So as you can see, I've taken a vacation from posting for the last few days. It has been good to see, though, that Amy's guest blog on Friday has provoked some discussion!

I'm finally home in the big town of Dryden with David, Mom, Rachel, and Maho, our friend from Japan. We are a jolly little band, despite the fact that several of us almost froze to death last night in the unused upstairs of our house. Tonight, of course, is Peshastin, Washington's social event of the season, the Carson Family Christmas Party. Ah, the joys of drunken goat cheese and shrimp cocktail. Seeing old friends, of course, is another small incentive to attend :).

So because it is my vacation, and I don't really relish thinking too hard on vacation, I will refrain from anything deep. I do, however, want to heartily wish you a merry, merry Christmas this year with family and friends. Thank you for reading! May you feel God's abundant love and grace, everpresent, with you as you commemorate Christ's coming into the world this holiday season.

Kelsey

Boker tov, Achiot! Greetings, my sisters!
My name is Amy, I’m in my first year at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, and Kelsey has asked me to be your guest blogger this fine afternoon. Like you all, I just finished my last final this morning, a grueling Hebrew exam. I tell you, there’s nothing worse for a student than the sensation that your mind has suddenly liquidated and gone pouring out your ears the afternoon before the end of the semester. However, learning Hebrew has been exciting for me; I love being able to read the Bible in its original language (even though it can be a struggle), and doing so has brought a greater depth to my own spirituality.
In fact, a few weeks ago, I was writing a paper for my introductory theology course on the nature of the Trinity. Defining God in five pages is truly a hefty task. I was struggling with our traditional imagery of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, which we use to define the different ways we see God working. When we describe God with "person" words, those image we have of God project upon God a concreteness and finiteness that isn’t there. They build false separations between the work of the three parts, and create doubts among ourselves and those we dialogue with about whether or not we worship one God, or three. I was struggling to find a way to express the truth of the Trinity without building up those false divisions that can hinder our own understanding.
I went back and examined the call of Moses in Exodus 3:14. When Moses challenges God to define Godself, in order that Moses can respond to those who challenge the nature of the Divine in Moses’s work, God states "I will be what I will be." The God in the burning bush is a God who is defined by becoming and doing and acting in a variety of ways, rather than in anything tactile and concrete. In this verse, God is a verb rather than a noun.
Now, many of you will check your Bibles and say.... "My version says "I Am Who I Am. Why, here, God seems to be a person, a thing you can touch..." My friends, this is where the wonder and horrors of language of take place. Interpretation has played substantial role about God, and has created some limits. In the Hebrew language, there is no present tense, rather only completed actions and incompleted actions. Completed actions are usually translated as past tense, and incompleted actions as future tense. Grammatically, it is impossible in Hebrew to say "I Am Who I Am" for these very reasons. We began to interpret it that way because when Exodus was translated into Greek for the Septuagint, they translated, and in the same action transformed, the verse to the present tense. The Vulgate, the first major European translation of the Bible, used the Septuagint as its model, and so the language of "I am" has continued throughout our tradition, despite its grammatical impossibility in the original language. Indeed, "I will be what I will be" is a more accurate interpretation of that truth that resonated throughout the desert where Moses was exiled.
When I discovered that God refers to Godself as verb, it was if my entire understanding of what God does had been illuminated. As I delved into this new and sudden revelation, and discussed its implications with my classmates, I realized that this understanding had been on nearly every page of the Old Testament, and I had been unable comprehend it because I was limited by language. Where is it, you ask? Why, it is in the very name of God! As some of you may know, the Hebrews had such respect and reverence for the name of God that they were not allowed to speak it. Therefore, whenever the Holy name is written in Old Testament manuscripts, the scribes replace the vowels for the name of God with the vowels for the different words people substitute for it when speaking about God, such as "Adonai," or "Elohim." The only part that has survived of the divined name are the consonants - YHWH. These consonants manifested the third person singular incompeted form of a verb that we have not defined. Indeed, God’s name essentially says "He will do the God thing." Once again, God is defined as verb, as action, as what God does.
That frees us as well to talk about what God does rather than what God is when we talk about the Trinity. When we refer to God as "Father," we are really saying that God acts like a father rather than actually being a father. And there are three patterns of Gods work that we can see in our lives. However, we need to remember that when we talk about those patterns, they are just that, patterns and actions that God takes. Creating God, Redeeming God, and Sustaining God are all examples of actions take by the one loving and true spirit that we all worship and serve.
Mizpah,
Amy

I came into work today hauling a large suitcase, an even larger duffel bag, and a carry-on. Now, I’ve come to pride myself on my ability to pack light—even on international trips these days, I can get away with a single carry-on and personal item. But all that goes out the window when I’m heading home for Christmas. My apartment is so barren that it looks like locusts came through and ate everything. I even gave the Office of Racial Justice intern Eun-hyey Park, who gave me a ride into work this morning, ten eggs and a poinsettia. But I must say that it was hard, as always, to leave the ‘Stang behind. I know how much she misses me when I’m gone.

I’ve noticed that it is always difficult for me to write thought-provoking stuff the day I leave for any trip. During the holidays particularly, when activity is so frenetic anyway, it becomes even more difficult to pause and reflect on what this season is all about.

[Kenny G starts playing “O Little Town of Bethlehem” softly in the background]

At this point, you’re probably shouting, “Stop! No more clichés about the true meaning of Christmas!!!!” Don’t worry, I’m not in my preachy holiday goo mode this morning. But I have been thinking, particularly since this is my last day in the office this year, about what you members of NNPCW have accomplished in the past twelve months. Here’s just a smattering:

• You’ve come out to meet NNPCW staff at more than 40 different colleges, churches, presbytery meetings, and Presbyterian Women events, from sunny Southern California to twister-riddled Tennessee.
  
• You’ve represented the Network at events ranging from the PEER 1 Ministry Event to
  the Racial Ethnic Young Women’s Retreat, and on national Presbyterian bodies like the Presbyterian Association for Community Transformation and the Advocacy
  Committee for Women’s Concerns.
  
• You planned an awesome Leadership Event for 30 college women in Chicago, where we learned first-hand about how the faith community is responding to HIV/AIDS, poverty, worker justice, and environmental justice.
  
• You toughed it out in January and September to come to Coordinating Committee meetings, where you brainstormed new ideas about everything from an NNPCW Outreach Day to a new womanist/mujerista t-shirt.
  
• Your task forces issued two critical reports, the Racial Ethnic Task Force Report and the
  Resources Task Force Report, that are still reshaping how NNPCW will minister to
  the young women of the future.

All in all, I would say that 2005 has largely been a successful year for the Network, thanks to your energy and enthusiasm. So in this combination of belated Thanksgiving/Christmas/New Year’s holiday blog, I want to say thank you for being here this year. The best part of my job, aside from free food courtesy of God, is the time I spend brainstorming, discussing, debating, and learning with all of you. And it is that chance to see you grow—in confidence, in faith, in understanding—that makes my grunt work worth every minute.

Have a fantastic holiday season with loved ones, and think of me when you’re eating that piece of chocolate cake with the extra layer of frosting.

“We must always give thanks to God for you, brothers and sisters, as is right, because your faith is growing abundantly, and the love of every one of you for one another is increasing.” --2 Thessalonians 1:3

Kelsey

David forwarded me a rather interesting article this morning… just down the interstate from PresbyLand, in Lexington, Kentucky, the University of Kentucky is preparing to welcome the nation’s first Islamic sorority. Gamma Gamma Chi was founded by a mother-daughter pairing who felt that the traditional sorority experience, with its reputation for partying, wasn’t in line with Muslim values. Students at UK caught on, and are now working with the school to organize the first campus chapter.

According to the news reports I read, this isn’t the first sorority out there created as an alternative to the dominantly white paradigm. Several NNPCW members are involved with African American sororities, the first of which was established in 1908. In the last 15 years, Hispanic/Latina, multicultural, and South Asian sororities have also sprung up in different parts of the country. I believe there are also explicitly Christian sororities on some campuses.

Now, I will immediately confess that I’m not an expert in Greek life. My little Christian campus up in Eastern Washington didn’t have a Greek system at all, and very few of my high school friends who went to other colleges did the sorority thing (the one who did dropped out after a semester or so). In fact, I would say that the Greek system wasn’t nearly as big in the Pacific Northwest as it is in other parts of the country. But hey, I guess we’re known for being anti-establishment.

The Greek folk do have a reputation, though. I remember years ago that Washington State University founded its statewide party-school reputation on drunk frat boys falling off a balcony. A 2001 national study reports that 62 percent of sorority members are binge drinkers, even though most sororities ban alcohol in the house. Combine that with the predominantly homogenous white, Christian culture of the Greek system, and it makes sense that Muslim women would want their own alternative.

One of the most heartening aspects of this story, I think, lies in the way in which the women at UK are claiming their own space and breaking away from the dominant culture’s stereotypes of the oppressed Muslim woman (and the culture’s sorority stereotypes, for that matter). The founders of the sorority say that one of their main objectives is to put a positive face on Muslim women, who are often portrayed by the media as powerless and oppressed. These women are resisting the media’s attempts to label them, first of all, and are also resisting the pressure to compromise their own religious values as they integrate into mainstream American society. They want to have the unity and solidarity of the sorority experience (one of the positives of the Greek system), but they’re doing it on their own terms.

Perhaps we Christian women should take a cue from our Muslim sisters as they refuse to let the media or the larger culture define their identity. And perhaps we can begin to find common ground for partnership with them as they take back what it means to be an empowered woman of faith from those who would attempt to rob that from us.

“How good and pleasant it is when siblings live together in unity!” --Psalm 133:1

Kelsey

I had an interesting little conversation with my mom the other day about the four captive members of the Christian Peacemaker Team in Iraq being held hostage. She initially took a kind of Rush Limbaugh tack on the whole situation, saying, “Well, that’s what you get for putting yourself in dangerous situations like that. Maybe now they’ll learn what the world is really like.” I replied that contrary to popular belief, they were much, much more aware of the dangers of Iraq than you or I could ever be, considering that they had been living among the Iraqi people, outside the Green Zone, for quite a while.

On another front, this morning I also heard news of Shanti Sellz and Daniel Strauss, two college-aged volunteers with General Assembly moderator Rick Ufford-Chase’s No More Deaths in Arizona. They are going to stand trial January 10 for attempting to medically evacuate sick migrants out of a desert where nearly 300 people have died this year. If convicted of transporting illegal aliens and conspiracy to do so, they could spend 15 years in a federal prison. All for providing humanitarian aid.

It sounds silly now, but as a child my great fear was of martyrdom. Yeah, that’s how much the Pentecostals screwed me up with the whole dispensationalist end-times theology. I was convinced that during the Tribulation preceding the final Apocalypse, I would suffer horrible agonies, be tortured for my faith… I was eight years old at the time. Most little kids don’t want to suffer like that, for their faith or otherwise.

Then again, most adults don’t care to suffer either. And perhaps this is the paradox that both draws me to and repels me from the CPT story and from the No More Deaths case. Regardless of what you think about the causes these people support or their particular methodology, these are women and men who believed enough to put their very lives on the line. Both these Christian groups risked ostracization from the world for their beliefs in peace and justice, and now one group is facing the ultimate sacrifice for its stance. I admire that kind of faith in God, the losing of one’s life to gain it.

And yet how many of us are honestly ready to give so much? Indeed, I find myself wondering a lot about the call to sacrifice lately. Because the Christian life is certainly one in which we are all called to give ourselves up to gain our souls, to put all that we are on the line when God asks it of us. Being threatened with death is a rare circumstance for us as Americans, but God’s call almost always involves rejection from the world around us. Regardless of the trendiness of “What Would Jesus Do?” bracelets a few years back, the heart of Jesus’ message has almost never enjoyed widespread popularity. It is a scary prospect, this following God.

So in this time of Advent, what is God calling us to do? How does God call you to live out your faith, to give up the old so that you can experience the new?

I don’t have the answer in my own life, to tell you the truth. But in reality, maybe the question itself is the answer. Because in the process of always searching, always asking where God is calling us, we are open to the movement of the Spirit in our lives. And when we find ourselves on the line, it is with the confidence and the knowledge that God is with us.

“If our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire and out of your hand, O king, let God deliver us. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods and we will not worship the golden statue that you have set up.” --Daniel 3:17-18

Kelsey

“God has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; God has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.” --Luke 1:52-53

“Where are these words coming from? She is no politician, no revolutionary; she just wants to sing a happy song, but all of a sudden she has become an articulate radical, an astonished prophet singing about a world in which the last have become first and the first, last. What is more, her song puts it all in the past tense, as if the hungry have already been fed, the rich already freed of their inordinate possessions. How can that be? Her baby is no bigger than a thumbnail, but already she is reciting his accomplishments as if they were history. Her faith is in things not seen, faith that comes to her from outside herself, and it is why we call her blessed.”
--Barbara Brown Taylor, from “Magnificat” in Mixed Blessings

In addition to the Hildegard of Bingen book, Mary Elva loaned me Sacred Journeys: A Woman’s Book of Daily Prayer last week. The above lines are reprinted in that text. I thought it would be a good way to start off the third week of Advent—by reflecting on Mary, one of the last great prophets and the mother of Jesus.

Because yes, although we don’t often acknowledge her as such, was the Virgin Mary not a prophet? Her song of praise in the Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55) echoes the words of the prophets before her in its emphasis on an overturning of the established order and its promise of Israel’s salvation from God. She is the first prophet of the New Testament, the first to announce the message of God’s salvation from bondage of the corrupt and unjust systems of this world. Telling, isn’t it, how the lives of two Marys frame the gospel of Jesus Christ? This Mary announces Christ’s radically redemptive work before it happens—Mary Magdalene is the first to proclaim its completion at the Resurrection.

The Virgin Mary is often portrayed as meekly submitting to God’s will, and yet her acceptance of the angel’s mission is an act of boldness. Far from passive submission, Mary chooses to seize God’s opportunity to make a difference in the world, to take center stage in this Incarnation drama. She partners with God for the creative work of the fully human and fully divine, Jesus Christ. But even that decision, that creativity, leads to a period of waiting.

Christians emphasize anticipation during Advent, and there is no better analogy for such waiting than that of a pregnancy. Perhaps we’re in a time of pregnancy now. We can see the future God is calling us to, we carry it within our own hearts and souls, but we simply have to wait a little longer for God’s purpose to be fully born. So many of you have laid out creative paths to justice, decisively answered God’s call. But the pregnancy of such hopes can seem long.

May Advent be a time when you see that work growing and coming closer to fruition, when you live with the faith of our foremother Mary that such things not only will happen, but are already upon us.

Kelsey

I found out yesterday at the NMD Christmas party that in certain Latin American nations, Santa does not function as the harbinger of gifts on Christmas… Baby Jesus does. Well, Baby Jesus must love me, because he brought me a blue Power Racer VW Bug for Christmas this year! Marsha in Presbyterian Women only got a Harley motorcycle. We also got little insulated lunch bags this year with “NMD” splashed across the front. I’ll look so chic on rainy days now, coming into work carrying my little NMD lunch bag with my little NMD umbrella. They should give out NMD scarves next year.

It has also been a long time since we’ve had an educational piece on the blog regarding some of our foremothers in the faith. Well, today we’re going to learn about the nun who kicked the patooties of all the guys in twelfth century Europe, Hildegard of Bingen. I’ve presented on her several times during the World Tour, and Mary Elva is letting me borrow a book about her right now. So I thought I would share the wealth a bit.

Hildegard was born in Germany in 1098. As the tenth child in her family, her dad, a nobleman, thought it would be a good idea to give her as his tithe to the church. So around age eight, he packed little Hildy off to the monastery to be taught by Jutta of Sponheim, a famous anchoress.* But even before this, at the age of three, Hildegard had started to see visions of a dazzling light that came from God. Eventually, she began to see people and buildings in this dazzling light, mostly from Hebrew Scriptures. She would later say that a voice from God would help her interpret what she was seeing.

Although Hildegard continued to see visions throughout her life, for several years she told only Jutta about them. After Jutta died, she finally heard a call from God commanding her to “say and write what you see and hear.” She spent ten years after that writing Scivias. She was lucky that people in high places took notice of her—she came to the attention of the pope at the time, who endorsed her work and officially offered his protection of it.

After that, Hildegard blossomed into one of the great prophets and advisors in medieval Europe. She was an advisor to three popes, as well as secular rulers such as the Byzantine empress Irene and Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa. Between 1155 and 1171, her preaching tours attracted people throughout the Rhineland.

And what did she preach and write about? Hildegard was a prophetic voice in society, condemning the selling of church offices and the ways in which the church was becoming subservient to and complicit in the power plays of the state. Her sermons, which were collected by listeners, called church leaders to turn away from greed and oppression. The fact that her convent had the protection of Frederick Barbarossa didn’t stop her from writing to protest his rebellion against the papacy in Rome.

Most of the folks I know who have encountered Hildegard before are music majors. That’s because she also wrote sacred music, including 77 songs that have been passed down to us. Her nine books include works on physiology and health as well as theology (Hildegard was a renowned healer). Many of these works sprung from the revelations she had received from God.

While Hildegard didn’t directly challenge the systems of power that operated during her time (and sometimes enforced them—only noblewomen with large dowries could enter her convent), she is a great example of a woman who followed God’s call to be a prophetic voice. In a time when men held strict control of women’s lives, Hildegard demonstrated that women could be strong leaders as they stood up for the cause of the oppressed.

When Hildegard of Bingen died in 1179, it is said that two streams of light formed a cross over the room of her death.

“Then afterward I will pour out my spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions.” --Joel 2:22

Kelsey

PS—The book is Praying with Hildegard of Bingen by Gloria Duke, if you’re interested.

*What was an anchoress? Basically, it was a woman (a man was an anchorite) who walled herself up into a small room adjoining a monastery. She had a little window where she could receive food and hear the Mass, but otherwise she just lived her whole life in there to pray and study Scripture. Fun, huh?

As usual, the friendly weatherman on the morning news was trying to scare me… today we’ve had predictions of a winter storm. It seems kind of ridiculous to me, really—in my Washington hometown, a foot of snow in a day didn’t prevent us from strapping the chains on the buses, kicking the trucks into 4 wheel drive, and heading off to school and work. Here, we’re looking at TWO INCHES of accumulation, which created a huge rush on the Kroger grocery store last night (but it was also senior citizen night, which may have had something to do with it). When I went to Target, they had huge winter shovels and salt prominently displayed for sale at the front of the store.

But you know what they didn’t have, what every good denizen of Leavenworth, Washington considers a winter essential?? Sandbags! I had to buy 80 pounds of stupid cat litter to keep the back end of the ‘Stang on the road—and I don’t even own a cat! Oh, the irony of it all. But Target was selling Aplets and Cotlets in its holiday candy section, and you should all buy some this holiday season. They’re made in the town next to my hometown, so even I buy a $5 box this time of year.

My eminently practical significant other has reminded me that we haven’t had a “how-to” blog post in quite some time. So today, I’m going to say a few words about grad school applications. This was an area where, frankly, I felt that I had little guidance when I was in college. Professors were telling me that I should go to grad school, but then not supplying me with practical strategies to do so.

Yet in some ways, selecting a grad school is like selecting a college—you just have to have a better idea of what you want. My friend Casey and I were discussing last night whether she should enter a Master of Arts program or a Master of Public Policy program. The difference, you ask? Where you think your career path will take you. If you hope to get a PhD and teach in the academy, the MA will probably best serve your purposes. But if Casey, for instance, wants to be a policy guru in Washington, DC, then she should try the MPP. Master of Public Policy, Master of Divinity, Master of Business Administration… these are all professional degrees meant to give you specialized skills for practical application in a chosen field. A Master of Arts requires specialization, too, but in an academic discipline.

If you’re thinking of grad school for this year, then you should already be on the bandwagon in the application process (sorry). If grad school is a few years off, though, you can start thinking about a couple of things now—do you want to enter grad school right out of college, or would some practical work experience benefit you in clarifying your professional goals? What programs sound interesting to you?

I won’t say too much about the nuts and bolts of how to apply, because it really is similar to the process you went through to apply for undergrad… you take the GREs (see April 19’s blog for an account of my epic battle with the Graduate Record Exam), solicit recommendations from professors, send copies of your transcripts, and sell yourself through the application and the personal statement. Just make sure it isn’t half-baked, because the competition for some programs can be stiff. If you are applying for grad school this year, you should be assembling these materials now. Some programs I’ve seen have application deadlines as early as January 10 for the fall term.

And what should you be thinking about when you select a school? Well, I’ve asked my colleagues and recent seminary grads Molly and Bridgett about this one. Molly suggests that if you’re having trouble picking (especially if your plans are more of a vague leading of the Holy Spirit rather than a detailed life syllabus), look at the faculty. Who among them are studying things of interest to you? Who would you like to learn from? Because if you like the faculty, chances are you’re going to find your niche within the program. It doesn’t matter how highly regarded the program is if you hate it and drop out after a year, after all.

Hopefully you found some of that helpful, but now I have to go—it is the semi-annual “Will You Stay With Your Job If We Give You Food?” day, aka the National Ministries Division Christmas Breakfast. This year, we’re following it up with the Women’s Ministries Christmas Lunch. I will report back tomorrow on NMD’s annual Christmas gift. So if I do get snowed in at PresbyLand today, at least I’ll be well fed.

“From whose womb did the ice come forth, and who has given birth to the hoarfrost of heaven? The waters become hard like stone, and the face of the deep is frozen.” --Job 38:29-30

Kelsey

Celebration reigns at the humble offices of NNPCW—"Sisters Together" is coming to a mailbox near you! That’s right, after slaying several dragons in her quest, Brianne got the newsletter to the mailroom yesterday. We’re hoping that you’ll get your copy during finals week, giving you something else to think about besides your looming biology exam. And for those of you who aren’t on our mailing list (tsk, tsk), the newsletter should be at www.pcusa.org/nnpcw for your downloading pleasure soon. We hope you like the new ‘zine format that Brianne designed for this issue.

I got off fairly easy on this one. I only wrote one article, about the Coordinating Committee. But that doesn’t mean I wasn’t writing at all. I’ve managed to land in three Presbyterian publications coming out next month—"Horizons: The Magazine for Presbyterian Women", "Presbyterians Today", and "Church and Society". I talk about a smorgasbord of topics, from NNPCW to the evil empire of Martha Stewart. But if you’ve been following the blog for a while, the articles will sound kind of familiar… two of the three were inspired by posts that appeared previously here.

As for the third, I wrote for the upcoming issue of "Church and Society" highlighting the 100th anniversary of the ordination of women as deacons and the 50th anniversary to our ordination as ministers of Word and Sacrament. A timely topic around the office, too, as my counterpart associate over in Racial Ethnic Young Women Together, Bridgett Green, on Sunday became only the second African American woman ordained as a minister in Charlotte Presbytery. My article focused on the needs, hopes, and dreams of young ordained women in the PC(USA). I interviewed six female deacons, elders, and ministers or candidates for ministry, all in their late teens or twentysomethings.

In talking to them, and in meeting with young women around the country on the World Tour, I find fascinating the variety of experiences young women have within our Presbyterian family. I remember being almost frustrated when visiting the Northeast—when I asked students about the struggles women still face in church settings, they gave me blank stares. Many of them had grown up with women in the pulpits, and had no concept of women’s experiences in other parts of the country.

Yet when I visited PC(USA)-related Rhodes College in Tennessee recently, fifteen women showed up (without any major bribery from the chaplain, I might add) to talk about how difficult it was to be affirmed in a call to ministry. My visit even got a front-page article in the campus weekly newspaper. There, reporter Catherine Bloom said, “There are at least three women at Rhodes who are seriously considering seminary and ordination, and not everyone supports these women.”

I guess I don’t really have a point to this, except to ask you out there to share your stories. What’s it like where you’re from? If you feel called to any kind of service to the church, how has that been received? With joy and pride? With denial and rejection? One of my hopes for the blog has been to give you an opportunity to share your own stories with others, to have a place to speak. If you don’t feel comfortable posting your name, that’s okay. But I’d love it if a few of you were willing to share.

And if you feel like continuing the discussion, feel free to start a topic at our message forum: nnpcw.forumsplace.com. That’s what it is there for!

“Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, ‘Teacher, order your disciples to stop.’ He answered, ‘I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would should out.’” --Luke 19:39-40

Kelsey

When I was a kid, the things adults got one another for Christmas boggled my mind. Whereas I always had fun presents, from My Little Ponies to the Anne of Green Gables boxed set, my parents always got such exciting gifts as new socks or garden hoses. I always thought to myself, “I hope nobody ever gets me all those USEFUL things, even when I’m old.”

Well, I think I’m old now. Because as I walked three blocks to work this morning, thinking about the temperatures in the teens and how I simply couldn’t wear my one pair of long johns every single day this week without washing them at least once, the following floated through my brain: “I wish someone would get me a nice, warm pair of long underwear for Christmas.” This coming from the same woman who, at age 12, almost cried when she found panties from her grandmother under the tree.

Yet part of me still has a taste for aesthetic gifts, the objects you don’t necessarily need but that add a bit of grace to life. The hardcover copy of "Mere Christianity" we got David’s dad this year? My idea. My grandmothers have doilies from all sorts of places in my globetrotting (no doilies this year, for the record, but my trip to Graceland was productive). Considering, too, that I’m too frugal to buy myself books, music, or movies very often, I hold out the hope that "The Bourne Identity" will finally be waiting for me this year.

Juxtapose my general gift-giving philosophy with that of the Christmas family we’re helping at church this year. On Sunday I helped sort out purchases made at the requests of a mother and her three daughters. With them, socks seemed to be ever popular.

I’m going to avoid the self-flagellation, though, of launching into my usual lecture on American materialism versus the world’s poverty. I do think that we live in a culture of excess, one that infects us from that first greedy Christmas and spiritually deadens us thereafter. But sometimes, perhaps that CD or Tonka Truck for Christmas doesn’t have to be totally bad. Even our Christmas family asked for, and received, portable CD players for the two eldest children.

I read once that the United Nations funds film screenings in refugee camps. Though many pressing needs exist for refugees, there is something enriching, something humanizing, about the opportunity to engage the mind outside of the rigors of basic survival. Gift-giving can be an opportunity to display unexpected grace, humanity beyond mere existence—a beautiful vase, tickets to see a favorite rock band, a good book. We believe in a God who blesses us every day with the unexpected. How do we show that grace to everyone else?

It is hard to think about giving the superfluous when so many lack the basics. And we shouldn’t give impressive gifts just to “keep up with the Joneses” or to satisfy someone else’s insatiable appetite for material goods. But just maybe, there still is a place in Christmas for gifts from the heart—gifts that remind our loved ones of the light that Christ’s birth brought into a troubled world.

“But when the disciples saw it, they were angry and said, ‘Why this waste? For this ointment could have been sold for a large sum, and the money given to the poor.’ But Jesus, aware of this, said to them, ‘Why do you trouble this woman? She has performed a good service for me. For you always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me. By pouring this ointment on my body she has prepared me for burial.’” --Matthew 26:8-12

Kelsey

PS—Want to give a good, fair trade gift that supports others, too? Check out some of NNPCW’s gift ideas on www.pcusa.org/nnpcw/resources/volunteer-gifts.htm#giftshop.

PPS—Chat with other NNPCW folks about holiday consumerism and gift giving in our topic room at nnpcw.forumsplace.com.

I’ve been on a roll with the ever-so-slightly controversial topics of late, so why not take on this one? A co-worker alerted several of us to an MSN article she saw the other day. The topic was a Protestant youth group in Nuremberg, Germany that has taken a new spin on the Bible. To make the Good Book more appealing to young adults in a country where the church is practically dying, they’ve created a calendar illustrating Biblical scenes… in the nude. As the photographer says in the article (which I’m not going to link to, for fear of being accused of directing folks to pornographic sites, so you’ll have to find it yourselves), “There’s a whole range of biblical Scriptures simply bursting with eroticism.”

Well… umm… yeah, I guess you could put it that way. The photos I saw on the website particularly depicted a strategically-covered Eve with the apple and a not-so-strategically covered, topless Delilah cutting off Samson’s hair. Apparently there is also one of a 21-year-old woman as the prostitute Rahab in garters and stockings.

Now, I’m all for trying to transform the stuffy image of the Bible and depict it with more of its gritty realism. Because for those of you who have actually spent some time with it, you know it isn’t all about choirs of angels with halos. You don’t need a calendar to get racy with, for instance, Genesis. The whole thing with Lot’s daughters, Tamar and her father-in-law Judah, Potiphar’s wife and Joseph… regardless of your stance on whether God really created the world in seven days, etc, there’s no doubt that the Bible is truthful in how it portrays failed and flawed humanity. Jerry Springer only wishes he could come up with some of this stuff. It is also amazingly truthful, and hopeful, in the ways in which it depicts God using those failed and flawed characters to carry out God’s divine purpose in the world.

But is a Playboy-style pinup calendar, regardless of how humorous it might sound on the surface, the way to convey that? Or are we just diluting the message, playing into the “sex sells” consumer culture? It isn’t so much the nudity in and of itself that disturbs me about the whole idea, because yes, nudity and sex are both within the purview of the Bible. God created us good, bodies and all.

What bugs me about it is the way in which it uses women particularly to convey a sexualized message. Call it “Samson and Delilah” if you like—to the vast majority of folks, it is still a bare breasted woman leaning over a sleeping man with a naughty smile on her face. And now the naughtiness is tied into the Bible, which makes it all the more titillating. Is that really bringing us closer to God, or making anyone think differently about the message of Christianity?

When you’re portraying all the “naughty” women of the Bible, too, it just serves to reinforce the whole “evil sexual temptress” complex that has kept women from taking a participatory role in the church for millennia. I will admit that I don’t know what the other calendar topics are (I can’t read German, unfortunately). Maybe they do have some empowering images of Deborah, or Mary Magdalene proclaiming the Good News at the Resurrection. But somehow, I doubt it.

The photos I saw basically used the traditional iconic images of women in the Bible to say that a woman’s role in Scripture, and in society, is for the sexual pleasure of men and that her power comes from that. And you wonder why young women still have such low self-esteem, date such rotten guys, practically prostitute themselves in Abercrombie and Fitch miniskirts? Even church youth groups are shooting this message at them using the Bible: you are a being created for another’s sexual pleasure. And only through sex will you have any power or influence in this world.

So really, such cutting-edge interpretations of the Bible aren’t quite so cutting-edge after all.

“Let us live honorably as in the day, not in reveling or drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy.” --Romans 13:13

Kelsey

PS-- Ironic that I also saw the film "Dogma" for the first time this weekend... the calendar evangelism tactic kind of reminds me of "Buddy Jesus" at the beginning of that film. They're trying to accomplish the same things.

Oh my goodness, it is COLD outside! My friendly neighborhood weatherman said this morning that the wind chill would bring the temperature down to nine degrees Fahrenheit. Now, far be it from me to be ill prepared for cold weather—there is no shame in wearing your long underwear to work.

Many of you probably remember my blog from September 23, the controversial one about Ivy League women choosing to stay at home with their children. I read another controversial take on this article yesterday. This post, from "The American Prospect," suggests that women are put into this “choice” position that is no choice because feminism, while crusading to open up the public sphere, never truly addressed the inequities that kept women home in the first place—the home itself. Because of the enormous societal pressures on women to be primary caregivers in the private sphere, most can’t truly consider other alternatives.

The article made the wheels of angst start turning for me, so I chewed on David’s ear for a while last night on the phone. Now David and I have discussed gender roles many, many times throughout our relationship (this isn’t the first time a work has torn me to pieces—reading Anna Fels’ "Necessary Dreams" resulted in several days of dialogue between David and myself). He knows, since I’ve repeatedly told him, that a Stepford life as a domestic goddess (regardless of how much I secretly love Martha Stewart) is not what God calls me to.

But some of our reflections on individualism and community bring up what is so difficult about the world of gender relations today. Secular feminism can be very oriented toward individualism, in large part to correct women’s tendencies to lose their identities to those around them. Feminism has also striven for equality with men, and the Western paradigm of masculinity has been very (if I may say so) selfishly individualistic. Many of our forefathers were taught that they were masters of the home, and home/family existed primarily for their ultimate comfort and well-being. Where do you think the stereotype of the doting wife, slippers and newspaper in hand and hot casserole on the oven, comes from?

Yet the scars of such attitudes of domination riddle our worldwide cultural landscape. When people become too individualistic, there are no moral curbs on their tendency to exploit others. Community and relationship, accountability to God and fellow humans, empathy… these are the places where we see glimpses of the coming new creation of God. We need the “we.”

For our generation, with an increasing awareness of the need for global community and an increasing distrust of the systems we know as “community” at home, we’re caught in the middle. As women, we know our history. We know the ways in which many men around the world continue to enter into relationships in order to exploit their partners, how that robs women of their full humanity. We also know that community requires compromise and sacrifice—even the kind of genuine community that God calls us to. In the past, it was clear for all who generally compromised and sacrificed in a relationship. Feminism has challenged those assumptions.

And as for David and me… my final point to David last night can be summed up in this analogy: if my family were a baseball team, it isn’t that I have to be the star pitcher while everyone else sits the bench. But I do want to be in the pitching rotation—not the water girl who gets to wear the jersey.

Like all humans everywhere, I want my contributions to be valued. I want recognition for the good things I do, not the good things I do vicariously through others. I want dignity and respect. If those things are individualistic, then so be it. But for me to function effectively in the community, for me to make sacrifices for others, it has to start from there. Even Jesus rode into Jerusalem to shouts of acclaim before he sacrificed his power and prestige on the cross.

“Give her a share in the fruit of her hands, and let her works praise her in the city gates.” --Proverbs 31:31

Kelsey

It seems that my outfit today is appropriate all around, red for Christmas and red for World AIDS Day. Of course, I didn’t plan it this way—it was more the misfortune of realizing that a button was missing from the pants I originally intended to wear. But I’m glad things worked out.

When I was in, say, middle school, I recall being really scared of HIV/AIDS. That would have been in the early ‘90s, when testing positive seemed an automatic death sentence. I remember hearing that Magic Johnson, the basketball player, had tested positive for HIV and wondering how long it might take him to die. As far as I know, he’s still alive and doing pretty well.

In my insulated little Eastern Washington town, sex ed was non-existent (I’ve heard others’ stories about applying condoms to a banana, but remember more of my high school teacher’s laments about pot smoking in the ‘60s than anything I learned about sex in that class), and I had never met anyone with AIDS. I’m still not sure that I have in person, to be honest with you, but at least now I know enough about the disease to not be afraid of the people who have it. For instance, you can’t get HIV from hugging a positive person, sharing a water fountain or cutlery with her or him, or kissing. There are only four ways to get it, in fact:

1.Unprotected sex with an infected person
2.Sharing needles or other contaminated skin-piercing equipment
3.Blood and blood products (like blood transfusions and organ transplants)
4.Mother to baby, either in womb, coming out, or through breastfeeding

But you all probably already know that—even my high school classes weren’t quite that isolated.

We don’t talk about HIV/AIDS too often in the faith community, maybe because it ties into our major hot-button issue, sexuality. Some of us shout, “More condoms!,” while others (in addition to words of hate against LGBT folk, some of whom are our sisters and brothers in the Body of Christ) scream back, “Abstinence only!”

And while we’re shouting back and forth about that, five people are dying of AIDS every minute. For a woman in sub-Saharan Africa, in a heterosexual marriage where she doesn’t have the right to refuse sex or use a condom, a woman whose husband may be cheating on her, our arguments here in the United States don’t really solve much.

In fact, the United Nations just yesterday issued a press release highlighting the underlying linkages between women’s rights and risk of infection. A stretch? Well, take a look at this quote from the report:

“Thus, the factors that increase women's vulnerability to infection are numerous. Among these, the inability to secure adequate housing and living conditions need to be recognized as significant. Women's economic vulnerability often translates as dependence on men for survival, and many women are forced into situations that increase vulnerability to sexual violence, or to engage in unsafe sex in exchange for money, housing or food.”

The release goes on to say that for many women, the death of a husband from AIDS may result in the widow’s forcible eviction from her home. For those with family members living with the disease, too, the brunt of care may fall on women in lieu of societal structures that can help with that burden.

A case in point about women’s rights and AIDS—Malawi, where 14% of the adult population is HIV positive, has implemented a program to test pregnant women and give them drugs to prevent transmission of the disease to their unborn children. The problem? Most women won’t take the test because they fear being beaten or divorced by their husbands if they turn up positive. So the disease rages on.

As American Christians, it is time to stop simply shaping this issue into a black and white “moral values” debate. Condoms don’t help when people won’t use them, and abstinence doesn’t help when people just aren’t going to abstain. There are too many underlying social, cultural, and economic issues standing in the way of those topics right now.

And just maybe, on World AIDS Day, we Christians can get together and agree that human rights for all is one value our Savior unequivocally promoted.

“Wash yourselves;
make yourselves clean;
remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes;
cease to do evil, learn to do good;
seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.”

--Isaiah 1:16-17

Kelsey