those words the woman that i long to be and am slowly becoming.

my word for 2008 was "complete" - it was a strange word and i've sat with it throughout the year wondering what god wanted me to learn from it. it has an element of "done-ness" to it that i don't think will ever play into my life - i am recovering, not recovered. but there is a whole-ness that word speaks of and i have come to feel it this past year. like the pieces of me have shifted in a way that closes the gap in some of those severely broken places. i am no longer ashamed to be a woman. i am living in my skin for the first time i can remember. i feel like myself. i know that sounds strange, but last weekend was the first time i was really myself - not projecting or protecting - just me, complete. not completed, just complete.

the lyrics touch some really personal places for me. the first line of the song,

"Her face is a map of the world
Is a map of the world"

redeems something beautiful for me. i have a desperate case of rosacea, it has been complicated by an undiagnosed allergy for 20 years of my life. i had no idea that i was allergic to non-steroidal antiinflammatories and took asprin & advil for 20 years and got horrific hives all over my face. this caused me so much shame and discomfort. the gp i saw told me to use hydrocortisone cream - never realizing that it was chronic for me and that i'd use it so often (too often), and the steroid thinned my skin - so i literally have a "road map" all over my face. it was magnified after i delivered my babies and my dermatologist said that my "flush & blush" reflex has failed and the capillaries have just blushed once too often don't close down like they should anymore.

it is one of those things that caused me so much distress. i finally have to come to the place where i accept it. i have good makeup, but it's not perfect. but it is who i am, and i hope that my eyes have enough light in them that people notice my eyes and not my scars. i want to carry myself like the song says (sans the magazine page):

And she's taller than most
And she's looking at me
I can see her eyes looking from a page in a magazine
Oh she makes me feel like I could be a tower
A big strong tower
She got the power to be
The power to give
The power to see

the power to be, to give and to see - what a prayer. god, not only grant me serenity, but the power to be, to give and to see.

i love that the first verse speaks of seeing her - and the second about hearing her - this isn't just about looks, it's about being. complete. like i could be a tower - inside and out.

one of the videos for the song has kt tunstall singing to herself on the stage - knowing that the woman she sees is her complete self. this is why it means so much to me.

Here's the video amy sent me (and the lyrics follow)



Suddenly I See - KT Tunstall

Her face is a map of the world
Is a map of the world
You can see she's a beautiful girl
She's a beautiful girl
And everything around her is a silver pool of light
The people who surround her feel the benefit of it
It makes you calm
She holds you captivated in her palm

Suddenly I see (Suddenly I see)
This is what I wanna be
Suddenly I see (Suddenly I see)
Why the hell it means so much to me

I feel like walking the world
Like walking the world
You can hear she's a beautiful girl
She's a beautiful girl
She fills up every corner like she's born in black and white
Makes you feel warmer when you're trying to remember
What you heard
She likes to leave you hanging on her word

Suddenly I see (Suddenly I see)
This is what I wanna be
Suddenly I see (Suddenly I see)
Why the hell it means so much to me

And she's taller than most
And she's looking at me
I can see her eyes looking from a page in a magazine
Oh she makes me feel like I could be a tower
A big strong tower
She got the power to be
The power to give
The power to see

Suddenly I see (Suddenly I see)
This is what I wanna be
Suddenly I see (Suddenly I see)
Why the hell it means so much to me

st. lucy day

i am scandanavian by heritage and growing up i had no spiritual heroines - so st. lucy, the bringer of the light was such a gift to me when i heard about her a few years back.

i so wanted pink to grow up differently than i did - so i figured celebrating santa lucia was a great way to do that. the first year we even made saffron buns, did the wreathe, the white nightgown and candles - it was beautiful. last year we decided that the buns weren't that good, and we liked our raisin tea biscuits better, so we made them instead. this year she had been asking about it (we celebrate st. nicks day for buck and we draw names and make home made presents that we leave in each others shoe the night before) for weeks. i really thought she was looking forward to it.

after our party set up last night (our small group is hosting a blast of a christmas party for our church tonight (my idea) at the university) she intimated that she was feeling put out and her best friend even voiced in about how much work it was for her. it was the first time i have been 'triangulated' by my daughter. i know it won't be the last, but i must say it stung. i don't do social situations well in the first place, let alone with all the weird stress between liam and i - and so this on top of it just bruised me.

i reassured her that st. lucy day was never a punishment and if it wasn't working for her that we could let it go. i grieved it a bit this a.m. as i awoke (liam and i had a lovely morning talk and cleared a lot of the air around here). i realized that sometimes i push on pink those things that i want so badly for myself. so i internalized st. lucy day and was determined to bring the light myself.

as i was getting ready for the party luciano pavaroti's santa lucia came on itunes and i realized again that today was st. lucy day - the day of the party i have been planning for over a month. how beautiful that it was a day that i get to bring light to my community.

i am dressed in my most favorite new clothes, feeling like $10000000 and holding the light inside. no expectations, just going to be present to my community and enjoy all of the hard work i have done with my beloved friends to prepare.

happy saint lucy day!

i hope you dance

one of my fb friends put this in his update today - and i watched, thought of pink and got all misty.

i hope you dance too...

stand in the rain

i.heart.super.chick

these lyrics just slay me.

listening to the new cd on newreleasetuesday.com

go listen!

Stand in the Rain

She never slows down
She doesn’t know why but she knows that
When she’s all alone it feels like its all coming down

She won’t turn around
The shadows grow long and she fears
If she cries that first tear, the tears will not stop raining down

So stand in the rain
Stand your ground
Stand up when it’s all crashing down
You stand through the pain
You won’t drown
And one day what’s lost can be found
You stand in the rain

She won’t make a sound
Alone in this fight with herself
And the fears whispering if she stands she’ll fall down

She wants to be found
The only way out is through everything
She’s running from, wants to give up and lie down

So stand in the rain
Stand your ground
Stand up when it’s all crashing down
You stand through the pain
You won’t drown
And one day what’s lost can be found
You stand in the rain

lie gently

“Lie back, daughter, let your head be tipped back
in the cup of my hand.
Gently, I will hold you.
Spread your arms wide, lie out on the stream and look high at the gulls.

A dead-man’s float is face down.
You will dive and swim soon enough where this tidewater ebbs to the sea.

Daughter, believe me, when you tire on the long thrash to your island,
lie up, and survive.

As you float now, where I held you and let go,
remember when fear cramps your heart what I told you:
lie gently and wide to the light-year stars,
lie back, and the sea will hold you.”

Phillip Booth, Words of Mouth

thank you rachelle!

woman at the well

this is so powerful.



thank you jennifer!

i weigh 224 lbs.

this changes so much for me.



thank you jen

Of Pigs, Cows and Whales

Being a large woman I have always had an affinity for any animal that is used derivatively to describe an overweight person. There were probably only a few times in my past where those words were ever said to my face by others, but I found that they wove their way into the tapes in my head and came out my own mouth when looking at my body or my reflection in the mirror.

“Such a fat pig,” “Big cow,” or “get your whale of a body up and moving” - things like that regularly run through my mind and my self-talk and bring me much shame and my self-loathing to the surface. I now know that when I am using these terms that my self-care or program are faltering. Instead of being just darts and arrows I have thrown at myself for years, I’m beginning to use them as “red flags” to identify destructive behavior and try to turn such negative behavior into something I can use to signal me into better health. It is my deep wish that one day these words will be erased from my tapes and vocabulary, but until then I am trying to turn these weapons into tools. Swords into plowshares as it were.

I can remember hearing my best friend abused by my next door neighbor in the halls of our school. He’d grab her breast if no teachers were around and say “How now brown cow?” to let her know that her quickly developing body was a playground for his overactive, perverted imagination. Cows were aplenty in our small Wisconsin town. I rarely could see them without being reminded of that abuse. And if her body and development could bring so much shame and abuse, then my own wasn’t far behind. Instead of growing into our bodies with pride and joy they became scary and foreign to us. We were both much more physically mature than most of the other girls in the playground. 12 going on 17. The boys in our class wanted nothing to do with us, but we sure turned the heads of older boys and every dirty old man in we came in contact with. How now brown cow? Not very well thank you.

Porker, piggy and fat hog were regular retorts I heard thrown regularly at others who battled with their weight. Looking back at old photographs I see now that I was never fat as child or even a teen - I was big and womanly, but never as fat as I had pictured myself to be. I loathed my body and punished it with exercise as often as I was able. The cruelty of those words was my motivation not to have them lobbed at me. But somehow they frequently came out of my own mouth, and played all of the time in my own head.

In 1978 we began to understand that our 7th grade world was far bigger than our small town in Wisconsin. We heard about brutal seal hunts and saving the whales. We found that we could do very little about our own situations, but maybe, just maybe we could make a difference “out there”. Our little passionate hearts knew that something had to be done and so we would hold monthly bake-sales and send all of the money to Greenpeace to save the whales. How far away from the Midwest they seemed, those big, beautiful oceans, filled with big, beautiful wildlife. Whales were the only animal that I was able to not mind being called. Even though the whales were huge they were still so graceful and beautiful. I loved them with everything in me. Never did I imagine that one day I would live just minutes from one of the largest birthing areas of some of the largest whales in all of creation. Standing at the lighthouse last summer and watching a pod of Minkes surface filled my heart with joy and my eyes with tears.

I remember hearing bits and pieces about the movie Whale Rider. When it came to video in 2003 I was almost afraid to rent it because I knew it would change me forever. Paikea’s story of overcoming the restrictions of her culture and fulfilling her call was very close to home for me. Tying that into my love for whales made it almost unseeable because I knew that the emotions I would be facing and the story I would be confronting would teach me much about myself and touch deep places where I rarely wanted to go. It was an incredible experience to see her rise out of the waves and know that her grandfather was watching her. I am brought to tears even now as reminisce about the depth of emotion that rose out of me. It has changed me forever.Pigs, cows and whales have always told me their stories. Living across the street from a dairy farm in my high school years allowed me to stand at the fence and commune with those Guernsey cows. When life was confusing and loneliness was at it’s peek I would speak to them, feed them and look deeply into their beautifully lashed big brown eyes. I told them many secrets I had been carrying for years. They always listened and never judged me.

I can remember one Christmas living in southwestern Ontario we took neighbors up on their regular invitation to our children to visit and see the neighbors baby piggies. Little did we know the level to which these farmers practiced their craft. Room upon room of growing pigs, level upon level of heat and stench that was almost unbearable. It would have been comical if we all weren’t so shocked by the intensity of the conditions. I remember though that what I hated most was that the one mother sow rolled over onto one of her little piglets. When I heard the scream it let out I wanted to jump the fence and free it. Instead ran to find the farmer to tell him that one of his herd was going to die. He shrugged and said nonchalantly “oh, we loose lots that way” and went on with his work. I was appalled, and unable to shake the sound of that screeching piglet for weeks.

I tried to process it with my husband who never understood the emotional connection I had with those animals and he proceeded to tell me about other pig stories that would only add to my pain and difficulty. He spoke of a farmer who he had known who had to remove a piglet from it’s family because of sickness and when re-introduced back into the herd it was attacked by the mother and left to die. I found that these stories resonated so deeply with my own pain that I was unable to exercise them from my mind.

So it was with these floating in my distant memory that I came upon this prose today and found myself reduced to tears and remembering the level of connection I feel for these animals. I have been slowly reading Anne Lamott’s new book, Grace (Eventually) and began the third chapter, Bodies in the quiet of this morning. I treated myself after our Lenten spending fast and purchased it full price from the bookstore across the river. I know her books move me like little else and so I have been portioning it out like a rich box of candy, piece by little piece. Savoring every word. It took me by surprise and I know it is well timed for my “centering” theme this year.

The bud
stands for all things,
even for those things that don’t flower,
for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing;
though sometimes it is necessary
to reteach a thing its loveliness,
to put a hand on its brow
of the flower
and retell it in words and touch
it is lovely
until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing;
as Saint Francis
put his hand on the creased forehead
of the sow, and told her in words and in touch
blessings of earth on the sow,
and the sow began remembering all down her thick length,
from the earthen snout all the way
through the fodder and slops to the spiritual curl of the tail,
from the hard spininess spiked out from the spine
down through the great broken heart
to the sheer blue milken dreaminess spurting and shuddering
from the fourteen teats into the fourteen mouths sucking
and blowing beneath them:
the long, perfect loveliness of sow.

Galway Kinnell, “Saint Francis and the Sow”

Where does this self-blessing come from? I truly don’t know. But I long for the ability to self-bless and nurture this bud into a flower.

blog against sexual violence - women around the globe

i noticed this gridblog at dry bones dance (she has a MUST read article for every parent/youth pastor/church worker) today and have recently been reading so many articles and news reports about women globally, i thought maybe i would draw some attention to these to remind us that we are not alone in kicking at the darkness.

global issues facing women are making the news - and it seems like something is breaking - real attention is beginning to be drawn to women's issues - keep shining the light:

first steps...

BBC NEWS | Africa | Ugandan adultery law 'too sexist'

one down, how many more to go?

Female genital mutilation banned in Eritrea - health - 05 April 2007 - New Scientist

from tammy jo and the CBE scroll:



nicholas kristof has a moving article exposing some of the ugly underbelly of what continues to happen in pakistan and how wives and women are treated:

Sanctuary for Sex Slaves

that coupled with the firing of the chief justice of pakistan, one who was working toward the betterment of the backwards laws and righting the corruption of the police department makes things desperate indeed.

ANAA's president Dr Amna Buttar met the suspended Chief Justice of Pakistan Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry

as a survivor of sexual violence i know the damage that one moment in time can have on a person - please be aware of what is happening in your area of influence - is there a young girl who has no light in her eyes? is there a woman at work who just seems to be more accident prone than the rest of us? where can you shine the light today?

pondering on patriarchy

yesterday i was invited to write a woman i deeply respect and admire. i told her my story and knew that she would understand at least part of it because she was raised in the denomination that i grew up with. it was very cathartic. i longed to express my deep love for her and her husband because they helped me come out and away from that very backward world.

while i was writing i stumbled upon the idea that the demanding patriarchy my parents fell into when they converted to christianity caused a lot of confusion for not only me, but for both of my parents too. if you've ever read back into my archives you will know that my pseudonym here is my own mother's name. i am writing in her name to honor the words she was never able to own, speak or write. she entered the world of the silent and head covered when she was just shy of 30 and died when she was 43. neither of my parents had ever given any thought to 'creation order' or 'biblical hierarchy' before that time, they just found god and wanted to please him. they were told that this would make him happy and did their damnedest to follow along.

i realized as i wrote yesterday that this damaged their souls too. neither one of them "fit" the code or knew the rules. my mother was as passionate and outspoken as i am and my father was so content and happy behind the scenes helping everywhere he could. both of them were squeezed, prodded and shamed into becoming something at church that neither of them had the skills, spiritual gifts or natural inclination to be. respect for themselves and each other plummeted. and i could sense it like they sent of pheromones of falseness and fear, panic and confusion.

because my father wouldn't/couldn't "take leadership" in the home and at church, both my mother and i thought less of him, but i'm sure not nearly as little than he saw himself. because my mother and i just couldn't seem to pull off the shut-up and submit routine we lost respect in his eyes too, but again, not nearly as much as we lost in our own.

i began to wonder if the shame this type of enforced hierarchy brings imprisons not only the women forced into it, but also the men themselves.

the loss of confidence, the questioning of self, the assumed condemnation from your community and the wall that slowly builds between the self and god. what have we constructed?

i wrote in that letter yesterday about the little white box with the avocado carpet and the gold upholstered pews being the box that trapped god in. then i realized that i have always felt like a square peg in a round hole until i found the emergent discussion and the blogosphere. i realized that that little white box had defined me too. i finished that letter by telling her that she and her husband helped me kick down the walls of that box until i realized that i am me-shaped - no round, no squares, and definitely no boxes.

i hope that one day i can talk to my father and help him begin to dismantle that little white box too, so he can be free and get to know himself and god in a brand new way.

feeding the center

those of you reading since the beginning of this year will know that my word for this year is "center". i'm hoping that it will help me to find more peace being in my skin and contentment, even joy at being a woman, specifically, this woman. needless to say other than silence and centering i really have NO idea how to achieve this. i have been praying for direction. i never expected to find it in my craft cupboard.

i have been organizing a lot of stuff lately, most recently my scrapbooking supplies and craft supplies. i came across some beautiful susan branch stickers i had purchased years ago, and it had this quote:

Nothing feeds the center of being
so much as creative work.
The curtain of mechanization
has come down between the mind and the hand.

Anne Morrow Lindbergh

she is someone i would have loved to meet. everything i have ever read that she has spoken or written is so centered and beautiful. how surprised i was to see that by becoming more creative this year i will find my center. this puts such a big smile on my face. i can hardly believe it's true. it seems so indulgent. almost like permission. i know if my word for this year was "creative" it wouldn't have inspired me as deeply. i love that i'm going for 'centered' and getting creative too.

the other amazing part of this is the word "feeds" - being a compulsive overeater i constantly have my radar up for words that speak in reference to food, eating, fullness and satisfaction. i know that what i truly hunger for has little to do with food. i'm excited to see how feeding my center helps to keep me from feeding my stomach.

rich, rich thoughts today. hope you're finding them too. happy weekend!

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

links in a chain

you know it's going to be an intense day when you're plunging a toilet before 6:00 a.m. in the morning, right?

well, yesterday was a doozie.

i posted here about setting some boundaries with friends and beginning to reclaim pieces of myself i had let go of.

that post was soon followed by a phone call with my father to catch up. we're good on the phone, he loves to tell me about his basketball teams and how they're improving their shots and the chances they have for tournaments. he then told me about one of my cousins who has been single for most of his 48-50 years (i'm not sure of his exact age). my dad told me he had a girlfriend he was traveling with out west. he started to tell me about her and said something like "well, she's not fat, she's "big boned", she's a big girl" (she's probably 45, but a girl to my father...) and then he told me she liked it when he gave her fish he caught or venison from his hunting.

my heart fell. i instantly wondered if he described me that way to people "well, my daughter is big boned..." i knew he did, i've heard that all my life - that and SOLID, "you're solid". he meant it as a compliment of sorts, meant that i was good under the net at getting rebounds and holding my own in the lane.

i shut down, listened but didn't really interact with him for a bit. then i set it aside and talked about some other stuff. then from somewhere deep within me i said "hey dad, can i talk to you about something?" i told him that earlier when he described G's girlfriend it wounded me because i felt like he reduced her to her body size and i didn't like to think that people did that to me. i said "dad, every women you've ever loved was a large woman, your mother, your 5 sisters, your wife and your daughters - you know that we are all more than our body size. we have big hearts and care deeply for the people in our lives - i'd really appreciate it if you'd think about that before you use that kind of language to describe women like me."

where did that come from? wow. he heard me, received my words, owned them and apologized for them - and then said "you know i love you, i wish i could give you a hug." it was very special.

from there i went to my short scheduled doctors appointment (at the encouragement of my dear friend hope) to ask the doctor to run a test for me. this was big. i hardly know how to write about how i have shut down part of me - how i have closed the door to my physical body, both out of my food/size/sex issues, but also because every time i have ever talked to a doctor about my body when it's not working properly i have been made to feel crazy or like a hypochondriac. i hate it.

my breathing has been labored. i think i have found out why. i wanted a test to confirm/deny this - and the doctor pulled that "oh you people with the internet" crap on me. i stood up for myself. i didn't allow her to bully me and i said that i was going to push on this because i didn't think she was a very thorough. and i had evidence to back that up.

she sent me for a mammogram, but never once did a breast exam, she did a pap test, but never once did a pelvic exam. i have seen her for over a year now and never once has she physically touched my body. stethoscope to listen to my heart and lungs, the most basic of pap smears - but other than that she has rushed in and out and i felt her standard of care was lacking.

she did not like that one little bit. you see i've lived in about 8-10 different communities and have the best of care in each one. yes, some doctors made me feel like i was making things up at times, but the care i was given was always top of the line. i knew her care was not up to snuff and i told her, respectfully and directly. she didn't know what to do about that.

i really flustered her. she eventually said 'well then you should probably find another family doctor'. i said i had planned on it, her response to this visit was going to determine that for me. unfortunately we live in the most under serviced area of our province. there are no doctors here. i can't blame it on social medicine, the care i had in ontario was the best i've ever had.

it will be a chore to have to talk another doctor who isn't accepting new patients into treating me and my family. i have spent the morning on the phone with the bureaucrats and the watch dogs, they are toothless. i fear for the women in this community who have never had better medical care - i know they would never think of demanding better. i am not called to be an advocate, but i will if needed. it's just exhausting.

so, i guess that the small challenge of calling back my friend allowed me the courage to speak truth to my father, which allowed me to stand up for myself at the doctor's office. all links in a chain - small successes to enable me to not settle, not blame myself, not feel crazy or lost or powerless.

but now the work begins.

oh, by the way, i did get the order for the chest x-ray - i have no idea how i'll get the results, but i got what i wanted. (oh #2 - i also finished my collage - it's beautiful!)

links-a-lot

• laura at been there...still there takes clorox to task for reinforcing gender roles that should love be things of the past: Media Observation

• new blogger alert - and he has TWO!! Boze! (i can't seem to make the little sign over the zed like he does) and The Hour of Scampering - i have so enjoyed the small gleanings i have had and he really made me giggle with this post here on the eucharist - ghost toasties... :)

• evangelicals behaving badly!! tsk, tsk! i blogged about this scare tactic in regard to youth ministry here and here - great article by christian smith taking evangelicals to task in christianity today. my favorite line so far is:

Furthermore, even if the numbers were somehow nationally representative, they still tell us absolutely nothing about "present trends." Trends have to do with changes observed over time. The numbers presented in the book have to do with differences in generations measured at one point in time. Without knowing whether the observed cross-sectional differences reflect a cohort effect (what the author assumes) or a life course effect (a more plausible alternative), we are no more able to project the claim that we are on the verge of losing a generation eternally than we can predict that all babies today are going to grow up to wear diapers as adults because we see that they are wearing diapers now.

and here's the money quote:

The real question is not whether evangelicals can clean up their statistical act. The deeper question is whether American evangelicals can learn to live without the alarmism that is so comfortably familiar to them. Evangelicals, by my observation, thrive on fear of impending catastrophe, accelerating decay, apocalyptic crises that demand immediate action (and maybe money). All of that can be energizing and mobilizing. The problem is, it also often distorts, misrepresents, or falsifies what actually happens to be true about reality. And to sacrifice what is actually true for the sake of immediate attention and action is plain wrong. It should be redefined as a very un-evangelical thing to do.

gosh i hope so...

wonderful, glorious me

okay, this is SO out of my range and element i just have to force myself to leave those words on the title... one of my goals for 2007 is to become more comfortable in my skin and aware of an content with my body. this is the first exercise i am doing in that vein. sorry guys, this is rather personal - read at your own risk.

a couple of weeks ago hugo had a link to a blog i have never read before, but the idea struck me so deeply i knew i needed to participate:

Zuzu has a post up this morning: Wonderful, Glorious, Me. She writes:

Let me try to open up the floor to give us a chance to do something together.

We’re conditioned, particularly as women, to be self-deprecating, to not take up space, to not revel in our bodies and ourselves. We can get 150 comments in a thread about when we realized that we were aware our bodies weren’t up to snuff; let’s see how many we can generate praising ourselves.

Your mission: list at least five things you love about your body and yourself. Five is the floor; you can always do more. And no self-deprecation! No offsetting a compliment with a dig.

this will take just about everything i have to do this. i am capable of recognizing postive things about "my self" but horrible at recognizing them about my body, so i am limiting myself to 5 things i "LOVE" (gosh that is a strong word) about my body. here goes:

1. i have beautiful hair. it is thick, bright, unique and mine. i have had strangers stop me in public to ask me about my hair or compliment me, and even had a male friend in college ask me one day if he could just touch it. i even had a hairdresser in toronto steal my hair as he cut it. this was before the days of extensions and 'locks for life' and i was very relieved to hear that he was going to sell it and not go home and spread it all over his bed and roll in it.
2. i am well proportioned. nothing looks out of place on me. although i am big i am shapely and rubenesque in the right places.
3. i have great gams. i take after my mother, she had beautiful legs too.
4. my feet are very pretty and feminine.
5. i am happy with my breasts. it feels very weird to say that here, but that's what this is for, right?
6. i couldn't come up with a #6 if i was held at gunpoint.

okay - your turn. guys if you've read this far and have body issues too feel free to play along. but ladies - you know who you are, consider yourself tagged.

wonderful, glorious me.

weekly links-a-lot

i decided that since i spend a lot of my time reading on line that i would begin to highlight the great stuff i've found this week:

• dave paisley gives a new parallel illustration to the challenge of patriarchy in the church - women and the church
  

• ben witherington takes on fox news and challenges evangelicals to begin to think for themselves politically - the virginal conception and political deception
  

• obama sets the record straight (ht to jordon cooper)
  

• gimme some of your habitude. rach at magpie girl is calling us to a peaceful life with daily random acts of kindness for february. oh, and i think there are a few copies left of her lovely zine if you hurry.
  

• the cbe scroll is highlighting some links and discussion of the mess the swbts is making with a decision to fire a language teacher because of her gender. good thoughts to challenge those on the fence: The CBE Scroll - Consistent Application
  

• and lastly, this is where i'd really like to be at the end of march - the evolving church 2007 conference - shane claiborn, jim wallace and ron sider... saving my pennies for that plane ticket...

links-a-lot

two thought provoking articles on sex and patriarchy i wanted to give you a head's up on:

Indulgences, MSM Bias & Evangelical Patriarchy over at Christian Egalitarians

and

Abstinence, Sex Education, Rape, Desire and Who Ought to be Wearing a Millstone by Hugo Schwyzer over at CBE Scroll