On My Knees

It isn't for the moment you are struck that you need courage but for the long uphill climb back to sanity and faith and security.

                                                                      - Anne Morrow Lindbergh

I was feeling slightly insane, wavering in my faith, and insecure.

The moment those feelings were "struck" into me came as I began my senior year with a Women and Religion class. This class is full of women (and a few men) who are very intelligent and different from me.

Usually, I find this environment refreshing.

Not this time.

This time it was personal. This time it was draining: mentally, emotionally, spiritually.

This time it was frightening. Because this time it was messing with my faith. 

I have been learning about pre-history and the religions before Christianity. I have been taught to question all truth, even whether there is any truth. I have been surrounded by those who call their gods "She." I have listened to people bash my religion and point out nothing positive, simply flaw. After flaw. After flaw.

The scary part was I understood - and agreed with - some of their points. I trust in my teacher's knowledge. I have studied and read her textbooks about goddesses.

I have questioned my faith, my God, my role as a Bible study leader.

And worst of all, I told NO ONE.

I didn't want to burden them with a problem I couldn't solve. I didn't want them to have the same struggle if I couldn't help them out of it. I feared their judgment for my wavering faith. So I kept these thoughts to myself.

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Until this weekend. And that is when I began my hopefully not too "long uphill climb."

This weekend was the Charleston Baptist Collegiate Ministry Fall Retreat. I went knowing I needed to go but not knowing how much it would affect me.

Before I give you the detail of when I hit my lowest low, here is some background information:

• My homechurch is over 200 years old filled with several traditional people, many of whom are old, all of whom are subdued in their worship style: aka if anyone says "Amen" in the middle of the sermon, we all turn his or her way and glare as if to suggest they should lay off the coffee next Sunday. It is just too much. We're quiet and keep things simple, assuming that showy worship of waving your hands around and shouting is insincere. 

• Well, upon getting to know other believers in college and how they worshiped, I realized one can be showy and sincere in praising God. In fact, it was an encouragement for me to see them raise their hands. When I finally worked up the guts and sincere desire to attempt this on my own, I was nearly sweating and my heart was beating fast but once I got past my nerves, I realized it heightened my own worship. So now, as I feel moved, I will raise my hands.
• Also, I have been trying to figure out how to make prayer a conversation: not just me rambling but also listening for God. My favorite description for his response is a still, small voice putting a crystal clear thought into your mind that was not yours, but simply was placed on your heart out of nowhere. I agree with that.

So, back to the BCM retreat.

We had wonderfully powerful music, enhanced especially by all of the Citadel cadets with their deep voices and clapping as we sang along. One song we sang was Indescribable with a lyric that says "Awestruck we fall to our knees as we humbly proclaim/ You are amazing God."

I had a still, small voice whisper: "That would be cool. I think I'd like to do that; it might elevate my worship like when I started raising my hands."

Enter my active thoughts: "Yes, that could be cool BUT certainly not here. Too many people. I mean I don't want to be all trying too hard or distracting people. Yea, maybe... someday..."

Without a second thought, I continued singing songs until  a few things formed the final cracks in my emotional dam: hearing our leader use words like "battle" and reading through the Lord's prayer about "Lead us not into temptation/ But deliver us from evil," etc.

My emotional dam broke. Warm tears poured from my eyes.

I don't usually cry. I quickly tried to regain my composure but it was melting away like much of my mascara. 

I walked to the front of the room where our Prayer Team leader was sitting in a chair. I don't know why but she pulled me to the ground. At that moment, I was at my lowest point, physically and emotionally and spiritually.

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We sat on our knees as she hugged me and prayed for me and read me a few perfectly relevant pieces of scripture.I admitted my fears and my doubts and I let my tears flow.

Once I regained composure I stood to leave but before I could get to the end of the front row, another lady reached for me which I was totally not expecting but graciously welcomed. She hugged me and began praying for me.

However, the way that she grabbed me brought my upper body in for a hug but left my butt awkwardly in the air so, without realizing it, to fix this...

I fell to my knees. 

It wasn't until later after she finished praying for me and I had returned to my seat that I put all of this together. I never had the intention to do any of that, nor did I even want to. But at that point, not even an hour after I had heard that whispered thought, I had fallen to my knees not once but twice, humbled before the Lord in prayer and worship. 

I was like, "Ok, God. I got it. You're there. To me, you are truth and you are real and you are worthy of praise."

Better yet, we sang You Alone Can Rescue with the perfect lyrics for my situation. 

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As I begin this "uphill climb" I realize that I don't have all of the answers yet and I am certain all of my doubts are not disappearing any time soon, but I am also certain of my faith.

If I had all the answers it would be called FACT, not FAITH.

But I do feel certain that with God, the acceptance and support and prayer from fellow believers, and with patience I will one day make it back to the top of the hill, "back to sanity and faith and security."

Wondering About WGS... where do I fit in?

Recently, I have given a great deal of thought to pursuing grad school and possibly becoming a professor within the field of WGS.

I had a huge fear that I would not find a place in the WGS community as a Christian, feminine, very heterosexual, relatively traditional woman. Basically, I didn't know if they would see me, a Southern Belle Feminist, as legit.

The SEWSA conference was a big deciding factor.

I was unsure if my Southern Belle could possibly be accepted and lacked confidence that my Feminist could hold her own in that community. Plus, days of people simply reading papers had a high possibility of being plain old boring.

Fortunately, I am happy to report that I enjoyed SEWSA, was not ostracized for my Southern Belle appearance and was pleasantly surprised in how much my Feminist knowledge and references has accumulated in recent years, particularly in college.

The other thing I realized is that the Feminist community is more accepting of individuals and personal voices even if they come in a more traditional looking package (aka: me with my painted nails, high heels and flowered cardigans!). Still, though, I believe I may always have to prove my intelligence in this community because at first glance I may be perceived as out of place or simply vapid and buying into mainstream media ideals that they (and sometimes I) disagree with.

All in all though, I take confidence in my perhaps less common approach to feminism. I desire and believe, hopefully without too much arrogance, that I could be a bridge between the more traditional, mainstream community (which would not disregard me since I "fit" in there) and the feminist community so that I could share its more progressive ideals.

I also take confidence in the fact that my areas of interest, often more associated with the traditional, mainstream community, are under-explored from a feminist lens. This, I believe, might allow me to develop a niche in the feminist community if I pursue WGS academia. For example, I like Christianity, fashion, beauty, menstruation/reproduction, and heterosexual romance - areas that it seems to me are ignored or misunderstood by many feminists.

Hopefully I can delve into them to enlighten the feminists and also empower the more traditional community...

But now that I have outed myself in the Christian community as a Feminist and now that I have exposed my girly and traditional self in the Feminist community, without significant backlash, I am relieved to know that I can exist in both worlds and be me, a Southern Belle Feminist :)

Jesus and Women - more thoughts on John 20

Back to that scripture from the previous post, I would like to point out a couple other things:

1) Mary was the first one at the tomb very early ("while it was still dark") the next morning; (verse 1).

2) After seeing the empty tomb, the disciples went home (verse 10) but she stayed (verse 11).

Clearly Mary Magdalene was devoted to Jesus. So were several other women.

Ann Spangler and Jean E. Syswerda's book Women of the Bible has a chapter on Mary Magdalene. In that chapter, p. 399 details "Women in Jesus' Life and Ministry."

This opened my eyes to something I, even as a feminist, had overlooked: women were invaluable in Jesus' ministry.

I have always heard of the 12 disciples and hoped I could be like them, dropping everything I had to go and follow Jesus, to help him. Well, they could not have done that without women.

As "Women in Jesus' Life and Ministry" pointed out:

"[S]everal women stepped outside the cultural expectations of their time to play a significant role in the ministry of Jesus. Only the twelve disciples are mentioned more often than certain women, Mary Magdalene being one of them. Mark tells us that a number of women 'followed him [Jesus] and cared for his needs ' (Mark 15:41).

"During the years of Jesus' ministry, when he and his disciples weren't earning an income, several women stepped in to care for them. They used their own financial resources to support Jesus and the disciples (Luke 8:3). While Jesus was teaching and healing, these women probably spent their time purchasing food, preparing it, and serving it. Perhaps they also found homes for Jesus and his disciples to stay in while on their travels...

"Two women in Bethany, Mary and Martha always generously opened their home to Jesus when he was in their town, providing meals and a place to rest (Luke 10:38). Jesus was close enough to these women... that he called them his friends (John 11:11)...

"Women watched Jesus suffer on the cross, remaining there until he had breathed his last and was buried. Women were the first to go to the tomb on Sunday morning and the first to witness the Resurrection. Luke's gospel in particular portrays Jesus as someone who both understood and respected women, conferring on them a stature that most of them had not previously enjoyed."

These women facilitated the works of Jesus and his disciples by caring for them. They did not even do anything radical to do it; they simply fulfilled their roles as women as fully and selflessly as possible. I have never seen or heard credit given to them for this service to Jesus and the early spread of Christianity but I think they deserve it.

So I point this out to you in hopes that it has opened your eyes and that you will share it with others. Open their eyes as well to the way women helped Jesus and how Jesus respected them.

My Sexual Value System

I realize it has been a while since I last wrote. School has taken over my life :( As a result, I thought I would kill two birds with one stone: below is a paper that I had to write for my Human Sexuality class.

I decided to turn it into a post. It may be a smidge more formal than my typical writing but it still describes the topic via a Southern Belle Feminists's perspective...

My assignment was: In this paper, you are being asked to summarize your own sexual value system. How did your own values regarding sexuality originate and then evolve throughout your adolescent and college years? What have you learned about the sexual decision-making process? How do you make sexual decisions then and now? What advice might you offer to others about this topic?

Here is what I came up with :)

My sexual value system has been most influenced by 3 things: my family, my faith, and feminism. The biggest change through my transition from high school to college was not in how I view sex but in how others view me. Finally, my advice to others is to know what you want to do (or not do) and why.

In high school, I was most influenced by family. It was clear that I was not to have sex. Good girls did not do “it” and I was raised in a Christian home where virginity was just assumed as an unwavering requirement. The temptation here was my boyfriend of over four years; despite this, we never once had sex. Yes, we came close a time or two but despite his increasing pressure, I am no rule breaker so I kept my virginity; I ended up losing him as a result. Another reason I believe I never did it with him is because I am a hopeless romantic and began to realize he was not “the one;” aka he did not deserve dibs on my hymen.

As I came to college I also came into my Christian faith. During freshman year, I broke up with my high school sweetheart and, as a result, my physical intimacy decreased almost entirely. No longer tempted in that, I began to reflect on my reasons for remaining a virgin: it is a gift to give my husband, sex (for me) should be within marriage, maintaining a good reputation, avoiding disease and pregnancy, etc. Remaining a virgin was no longer just because I should or because my parents wanted me to. I wanted to; I was in control of my sexuality, even its absence.

In college, I also realized that I am and have been for quite some time a feminist. That is why I find strength in setting my own sexual value system. I feel empowered in my decision to abstain. I understand feminists often are expected to be sexually active and some see virginity until marriage as limiting. I however do not. I believe a key to feminism is the right to choose so I fully support the idea of individual decisions, especially sexual ones, aka to each their own.

Although, not everyone is of that same mindset. The biggest change I have noticed since high school is not how I view sex but how others view me. In high school I was a bit of a goody-two-shoes and people knew I was a virgin but it wasn’t a huge deal because several other people were too. Until the end of our relationship, my boyfriend didn’t pressure me too much. I knew other people had sex but they were sorta seen as sluts. I was viewed with respect.

In college however, things changed quickly. Beyond being a goody-two-shoes, I am now an oddity. People view me more with awe and disbelief than respect. I have had more than one guy tell me that they did not believe virgins existed on this campus. I have not dated much so I have not felt the pressure but I am certain that if I were in a relationship, there would be immense pressure to “put out.” This breaks my heart the most: so many girls succumb to that pressure.

My advice to my peers in college is to know what you want to do (or not do) and why. I feel like several girls on campus may have been virgins in high school but gave that up in college because they thought they “had” to have sex to be popular or get a guy, etc. This is not the reason to have sex. You should have sex because you want to, NOT because someone else wants you to. It is something that you cannot get back and you need to be incredibly certain in giving it away – I’m not saying it has to be on your wedding night to your “Mr. Right” but at least set some sort of barriers and standards for yourself.

There are so many girls that do have sex that they are not even seen as “sluts” anymore. They are normal. My biggest concern is did that shift happen because girls wanted sex or because we have been cornered into that “slut” role to put out and please men? I think girls need to be certain of the answer to that before they give up their bodies, whether for the first time or the hundredth time.

Let having sex truly be your own choice.