A Life Profound

When my counterpart told me she had commented on this Brother Maynard post and identified herself and me as emerging/missional chick bloggers, I was flattered and terrified. She is an intelligent woman who digs and understands the issues to a depth that I haven’t achieved yet. I don’t take the time … give me a basic understanding and let me go paint! I am honored that we share the conversations that we do. Now she has linked me with other women wh0 are questioning, answering, digging, forging a path and

::: gulp:::

I stand on the edge of the room, observing, listening, wondering why I am here, what’s the point. I would rather be in my space, at home, in the corner … reading, thinking, writing, creating. These are confident, intellectual, professional women who are expressing themselves with clarity and fervency. They are dissecting their beliefs, examining the structure and working toward making a difference in the church, in the community, in the world.

My friend linked to a post about being an empowered woman that included this quote:

An older, wiser woman once said to me that there were two choices with this stuff – you could either talk about the place of women, and make that your project, or you could choose another project and just bash down the resistance and take your place in the world, but you can’t do both. To be good enough, she said, (in the Church especially) to make any impact you have to be at least as good as the best of the men. And the likelihood is you’ll be raising kids and running a home at the same time. SO that doesn’t leave any spare time for being a part-time expert on feminism.

I do have thoughts and ideas. Life prohibits me from spending too much time trying to figure it all out. I can have the conversation, in fact, I thrive on the conversation. I may even grow in my understanding but really what I am busy about, is just living. Dealing with life … with children … with a husband. Reality is a struggling marriage, laundry, grocery shopping, cooking, cleaning, lack of time and energy, nurturing children, parenting adults, caring for parents … and the list could go on and on.

I am not comparing or contrasting myself to other bloggers. I just want to make it clear what you will find here. Maybe there won’t be many theological posts but I have learned the lessons are in the mundane. So, my posts are just real-time, what I am dealing with, life. Sometimes I add commentary, other times, I just leave it up to you, the reader.

I have said before that I just want to glorify God through this blog. He knows my heart, my struggles, my questions. He knows my life and I am convinced He is leading and guiding and teaching me along the way. His spirit motivates me to share this journey … the good, the bad and the ugly. It may be emerging. It may be missional. It may just be me, the family, the friends. But it will be real.

Immersed in the Mystery,
Cynthia

Related Tags: Emerging, Emergent, Missional

The thing that is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself.”
– Anna Quindlen

I lost myself somewhere along the way of trying to be perfect.

I was trying to a perfect wife, a perfect mother, a perfect daughter, a perfect sister, a perfect friend. Needless to say, I was failing on all accounts. My guilt, my burden was so great that many times, I would just give up … not on being perfect, as in the quote above … but on living, on doing anything at all. Eventually, I would crawl back out of my hole and drag myself back onto the treadmill … taking a lot of steps but getting nowhere.

I describe my transformation in immediate, sudden terms. As if one day I was heading in direction, hit the wall, did an about face and marched on in the other direction. It was like that, sort of. There was a specific moment in time where I couldn’t go on trying to be perfect, trying to create the perfect marriage, the perfect family. It was the first time that I threw myself that I really threw myself on God’s throne and let Him pour His love, grace and mercy all over me.

However, it has been a long journey in learning how to live in His abundant grace. I don’t think I gave up the quest for perfection so easily. I would let go, grab it again, let go, grab it again. The Father waited with long-suffering for me to give up, just GIVE UP!

He wants nothing more than for me to be myself, to be the one He created to bring Him glory. I told someone last week that she needed to quit resisting the strong personality that God has given her, to quit describing herself so negatively. God created her that way for His purpose, to bring Himself glory. To deny it is to rob God of His glory.

Have I been robbing God of his glory? Without question, yes. When I seek to be like other women. When I don’t write, don’t paint, don’t create. When I embrace negative terms about who I am.

Who am I? Just heard a great story on the Mike Frost podcast #4, (mentioned Mike Frost last week) … about someone asking a group of old bikers the following question …

“If God showed up right now and you could ask Him just one question, what would you ask Him?

One crusty, old biker reflectively said, “Who am I?”

Wow.

God is the one who answers that question. If I am giving up being perfect and setting out to become myself, I must go to the Father. He knows my name! He knows who I am! He will lead me on this journey to find myself in Him alone.

Immersed in the Mystery,

Cynthia

Related Tags: Anne Quindlen, Mike Frost, Who am I?

I am having behind-closed-door conversations with my friend about … oh my goodness … about SO many things. We are standing on volcanic ground that is rumbling, shaking and moving beneath our feet. While we are trying to keep our stance steady, we are also trying to prepare for the inevitable eruption. I told her recently that it is difficult to live through cultural change. In my forty-two years of life, I don’t remember being in an environment where there was huge uprising and challenge of the status quo. I have read about and seen clips of the turmoil during the civil rights movement … there was passion, resistence, determination. I haven’t personally witnessed anything like that in my lifetime though.

I believe we are on the precipice of that sort of cultural change in the church, the body of Christ, right now. There has been a hesitancy from self-proclaimed-or-not leaders to call it a movement and instead we have the emerging/emergent conversation. Movement suggested something too strong perhaps … smacks of a hostile take over maybe. But at what point do we stop talking, take a break from asking the questions and start initiating some change. I believe we are at that point now. Small stones are being tossed into the water and gentle ripples circle out. In homes, in congregations, in communities across the nations, deconstruction of church, religion and even relationship with God has been the matter at hand and rebuilding is beginning.

Maybe I am just speaking from a personal level, maybe it is all just new to me. I admit I can be a day late and a dollar short but hey, cut me some slack … still have 8 up and coming people at home, still have a marriage to hold onto, still climbing a mountain of laundry each day. But in the midst of the busyness, God is speaking to my heart. I am beginning to question this life that was supposed to be my crown in glory … wife, mother, homemaker. There’s a discontent, a niggling question in the peripheral of my day, “This is it? This is all there is?” I don’t know, maybe it is just God, preparing me for another season in my life … maybe these questions apply to how I have done life all along. Not that I would exchange being a wife, a mother, taking care of my home but maybe I should have had a different perspective. What different perspective? I don’t know. Goodness. I know this post sounds a bit convoluted. I have shied from writing and posting because so much of it doesn’t make sense to me but then again, maybe the clarity will come from writing about it.

I am just examining my life as a woman … period. Not as any other hat that I could and do wear … who am I as a woman and more specifically, who am I as God’s woman? In the past, I have described my vision of all of this as looking through a kaleidoscope where I can see bits and pieces of the picture in beautiful design but there is no picture in whole yet. I have to use that analogy now. I keep turning the kaleidoscope, mesmerized by the colors and patterns. I don’t have it figured out and I am not even sure what it is I am trying to figure out.

I remember the day that I hesitatingly told my friend, “I think I am becoming a Christian feminist.” She said, “Cyndi, I am not going down that road.” This is the same friend that I mentioned in another post that we travel parallel journeys. Where do we find ourselves lately? You guessed it. Down that road.

Here are some of the posts/articles that I have been reading and I am still taking all of this to God, mixing it up with my questions, my observations, my busy life. I don’t know where this is all leading me. I want to know but then again, if I did, I might be too frightened to take the journey. Following Jesus is my priority. I am fully convinced that His spirit has led me to this place … this weird combination of missional/emerging/emergent/liturgical (yeah, I know, I haven’t written much about that yet but I have been visiting the Episcopal church on Wednesday nights)/Hebraic/Biblical equality thought processes. I am not content with just the thoughts. What to do? What difference does this make? What action am I called to?

Oh, back to the links:

Molly has been conducting great conversations. I tried to pick out one or two posts but I just can’t. She is on a blogging break right now so you should be able to catch up her posts … the archives just go back to July 2006, so it’s not too overwhelming.

Christians for Biblical Equality

This post made me weep and also made me believe that it isn’t about what I do as much as who I am. Ain’t I a woman?

Here is what I read this morning that prompted this long, rambling purge of thoughts. Looking forward to more dips with Scot McKnight

Clarification: I started this post talking about the upcoming cultural change in the church. I believe that is true and I believe that the role of women in the church is part of that … but not the total of it.

Immersed in the Mystery,
Cynthia

Related Tags: emerging, emergent, missional, Biblical Equality