Showing posts with label Religion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Religion. Show all posts
Saturday, September 28, 2013
Transformational Author Inspiration!
Amazing time on retreat in the San Francisco Bay Area, then in Baltimore, Maryland! Now I am just integrating all the amazing learnings and experiences.
Thursday, April 25, 2013
Religion's Male Preference: Let's Be Honest
Bravo to Sheryl Sandberg risking to live Full of Herself!
I am proud of the controversy stirred up by her best selling book “Lean In”. If you’ve seen her famous TED talk, you’ll recognize much of the book. It expands from those points and offers pages of well researched studies and statistics.
I am so pleased about the fray the book has pulled from the mythic tapestry we have laid over the subject of gender equity. We need some messiness around the topic of what it is honestly like for women in the work force, and in the structures and traditions of our society. For too long young women, middle-aged and older, have ignored the reality that today, still, in 2013, women are less valued than men. It’s time we talk about it, even when we don’t want to.
This is not a new idea. In fact, it’s knowledge we’ve had and swept under the rug by the very gender stuck with getting rid of dirt we don’t want to see: women. In agreeing to do the clean up for Patriarchy, women have ourselves to blame for being stuck with our hand on the broom handle: and not because we can hop on it and fly away.
In reality, our wings have been clipped, to keep women solidly on the ground of undervalue and underachievement and we have been part of making it happen.
In 1991, after I returned from serving 23 months in the United States Peace Corps, I accepted a job at my alma mater, a university in northwest Washington as Director of Student Activities. Among the speakers we hired during that time was Naomi Wolf, author of the then famous “Beauty Myth”.
As Ms. Wolf sat around a lunch table with me, female faculty and students, she told us about her next project: Women in Leadership and the lack of young women college students who wanted it. Traveling the nation, speaking and listening to women, she was shocked and dismayed to discover that the majority of women had little to no desire to put themselves out as leaders.
I listened with rapt attention. I nearly had to sit on my hands so that I wouldn’t jump up screaming “I want to! I want to lead! I’ve wanted to be President since grade school! I want to be that leader! I have always wanted to be the leader! I do! I do! I do!”
I did and I didn’t. I was President of my university student body; I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in West Africa; I worked in the Clinton Administration; I became an ordained woman pastor. In all these professional roles I reached for justice, founded organizations that sought equality and changed the governing rules of institutions. I have been a leader; strong, smart, assertive, demanding, committed and charismatic. And I have been crucified for it, by men and women alike.
I was first told I had been crucified on the altar of religious patriarchy while living as an intern in Jerusalem. My American supervisor was a frightening, small and insecure man who despised me the minute he greeted me and my husband at the airport. As months went by it became clear that not only would he not be one of the supportive male mentors Sandberg had throughout her career, but the opposite. His goal was to tear me down. Because of his blatant misogynist actions, I was removed from my position in Israel. As one woman said, “You’re being crucified for being a strong, smart woman who refused to take shit.”
Through my ten plus years as an ordained pastor, I learned that there is a religiosity of male preference and female diminution; God ordained the hierarchy of men over women. This moves the discussion beyond Sandberg’s assumptions, stereotypes and traditions and into a far more complicated source of the inequity: the divine. God, via Bible and other religious holy books, is understood as elevating men and placing women under their rule, while at the same time warning of women’s sexual prowess and a need to be governed, directed and protected by men. As a result, if a woman pastor is outspoken, ambitious, assertive and insists on remaining a woman, being the powerful woman leader “Lean In” hopes for, becomes a religious struggle.
I love being a woman. I love my red lipstick, high platform shoes and pencil skirts. I like my curvaceous body and long, dark curly hair. As a pastor, I didn’t want to tone down or reject my sexuality. I enjoyed the power of my sharp mind and charisma and my easy ability to speak, motivate and inspire. I was and am a natural leader and the young woman who could barely contain herself in the presence of Naomi Wolf didn’t contain it as a pastor, which led to the end of my leading in organized religion.
In the church there were not male colleagues who gave me a hand up or encouraged my voice. There were not women who joined me in my quest to create an equal place for honest female leadership in the church or in exploring gender neutral language and naming of the divine. In the church, the type of powerful woman I was and would not reduce, was not welcomed. The divinely ordained teaching that women are beneath men is ingrained deep in our collective psyche and is the root of all the weedy blossoms of gender inequity.
“Lean In” nudges up to the truth that most women who do want to be leaders don’t often make it, but it never fully digs down deep as to why. Religion is not mentioned once as a part of the problem. Sandberg gets a lot right in “Lean In” and still, there is much she does not even broach. Finally, it needs to be said that women do want to lead. There are other women, young, middle and old, who like me, can barely contain our desire to do so. The reality is, however, that the “right timing” or “well placed mentors” along the career route that Sandberg experienced, are rare. For many of us who are in male dominated professions, being a strong woman leader can be the death knoll of our very intention to do so. Simply wanting to be the woman leader is not enough to make it happen, and not only because of conflicts between motherhood and marriage, but because of the deeply seeded belief that women should not rise so high.
We need this book. We need this discussion. We need to disagree, feel uncomfortable and courageously look at our complicity in the reality of what “Lean In” reminds us: women are not equally valued, do not have equal opportunity or choice. Together we need to unearth the roots of Patriarchy, face the truth of religion’s role in it, and move forward to replant the ground of our practices with seeds of balance and equity.
I am proud of the controversy stirred up by her best selling book “Lean In”. If you’ve seen her famous TED talk, you’ll recognize much of the book. It expands from those points and offers pages of well researched studies and statistics.
I am so pleased about the fray the book has pulled from the mythic tapestry we have laid over the subject of gender equity. We need some messiness around the topic of what it is honestly like for women in the work force, and in the structures and traditions of our society. For too long young women, middle-aged and older, have ignored the reality that today, still, in 2013, women are less valued than men. It’s time we talk about it, even when we don’t want to.
This is not a new idea. In fact, it’s knowledge we’ve had and swept under the rug by the very gender stuck with getting rid of dirt we don’t want to see: women. In agreeing to do the clean up for Patriarchy, women have ourselves to blame for being stuck with our hand on the broom handle: and not because we can hop on it and fly away.
In reality, our wings have been clipped, to keep women solidly on the ground of undervalue and underachievement and we have been part of making it happen.
In 1991, after I returned from serving 23 months in the United States Peace Corps, I accepted a job at my alma mater, a university in northwest Washington as Director of Student Activities. Among the speakers we hired during that time was Naomi Wolf, author of the then famous “Beauty Myth”.
As Ms. Wolf sat around a lunch table with me, female faculty and students, she told us about her next project: Women in Leadership and the lack of young women college students who wanted it. Traveling the nation, speaking and listening to women, she was shocked and dismayed to discover that the majority of women had little to no desire to put themselves out as leaders.
I listened with rapt attention. I nearly had to sit on my hands so that I wouldn’t jump up screaming “I want to! I want to lead! I’ve wanted to be President since grade school! I want to be that leader! I have always wanted to be the leader! I do! I do! I do!”
I did and I didn’t. I was President of my university student body; I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in West Africa; I worked in the Clinton Administration; I became an ordained woman pastor. In all these professional roles I reached for justice, founded organizations that sought equality and changed the governing rules of institutions. I have been a leader; strong, smart, assertive, demanding, committed and charismatic. And I have been crucified for it, by men and women alike.
I was first told I had been crucified on the altar of religious patriarchy while living as an intern in Jerusalem. My American supervisor was a frightening, small and insecure man who despised me the minute he greeted me and my husband at the airport. As months went by it became clear that not only would he not be one of the supportive male mentors Sandberg had throughout her career, but the opposite. His goal was to tear me down. Because of his blatant misogynist actions, I was removed from my position in Israel. As one woman said, “You’re being crucified for being a strong, smart woman who refused to take shit.”
Through my ten plus years as an ordained pastor, I learned that there is a religiosity of male preference and female diminution; God ordained the hierarchy of men over women. This moves the discussion beyond Sandberg’s assumptions, stereotypes and traditions and into a far more complicated source of the inequity: the divine. God, via Bible and other religious holy books, is understood as elevating men and placing women under their rule, while at the same time warning of women’s sexual prowess and a need to be governed, directed and protected by men. As a result, if a woman pastor is outspoken, ambitious, assertive and insists on remaining a woman, being the powerful woman leader “Lean In” hopes for, becomes a religious struggle.
I love being a woman. I love my red lipstick, high platform shoes and pencil skirts. I like my curvaceous body and long, dark curly hair. As a pastor, I didn’t want to tone down or reject my sexuality. I enjoyed the power of my sharp mind and charisma and my easy ability to speak, motivate and inspire. I was and am a natural leader and the young woman who could barely contain herself in the presence of Naomi Wolf didn’t contain it as a pastor, which led to the end of my leading in organized religion.
In the church there were not male colleagues who gave me a hand up or encouraged my voice. There were not women who joined me in my quest to create an equal place for honest female leadership in the church or in exploring gender neutral language and naming of the divine. In the church, the type of powerful woman I was and would not reduce, was not welcomed. The divinely ordained teaching that women are beneath men is ingrained deep in our collective psyche and is the root of all the weedy blossoms of gender inequity.
“Lean In” nudges up to the truth that most women who do want to be leaders don’t often make it, but it never fully digs down deep as to why. Religion is not mentioned once as a part of the problem. Sandberg gets a lot right in “Lean In” and still, there is much she does not even broach. Finally, it needs to be said that women do want to lead. There are other women, young, middle and old, who like me, can barely contain our desire to do so. The reality is, however, that the “right timing” or “well placed mentors” along the career route that Sandberg experienced, are rare. For many of us who are in male dominated professions, being a strong woman leader can be the death knoll of our very intention to do so. Simply wanting to be the woman leader is not enough to make it happen, and not only because of conflicts between motherhood and marriage, but because of the deeply seeded belief that women should not rise so high.
We need this book. We need this discussion. We need to disagree, feel uncomfortable and courageously look at our complicity in the reality of what “Lean In” reminds us: women are not equally valued, do not have equal opportunity or choice. Together we need to unearth the roots of Patriarchy, face the truth of religion’s role in it, and move forward to replant the ground of our practices with seeds of balance and equity.
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Jesus: More FAT than fear!
I want to live FAT all year! FAT Tuesday ought to be a world-view-way-of-being.
Fat Tuesday! I love the name. It fills up my mouth when I say it. I can almost taste the whipped cream and chocolate overflowing the edges of my entire being. Today FAT is good. A day when abundance is celebrated and for a moment in time, we give ourselves permission to go for it! Why shouldn’t it last?
Oh yes, Lent: the season of depravity, giving-up, minimizing and living pinched.
Lent exemplifies the practice of scarcity, which I know all too well. I have lived from the place of “not enough” my entire life and I am sick of it.
Where does it come from? Why is there so much “not-enough-ness” in our lives? Why do Lent? The “church line” is: give up something for Lent because Jesus gave up his life for ours. Oookaaaay. He gives his life & I give up wine, ice-cream or Facebook. That makes sense.
Not.
What is the real reason the Church wants you and me to feel deprived and wanting?
For the sake of the moment, let’s suspend the question of whether Jesus actually lived or not and behave as if the story of his life & death is true. I think we’ll find something compelling.
A quick jaunt through some of the Jesus stories will demonstrate that Jesus is more FAT than fear.
First, look at Jesus and the woman caught in adultery. The crowd brings her to Jesus, insisting he weigh in on her fate, reminding him the Jewish law says she ought to be stoned. In the gospel of John (8: 1 – 11) Jesus responds “straightening up”. Think standing tall – filling up the space with all his fullness. He then says, “Anyone of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” No one does. In the end Jesus tells her that he does not condemn her either.
Totally FAT! To a woman who by religious law(!) was decreed as being only worth killing, Jesus says “No! There is MORE GOOD here!” Even when we screw up – make an unhealthy choice or just do something unthinking or stupid – we have MORE GOOD in us! Our poor choices do NOT define us! FAT Tuesday!
How about the Wedding in Cana (John 2: 1–10)? The best wine is saved for last. Why serve it if you’re not going to get play from it? When the guests have already sauced up and won’t know the difference, who in their right mind serves the best? The one who lives from Abundance! Giving GOOD isn’t about looking good or making status. It’s about living from the plenty of ones’ GOOD heart, love and hope. Abundance is an Unreasonable and Irrational way of living and seeing the world. It is FAT Tuesday everyday!
What about the story of Jesus healing a paralyzed dude? (Mark 2:1-12, Matthew 9:2-8, Luke 5:17-26) A guy is paralyzed; his friends bring him to Jesus but can’t get to him, so they creatively go through the roof. Anyway, Jesus tells him “Your sins are forgiven” and the guy gets up and walks away.
Do you get it? The man was paralyzed by his sin – unable to move, breath, rejoice, dance, run and celebrate because he was consumed by worry, anxiety and fear of his sin - of his “not- enough-ness”.
I get it because I’ve been there. In my TEDx Talk I share how my scarcity seed got started. It took root when I began to notice boys and have all those GREAT FAT Feelings of desire. Instead of dancing in them & getting FULL from them; rather than standing up TALL in these new feelings, I was consumed with guilt and shame. I knew that what I couldn’t STOP thinking about, the church called sin. That’s when I got fat. Not the good Abundant FAT, but the kind of fat that comes from the weight of shame. The fat that is opposite of the FAT Tuesday FAT. The fat that requires me to look for my worth and value outside of me. This is the fat of a young girl understanding that without the divine blessing from the male God, she is small, minimized, unworthy and deprived of the GOOD. This is Lent and it is controlling. It is why the Church practices it. It keeps us entangled in the ritualized dogma that convinces us we cannot be good without it. To give-up what we love & like keeps us hooked into the belief that we don’t really deserve the FAT GOOD. But we do.
The ULTIMATE FAT Tuesday Abundant Act from Jesus, is how he died.
Lent tells the story like this: Jesus “gave it up”, sacrificed & suffered. So should you.
No. Jesus, full-on standing tall, straightening up, looked the religious leaders of his day in the eye and said “No. Not today. You do not get to tell me who is worthy and who is not. You do not get to define value by degrees of sin or forgiveness. ALL are GOOD. ALL are WORTHY and ALL will be released from the worry of missing the good mark .” Jesus died boldly and in the FAT Abundance of our human GOOD!
The Jesus message actually is that you can’t miss the FAT GOOD because it is ALREADY in you! We do not need or require a church, a god, a man, a high social status…to be GOOD. We already ARE!
Jesus didn’t take anything away – he ADDED!
This Season of Lent, don’t give something up. ADD something! ADD something beautiful, comforting or tasty to your life.
ADD an extra walk or run each day.
ADD a piece of dark chocolate each night.
ADD the permission to read a good book that has nothing to do with anything but is a good story!
ADD talking sweet to yourself, like you do a lover.
ADD the mantra: “I am GOOD and have in me the power to make more GOOD for myself and others!”
ADD away and live FAT!
Fat Tuesday! I love the name. It fills up my mouth when I say it. I can almost taste the whipped cream and chocolate overflowing the edges of my entire being. Today FAT is good. A day when abundance is celebrated and for a moment in time, we give ourselves permission to go for it! Why shouldn’t it last?
Oh yes, Lent: the season of depravity, giving-up, minimizing and living pinched.
Lent exemplifies the practice of scarcity, which I know all too well. I have lived from the place of “not enough” my entire life and I am sick of it.
Where does it come from? Why is there so much “not-enough-ness” in our lives? Why do Lent? The “church line” is: give up something for Lent because Jesus gave up his life for ours. Oookaaaay. He gives his life & I give up wine, ice-cream or Facebook. That makes sense.
Not.
What is the real reason the Church wants you and me to feel deprived and wanting?
For the sake of the moment, let’s suspend the question of whether Jesus actually lived or not and behave as if the story of his life & death is true. I think we’ll find something compelling.
A quick jaunt through some of the Jesus stories will demonstrate that Jesus is more FAT than fear.
First, look at Jesus and the woman caught in adultery. The crowd brings her to Jesus, insisting he weigh in on her fate, reminding him the Jewish law says she ought to be stoned. In the gospel of John (8: 1 – 11) Jesus responds “straightening up”. Think standing tall – filling up the space with all his fullness. He then says, “Anyone of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” No one does. In the end Jesus tells her that he does not condemn her either.
Totally FAT! To a woman who by religious law(!) was decreed as being only worth killing, Jesus says “No! There is MORE GOOD here!” Even when we screw up – make an unhealthy choice or just do something unthinking or stupid – we have MORE GOOD in us! Our poor choices do NOT define us! FAT Tuesday!
How about the Wedding in Cana (John 2: 1–10)? The best wine is saved for last. Why serve it if you’re not going to get play from it? When the guests have already sauced up and won’t know the difference, who in their right mind serves the best? The one who lives from Abundance! Giving GOOD isn’t about looking good or making status. It’s about living from the plenty of ones’ GOOD heart, love and hope. Abundance is an Unreasonable and Irrational way of living and seeing the world. It is FAT Tuesday everyday!
What about the story of Jesus healing a paralyzed dude? (Mark 2:1-12, Matthew 9:2-8, Luke 5:17-26) A guy is paralyzed; his friends bring him to Jesus but can’t get to him, so they creatively go through the roof. Anyway, Jesus tells him “Your sins are forgiven” and the guy gets up and walks away.
Do you get it? The man was paralyzed by his sin – unable to move, breath, rejoice, dance, run and celebrate because he was consumed by worry, anxiety and fear of his sin - of his “not- enough-ness”.
I get it because I’ve been there. In my TEDx Talk I share how my scarcity seed got started. It took root when I began to notice boys and have all those GREAT FAT Feelings of desire. Instead of dancing in them & getting FULL from them; rather than standing up TALL in these new feelings, I was consumed with guilt and shame. I knew that what I couldn’t STOP thinking about, the church called sin. That’s when I got fat. Not the good Abundant FAT, but the kind of fat that comes from the weight of shame. The fat that is opposite of the FAT Tuesday FAT. The fat that requires me to look for my worth and value outside of me. This is the fat of a young girl understanding that without the divine blessing from the male God, she is small, minimized, unworthy and deprived of the GOOD. This is Lent and it is controlling. It is why the Church practices it. It keeps us entangled in the ritualized dogma that convinces us we cannot be good without it. To give-up what we love & like keeps us hooked into the belief that we don’t really deserve the FAT GOOD. But we do.
The ULTIMATE FAT Tuesday Abundant Act from Jesus, is how he died.
Lent tells the story like this: Jesus “gave it up”, sacrificed & suffered. So should you.
No. Jesus, full-on standing tall, straightening up, looked the religious leaders of his day in the eye and said “No. Not today. You do not get to tell me who is worthy and who is not. You do not get to define value by degrees of sin or forgiveness. ALL are GOOD. ALL are WORTHY and ALL will be released from the worry of missing the good mark .” Jesus died boldly and in the FAT Abundance of our human GOOD!
The Jesus message actually is that you can’t miss the FAT GOOD because it is ALREADY in you! We do not need or require a church, a god, a man, a high social status…to be GOOD. We already ARE!
Jesus didn’t take anything away – he ADDED!
This Season of Lent, don’t give something up. ADD something! ADD something beautiful, comforting or tasty to your life.
ADD an extra walk or run each day.
ADD a piece of dark chocolate each night.
ADD the permission to read a good book that has nothing to do with anything but is a good story!
ADD talking sweet to yourself, like you do a lover.
ADD the mantra: “I am GOOD and have in me the power to make more GOOD for myself and others!”
ADD away and live FAT!
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