Patron Saint of 2013

I mentioned before I have had the good fortune of learning how to check out ebooks from our library, and have been having a splendid time reading voraciously so far this year. I should qualify that, however -- when I say "reading", usually I actually am listening. My Kindle has the text-to-speech feature which allows me to listen to books while I work during the day. The voice is lifeless, stilted, and robotic, but it is satisfying, once I became used to it.

My most recent read has drawn me upwards in way I haven't felt since reading St. Therese de Lisieux's Story of a Soul. In it, I read the writings of a woman like me - a layperson, drawn to God strongly through the birth of her daughter, and a worker all her life.

All the Way to Heaven: The Selected Letters of Dorothy Day was not a book I expected to latch onto as I have. I am generally not too fond of "Letters of..." books, and I anticipated the text-to-speech tool of the Kindle to be indecipherable and run together. However, I was surprised to find myself endeared to Dorothy, someone who I had always imagined as tough-as-nails and no-nonsense.

Not that, she wasn't those things. She spoke her mind frequently and courageously, but with such an overwhelming tone of love that it is near impossible to mistake any malicious intentions in her writing.

I must say that even more than her writings on poverty and peace, the real "hook" for me was her writings to Forster Batterham. They demonstrate a true romantic love and deep respect between a woman and a man that is difficult to find anywhere, let alone within the lives of saints. It seemed Dorothy was plagued, in her early years, to love more than she was loved and this touches me deeply. Leaving this romance in a desire for obedience to the Church strikes me as daring, sorrowful, and deeply faithful for such a young convert.

Dorothy drew me in also by her emphasis on the duties of the laypeople to the Church. She writes in one letter  "What I keep saying is that lay people have the right to and the duty to explore all possible solutions to the terrible problems of our age." She talked about the freedom and responsibility lay people have to fully explore political, social, and economic issues that clergy were simply unable to due to the censors and restrictions of being within the hierarchy. In this modern age, I think Dorothy Day can serve as a well-grounded model for lay people who want change within the Church.

Lastly, the largest impact of Dorothy's writing in my life has been her emphasis on the importance of every individual life, how success comes disguised in failure. She will be my prayer partner this year to battle against futility, to fight off discouragement and slothfulness. She writes about her book Therese: A Life Of Therese Of Lisieux that the main point of it was "to make people realize their personal responsibility, how everything they do matters. Most young people have such a sense of futility these days - they are paralyzed."

So, these are my petitions to Servant of God Dorothy Day in 2013

• a realization of my personal responsibility to God, my family, and all people
• to put off laziness and indulgent behavior as I learn to "work heartily, as for the Lord rather than for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance. It is the Lord Christ whom you serve."
• the spiritual unity of my family

I know Dorothy is not officially a Saint, but I am excited to spend this next year with her, asking her intercessions for my household.

Book Review: My Sisters the Saints

Recently, I learned how to use my public library account to get access to ebooks for my Kindle. This is a more-than-wonderful option for me, since I am a terrible library patron, often forgetting that pesky little thing called a due date. Luckily, ebooks automatically expire off your ereader, so there is no risk of accumulating exorbitant fees because you are unwilling to drive the distance to the library and so are reduced to staring guiltily at that pile of books in the corner that are accumulating fines at the rate of 25 cents per day. 

Sigh. 

Anyways, lucky enough I chose a good read for my first selection. My Sisters the Saints: A Spiritual Memoir by Colleen Carroll Campbell begins with Colleen as a young twenty-something, nominally Catholic college student who slowly begins exploring her Catholicism as a way to decipher what it means to be a woman.

Colleen explores the faith through the guiding influence of different women saints of the Catholic Church: St. Teresa of Avila, St. Therese of Lisieux, St. Faustina, Edith Stein, Mother Teresa of Calcutta, Dorothy Day, and Mary, mother of Jesus.  The book worked on both levels. The events of Colleen's life, from exciting career opportunities and marriage, to her father's decline through Alzheimer's, engage the reader and made me cry on more than one occasion. The accompanying mini-biographies on the saints throughout the book gives enough information to make the saint real, but not so much as to be overwhelming or become textbook-like instead of a personal account.

I did find myself turned off in portions of the book where Colleen veered into apologetics of Catholicism's ban on birth control and in vitro fertilization, and a defense of prayer to Mary. I suppose this is because I've already heard these multiple times, and felt boredom and disruption to the narrative hearing them again. I did however, appreciate her candor in expressing the struggle of staying loyal to the Church's teaching in the face of infertility.

Overall, I think I would recommend this to anyone who is a fan of the spiritual memoir genre, or anyone curious about these saints. I'm resolved to read more concerning Teresa of Avila and Edith Stein, two saints who I've been ambivalent about in the past. Even just knowing the story and courage of Colleen's father is enough reason to read this book.  At just over two hundred pages, it is a quick read and although not groundbreaking, it is an enjoyable, personal, and moving account of the spiritual growth of a modern woman.

Apologetics of the Heart

I think it is time for a new kind of apologetics.

Christian apologetics is popularly defined as the study of the defense of the Christian faith. Generally in this category, you will find arguments for the veracity of Scripture, defenses of Christ's resurrection, and (depending on the brand of Christianity) evidence of a young-earth. Usually apologists have clearly laid out logical forms of argumentation that can clearly delineate the reasonableness of faith and deconstruct the most popular arguments of New Atheism. They rigorously reform themselves to recognize fallacies and spot straw men and red herrings a mile away.  This is apologetics of intellect, of the mind.

But I think it is time for a new kind of apologetics. Or maybe, an older sort.

I propose apologetics of the heart.

In 1 Peter, where we find that famous word "apologia", we find it amid words like  suffer, sanctify, and good behavior.  It clings to the tail-end of Peter's teaching on suffering servants, submissive wives, and compassionate husbands.  The epistle calls Christians to radically good behavior in the face of unjust circumstance and suffering. This radically good behavior infuses the oppressed - specifically servants and wives in this letter - with the power of a special connection to the suffering of Christ Himself. It empowers the downtrodden with purpose in the face of inescapable evil.

The radically good behavior of the oppressed however, is not identical to the good behavior of those in power. Look at Peter's words to husbands, who in that time and place had significant control over wives and servants. In the same way , live with your wives in an understanding way, as with someone weaker, since she is a woman" .  Peter does not give husbands, the ones with power, a call to suffering, but a call to compassion. It is my theory here that "weaker" in this context refers to the vulnerability of a woman's position - an emphasis on her lack of control over her own circumstance and the world around her - not on a specific ontological "weakness" that delegates her to an innately inferior status. Peter tells husbands to  be understanding in the wielding of their social and physical powers over those who have less.

In this day and age, women have more power than they used to. In many ways, Peter's call to husbands can now apply to me when I deal with those who have been subjected to suffering that I have not. The poor, the socially disadvantaged, the orphan, the elderly, the handicapped, and the abused are only a few examples.

When we use our lives to answer Peter's call to radically good behavior, we engage in apologetics. We become a living witness, a living proof of the work of God in the world around us. We can effectively illustrate the hope within us through our suffering or through our privilege, as long as we answer that call in 1 Peter 2: 9-17 to be a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession, who honors all people, loves the brotherhood, and fears God.

I want to emphasize that I do not want, in any way, to glamorize abusive situations. Modern evangelical theology as I have encountered it is either ill-equipped or unable to face issues of abuse. I want to delve directly into issues of abuse, specifically domestic abuse and abuse within the Church and how this "apologetics of the heart" can address these issues. (HINT - it doesn't include statistics).

Of course the heart and mind do not exclude each other, and we can equally engage both, but it is vital that even our intellectual apologetics are infused with "gentleness and respect" that comes from the heart.

I'd love to hear your thoughts!

What I'm Reading Wednesday

I know I've been missing for the last couple of months. I seem to have lost my blogging voice after putting a lid on my investigation of big-C Churches. Don't worry though - a couple months of rest and the beginning of the New Year makes me hopeful that I can get the blog ball rolling again. But lets start slow with a nice, easy book review. :)

Rachel Held Evans has caused quite a stir in the Christian blogosphere this past year. She caused controversy with her Week of Mutuality, and her call-out of some guys over at Gospel Coalition for plugging their ears to the complaints of their fellow Christians in regards to strong and intimidating language to describe a Christian sexual ethic. She pushes the envelop by discussing the ethical and ecclesiastical issues surrounding the LGBTQ community. So I expected her book, A Year of Biblical Womanhood: How a Liberated Woman Found Herself Sitting on Her Roof, Covering Her Head, and Calling Her Husband "Master",  to provoke me, to maybe even offend me at some points.

It turns out this book is quite less offensive than some paint it to be.

Rachel uses a humor that mostly engages those who disagree, rather than pushing them away. The project, even though it is the hinge of the story, is not really the point of the book. Rather it is used by Rachel as a tool to illustrate the evangelical habit of squeezing infallible rules out of the Bible that were put there by a projection of our own bias onto the text. I thought it was an ingenious method which enabled Rachel to criticize the evangelical community without sounding like a holier-than-thou, set-apart, progressive-brand Christian. She sounded like one of us. The humor  seemed not to point and laugh at others, but to laugh at herself together with us, illuminating our problem to push towards more constructive conversation.

Although the writing style is not my preference, I would not hesitate to recommend this book to anyone thinking about the role of women in marriage and church. Even if you don't agree with her, Rachel offers legitimate critiques of the strong complementarian model offered in conservative evangelical circles.

I would also recommend this to women in general. Rachel talks about the pressures of womanhood with candor, wit, and humility. Even though three chapters in, I was sure I wouldn't be saying "Me, too" to this book (after all, what does a working class, wish-i-was-a-stay-at-home-mom have in common with a career driven childless internet-famous writer?), it wasn't long before I almost cried thinking of my own fears and inadequacies as a mother, wife, and woman in a modern day context, which Rachel so eloquently addressed.

So, give it a read. It is being offered for only $1.99 on Kindle, and for that price, it is a must-have.

Boring Obedience

My spirituality seems stuck, a frozen snapshot of an instant in time that will not move no matter how much I try to will it. I continue to walk in slow baby steps - verse by verse, prayer by prayer. I keep reminding myself that I should not chase a feeling, I should not chase that fleeting jerk of the heart as an insight previously unseen blooms from between the pages of my Bible or works outwards of my shifting, shuffling and uneasy prayers.

Instead, just obedience. Simple, unadorned and dreadfully boring obedience. Prayer by prayer, verse by verse, kindness by kindness.

God rests His hand on my shoulders. He sees me, I know this. He feels my tense impatience as a struggle to cultivate joyous contentment in this life He's gifted me.  I am so childish, so much like a child who wishes to rush, only tempered only slowed by that heavy hand on the shoulder.

Lord, help me help me help me.

Considering Doubt

Sorry for the unannounced hiatus. Life has been heavy lately. I recently had some sort of hyperventilation-anxiety-attack thing, so I've been trying to take it easy.

I have been considering lately the recent tendency in Christianity to rally around doubt. There is, I think, good and helpful reasons for doing so. Doubt is a common experience among the faithful and to connect within that dark place of unsure heart eases the anxiety found within it. Sometimes these conversations can move us forward from our doubts, or sometimes they can make us comfortable there.

My worry is that young Christian culture, in getting comfortable with doubt, may make their bed there, so to speak, instead of doing the hard work required to move beyond it.  Doubt-as-a-state closely brushes with cynicism, in my experience, and often fosters a spiritual tepidity and acedia. In a Christian world that embraces doubt as a badge of intellectual superiority and world-weary wisdom, where does belief lie?

In my experience, confident belief becomes a signal of eye-roll inducing enthusiasm at best, and anti-intellectual ignorant stupidity at worst. Yet it is clear in the Bible that belief is good and not just good but even maybe necessary for the life we are called to. Hebrews 11:6 says:

And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him.

James tells us

  But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him. But he must ask in faith without any doubting, for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind. For that man ought not to expect that he will receive anything from the Lord, being a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.

Now, I do not say this to discourage doubters, because I find myself in that place often, but what I do want to discourage is resting on doubt, and growing comfortable there. Belief is a sort of seed of faith, I think. In Hebrews, following the verse I quoted, we are told the stories of the old saints, whose assurance of hope and conviction of the unseen moved their faith into obedience. In James, we are told that to stop at belief is not enough: "You believe that God is one. You do well; the demons also believe, and shudder." He makes it clear that belief is insufficient; we must cultivate a faith which manifests in obedience. 

As belief fosters faith which becomes obedience, I submit that doubt, if left unchecked can foster fear which will become disobedience. I do not want to suggest that those who doubt are somehow "less" Christian, but I also want to firmly reject the idea that the simple faith of those who do not struggle is somehow anti-intellectual, stupid, ignorant, or "less". 

So, what now? What to do when we find ourselves in that place of doubt? My only answer is prayer ("Lord I believe; help my unbelief!"), and obedience in what we can grasp. Doubt does not need to replace faith, but can coexist with it, if one continues in obedience: love others,  pray for assurance like the persistent widow, a continually walk to seek that promised assurance.  Go out as Abraham, not knowing where he was going, a stranger in a foreign land. Walk as one who clearly demonstrates seeking a country of their own, a better country, even though death may come before:

All these died in faith, without receiving the promises, but having seen them and having welcomed them from a distance, and having confessed that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For those who say such things make it clear that they are seeking a country of their own. And indeed if they had been thinking of that country from which they went out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God ; for He has prepared a city for them.

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What do you think? Am I missing the mark here? Have you experienced doubt or have you experienced others judging your faith because your doubt or lack thereof?  And, as always, I am no theologian, so if you think I am wrong, let me know!

Letter to my 16 year old self

Dear Me,

I'm sorry; I've disappointed you. I'm nothing like what you think you're going to become, but that's ok -- really, it is.

Go home. Find every book on dating, marriage, and what it means to be a woman and throw them in the garbage. Yes, even that one. I know, I know, but trust me on this.  Read the Bible instead (yes, I know), and learn to pray (yes, yes -- I KNOW). Really - I mean, learn to do it. If you learn to pray, I swear everything, even the worst bits of life are going to turn into something.

Take pictures of the art you make. Report that boy who is repeatedly harrassing you in art class. He has no right to talk to you that way, and you have every right to be angry about it.

Sit down with Miss Knope. Talk to her and get to know her more as a person. She has wisdom that you will miss and one day, when you are far away, she will die and you will be heartbroken over the fact that you didn't get the chance to be her friend instead of her student.

I don't have much to say; you did things well! I am proud of you for not dating. Keep that up for as long as possible. When that one boy who you fell in love with last summer finally notices you in three years, be prepared. He doesn't love you as much as you love him. I won't tell you to hold back or pass him by, because you love him. But, if you've built up that life of prayer I talked about, you'll be fine.

Oh, and once again - that boy has no right to do that to you. He ought to be ashamed of himself. Don't be afraid to react accordingly.

I love you; you've done great. I don't know what to say because you do things well. You love life, make art, write poems, read books, run track, cheer - you're quite amazing, actually. A jewel and treasure. You're prideful, you think you're wise. Think less about how wise you are and focus even more on loving others and being kind. 

Watch your mother closely. Examine how she's moves in the world and how she balances things. Examine her as she rocks and coos to your sister, observe the way she cradles a child and cooks meals. This education will be more invaluable to you than all the college classes you take.

With much love & pride,

your future self.

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This was written for the link up at Emily's chatting at the sky. She's recently written a book called Graceful for teenage girls.  This was an interesting exercise, because, while I didn't have as much to say as I thought! If anything I had a more solid view of myself and my world when I was 16 than I do now. I had much more confidence and very little need for boys except as muses for my poetry (which worked best when they were at a distance). I had solid, awesome friends and it was truly a blessed time in my life that I am much grateful for.  Read other letters here.♥