the view from her

When you’ve been unemployed for over a year, it’s really easy to become completely self-focused. First I must clarify: while I’m technically unemployed, God has been providing me with lots of freelance work which has been keeping me afloat.

Nevertheless.

I catch my brain chewing on questions about what God has for me. What does he want me to do? What is he trying to teach me? What is his plan for me in this trying season of my life?

And while they may sound all spiritual, the object of all those questions is, well…me.

I recently had the opportunity to begin the Experiencing God study. I realize I’m a little late to a party that was really hopping oh, about 1999. But I’m really enjoying it. If you went through the study, you’ll remember a key point is that in order to live a Christ-centered life you must focus on God’s purposes, and not your own plans. The questions I chew on are focused on me - my learning, my purpose, God’s plan for me.

In today’s culture, it’s easy for Christians to fall into the trap of individualism - even when it comes to God’s will for our lives. That’s being “me-focused.” As the Experiencing God study points out, God is constantly at work around us. Rather than impatiently waiting for him to work in our individual lives, we should focus on where God’s working and join him.

The thing is, when you look at life this way, you suddenly see God working everywhere. He’s got a lot going on. If you join him in these random, unfamiliar adventures, you can suddenly find yourself very busy.

Or at least I am.

Fast Company reports an eerily optimistic story about iris scanners being installed throughout a large city in Mexico. Here are a few of the creepiest excerpts:

“Every person, place, and thing on this planet will be connected [to the iris system] within the next 10 years,” he says.”

“To implement the system, the city is creating a database of irises. Criminals will automatically be enrolled, their irises scanned once convicted. Law-abiding citizens will have the option to opt-in. When these residents catch a train or bus, or take out money from an ATM, they will scan their irises, rather than swiping a metro or bank card. Police officers will monitor these scans and track the movements of watch-listed individuals.”

“Scanners will be placed in mass transit, medical centers and banks, among other public and private locations.”

This one’s my favorite:

“And he has a warning for those thinking of opting out: ‘When you get masses of people opting-in, opting out does not help. Opting out actually puts more of a flag on you than just being part of the system. We believe everyone will opt-in.’”

It’s 1984, Minority Report, and the Bible’s book of Revelation all rolled into one ominous reality.

Chocolate is good for you.

“In a nine-year study, conducted among 31,823 Swedish women, researchers looked at the relationship between the amount of high-quality dark chocolate eaten and the risk of heart failure.

The researchers found that women who ate an average of one to two servings of the high-quality chocolate per week had a 32 per cent lower risk of developing heart failure.”

Confirmed: I can now justify my chocolate habit as heart-healthy.

Earlier this week Christianity Today posted a timely article: What Is the Gospel Response to the Prop. 8 Decision? - a collection of observations by Christian thinkers, primarily academics.

I’ve read through it several times, and find myself feeling… well, disappointed. But if there’s one thing I know absolutely about Prop 8, it’s that it’s incredibly difficult to discuss. We simply have too many predetermined thoughts to accurately hear each other’s views with any real understanding. So I assume the best. CT’s article provides a helpful review of the traditional, conservative position on marriage. And there is genuine encouragement towards grace and compassionate relationships as we advocate for our position. For the record, I am in 100% agreement.

My disappointment comes because I am not sure how this helps us in the debate. It primarily clarifies what we already believe, and that may have been their intent. But for a lot of us, merely affirming our beliefs with very clear admonitions to be nice about it is no longer enough. Again, my intent is not to criticize these writers, but to draw attention to what I perceive as a giant, gaping hole in Christian thinking on this topic.

The gay marriage/gay rights issue may be the most defining and divisive controversy of our time, and I have a sense that believers are hungry for real ways to talk about it. In fact, I think they’re desperate for practical, effective ways to interact with gay friends and family whom they love. And language such as “God’s universal laws,” or “covenantal unions of one man and one woman established by God” - while true - is not it.

One problem is that it now appears our willingness to shower ourselves with grace while taking full advantage of no-fault divorce turns out to be the proverbial shot in our own foot. With so many Christians who’ve been married and divorced - some more than once - it’s difficult to champion God’s “ideal” for marriage. (I’m divorced too, fyi… I’m just makin’ an observation.) Besides choosing to live that ideal, we need other ways to talk about the issues. We need more insight and direction. Where are the Christian thinkers who can help us with that?

One is Dr. Jennifer Roeback-Morse, though her CT article omitted any of her socially-informed thinking on this subject. One example: The essential purpose of marriage is to attach mothers and fathers to their children and to one another. And it must be noted the goal is not weapons to win arguments, and there’s still plenty of disagreement. But it’s another way to think about things.

Another is Andrew Marin, author of Love is an Orientation, a book that is perhaps the best bridge between the Church and the GLBT community, and a must-read for anyone interested in intelligently, graciously, and meaningfully entering the discussion.

Here’s what I know: I affirm the traditional views in the CT article. I also care about gay people as human beings created in the image of God. I care about their feelings. I care about them feeling marginalized by the Church and by the very views I just admitted I affirm. I care that they’re hated by some people of faith, and I care about their need to be loved and part of a relationship as we all do. I don’t really know how to reconcile all this in a conversation. But I do know I want to learn how.

(Photo Credit: Gabriel Bouys/AFP)

The New York Times is worried about pastors suffering from burnout.

“The pastoral vocation is to help people grow spiritually, resist their lowest impulses and adopt higher, more compassionate ways. But churchgoers increasingly want pastors to soothe and entertain them. It’s apparent in the theater-style seating and giant projection screens in churches and in mission trips that involve more sightseeing than listening to the local people.

“As a result, pastors are constantly forced to choose, as they work through congregants’ daily wish lists in their e-mail and voice mail, between paths of personal integrity and those that portend greater job security. As religion becomes a consumer experience, the clergy become more unhappy and unhealthy.”

This strikes me as a bit of a “chicken vs. egg” conundrum. Are pastors weary because of congregants’ overwhelming consumer demands, or are congregants being “bought” by an overwhelming variety of [unnecessary] options to consume?

Pastors may be exhausted by catering to our every whim. But that’s a little like giving children all the dessert they want hoping to keep them happy. In spiritual development - as in parenting - happiness is not the goal. Growth is the goal. And sometimes, whether we like it or not, we have to eat vegetables. Or hear about sin.

Besides, I can think of some other reasons pastors are burning out.

Some are Type-A Control Freaks: They have to personally approve everything from the color of tablecloths to the worship song list. [Most obvious observation: You're overpaying all your staff.]

They’re Type-A Leaders: They must have some new initiative annually to lead everyone towards. Priorities constantly shift. They’re like a shark who has to constantly move forward to stay alive. Honestly, the audience eventually feels burned out, too.

But let’s face it - there’s some truth in the Times writer’s observation. We often attend church feeling entitled. We demand more hymns or fewer hymns. The music’s too loud. The pastor tells too many stories. There are a lot of committed, uncompromising Pastors who work long hours, call people by name, make hospital calls, who study and pray while wearily wondering if anything they do really has any impact at all.

So eat your vegetables. And send your pastor a note of encouragement or gratitude this week.

There’s seems to be quite a “princess” phenomenon circling in Christian culture these days. Laura Robinson, intern at Christians for Biblical Equality, wrote an insightful column in the most recent CBE newsletter addressing this topic. I’m posting the balance of it here. She addresses the “conviction-free reminder: you are a princess because your Father is the king of kings.”

“Semantically speaking, I suppose there’s some logic to that. ‘See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!’ (1 John 3:1, TNIV). By all means we are children of a king, and given an unbelievable gift of grace and adoption through him. And likewise I fully support women abandoning the pursuit of the Cosmopolitan perception of beauty and pursuing their worth in higher callings. But what are we to do with that funny pop-culture word ‘princess,’ and all the princess paraphernalia for sale in Christian bookstores? Does God ever call his female servants that?

The word ‘princess’ fundamentally encourages a fascination with ourselves—namely, a confidence in our own talent, beauty, and importance. The problem with this is that the thrust of the New Testament, while celebrating the fact that God loves and accepts us, calls us to look outside ourselves. The Law and the Prophets hang on the commandment to love God and our neighbors. Loving ourselves, Scripture suggests, is something we already do well on our own (Matt. 22:37-40).

Furthermore, our extraordinary relationship with God makes us royal, but not in a way that makes marketable t-shirts. Women are not princesses but ‘a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light’ (1 Pet. 2:9). Being a priest is a hard, high-responsibility calling that has been extended to every member of the church regardless of his or her gender. God has given us a new identity, and the hard work that comes with it is incompatible with the self-absorbed gospel of self-esteem that comes in the fairy tale packaging of a crown and the promise of princesshood.

When Paul speaks of love, he reminds us that when he grew up, he put childish ways behind him (1 Cor. 13:11). And when the elders worship at the throne of God, they take off their crowns and lay them before him (Rev. 4:10). Playing pretend is all right for little girls, but when we get to the throne of God, it’s time to set aside our playthings and be prepared to worship. It’s time for women to be priests.”

I was having lunch with a friend the other day, and we were discussing living and working in the new economy. As many of you know, I was laid off a full-time job over a year ago, and have been making ends meet through the benevolence of friends and a lot of freelance writing.

I was ruefully recounting the “glitches” in my resume over the past couple of years. Then, perspective prevailed. Millions of people are smack in the middle of a major resume glitch right now. The “Great Recession” is changing the face of the work place and its work force, and these changes will have lasting impact for the next several years. HR directors will look at this period - from 2007 until 2012 or so - and unilaterally understand the necessity of whatever work you did (or didn’t do) during that time frame.

“In fact,” my friend added thoughtfully, “It may be the person with no gap on their resume who will be at a disadvantage. They won’t have learned any new skills, figured out new solutions.”

This is another example of the upside/down-ness of the new economy. So now I’m rethinking how I can present my resume “glitches” as demonstrated abilities: flexibility, resourcefulness, creativity, diversified skills, adaptability, initiative. In today’s world, you can turn patchwork, piecemeal work to an advantage.

The visual input we receive every day about who women are or should be is overwhelming. The messages we receive in our churches are much more subtle, but often still difficult for many. How can a woman confidently find her unique identity in the flood of conflicting images? The following is a re:view of a previously-written post about the reality of “other” women.
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I’m constantly intrigued by the various portrayals of women in our culture. It appears to me that - in culture - there are three very narrow categories for women:
1. Hyper-sexualized women - the stick-thin Barbie dolls with enormous breasts. They seem to exist mostly as objects of men’s pleasure or fantasy.
2. Feminism - Women are the same as men, so men are unnecessary.
3. TV charicatures - married, usually smart but leading a pointless life with a juvenile, incompetent husband.

Then there are those categories better-known in Christian circles:
4. The Proverbs 31 woman - Married to a high school sweetheart, homeschools her kids, bakes, sews, grows vegetables, leads a women’s Bible study and secretly wears an “S” under her shirt.
5. Women who are nothing without a man. The helpmeet, the lonely rib, the half-person whom marriage makes into a whole.

That’s not criticism of the last two. I value the varied creative gifts of women in whole marriages. But I wonder if there isn’t another category, an “other,” less defined, certainly less stereotyped category, made up of seemingly “average” women who just try every day to live a life that pleases God. It may include women who cross over from the categories above. The “other” category understands the truth inherent in all five.

“Other” is both young and old, because age is irrelevant when you’re comfortable with the woman God created you to be. “Other” refuses to be reduced to an object, or a charicature, because she understands that sexuality isn’t what makes her attractive. “Other” is confident enough to be feminine, remembering her equality in God’s image, and respecting men for the same reason. “Other” recognizes the God-given gifts that are uniquely hers, and celebrates the diversity of women’s abilities. And “Other” acknowledges that we all must use these abilities in the individual life to which God has called each one of us - married or single, young or old, career or homemaker, providing encouragement to all in their respective journeys.

I actually know a lot of “other” women. I’ll bet you do, too.

I’ve done a lot of job hunting over the last year. With the national unemployment rate near 10%, and closer to 14% in California, there are lots of people giving advice to job-seekers on this subject. Clearly it’s a buyer’s market. Yet the poor employers bemoan their fate, reviewing 300-400 applications for one job and no good way to distinguish between them.

Well, I regularly check between 15-20 internet job sites, follow job-tweeters on Twitter, and have joined job groups on LinkedIn. And I’ve got some advice for you “employee seekers.” Here are five ways you may actually be shutting out the perfect applicant.

1. Require resumes to be posted in text. Frankly, if you’re looking through 300 nondescript, intentionally depersonalized documents,that’s just… dumb. Let applicants upload PDFs and see more of their personality: formal, informal, creative, unusual, professional, careless or just plain dull. Layout is an obvious and very helpful way to distinguish between resumes. For example, from my resume you could tell I’m clever and creative as well as extremely qualified. And now you’re just a little bit curious… aren’t you?

2. Insist - in all caps, of course - SALARY HISTORY IS REQUIRED TO BE CONSIDERED for the position, without posting your own salary range. We get that you’re looking to eliminate some of those text documents and numbers help, but here’s the thing. You could shut out the perfect, most qualified, best-fit applicant based on a cursory glance at the numbers. And hello - numbers are the most flexible part of the equation at this point. Plus, posting a salary range allows potential applicants to opt out, saving time and trouble for both of us.

3. Cloak yourself in absolute anonymity. Provide no contact information - web site, email, or phone number, because of course you want nothing from us except our qualifications. And salary history. But again, while you may not want to answer calls about where you are in the process, you could be missing out on informative conversations and perceptive questions that might help bring someone to your attention - positively or negatively.

4. Never - ever - communicate with applicants. You’re incredibly busy and couldn’t possibly acknowledge all 300 of them. And we just love sitting at home sending resumes out into the ether and never knowing what happens to them. But remember, you posted a job and invited people to apply. At the absolute minimum, common courtesy would suggest you send an email notifying applicants when the position has been filled. It’s not that hard - you’re getting most applications by email anyway. I could easily help you set that up. If you had my resume you’d know that.

5. Honestly, I could only think of four. Try to think of it as doing more with less.

The Exponent, a blog for and about Mormon women, had a very interesting post last week called “Women Judges, Women’s Presence: How the Inclusion of Women Changes Things,” which discussed Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan, the subtle influence of a woman’s presence, and the potential correlation to women in a faith community.
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Referring to an NPR article, How Women Changed The High Court … And Didn’t, the writer pulls out a remarkable observation:

“But the point I wanted to focus on was this: the reporter addresses the question of whether female judges judge differently than male judges. A study of more than 7000 decisions shows that men and women do not judge differently – except in one area: sex discrimination. Women judges are 10% more likely to rule in favor of the plaintiff.

Likewise, in three judge panels which contain at least one women, the men were 15% more likely to rule in favor of the sex discrimination plaintiff than on three judge panels which contain only men.

That last statistic was the most startling to me. A woman judge’s mere presence – just her presence – influences the male judges decisions in this area.”

Apparently, a woman’s mere presence is enough to encourage the consideration of decisions in a different way. The author goes on to wonder how this might affect the administrative meetings of her church, an interesting consideration for the Evangelical church as well, in which women are frequently excluded from key leadership decisions. We’ve already noticed how that played out on Wall Street. Culture is recognizing the value of gender balance. Isn’t it about time the Church - men and women sharing the image of God - did too?