Katie’s fictional account of our blogging wars was truthful in at least this way: I am, in fact, in the third trimester of my pregnancy. I assume that since, by her own admission, this means nothing to Katie, it might not mean anything to some of you, either. What it means to me is this: I am only 3 months away from giving birth. And I’m a bit scared.

Unlike my older sister, I wasn’t the type of child who dreamed elaborate dreams of her wedding or decided the names for her children at age 12. So when it came time to plan a wedding (and in only 4 months!), it was a bit much for me to handle, not having had thought much about what I wanting in a wedding until the day my husband and I decided that we were engaged. (Talk about a non-traditional engagement—I’ll save that story for another blog entry.)

Likewise, when I found out I was pregnant, I was quite overwhelmed by the immediate decisions I had to make: What kind of birth did I want to have? Where did I want to give birth? What kind of doctor did I want to see during my pregnancy? Would I want a midwife present at the birth? I had never thought these questions through before, and all of a sudden everyone—and I mean everyone—was asking them.

One of the things I decided early on was that I wanted to give natural birth a try. Basically, having a natural birth means giving birth with little to no medical intervention (e.g. monitoring, pain medication, etc.). This can mean anything from having a home birth with only a midwife present, to giving birth in a hospital with a doctor and a midwife present, but opting not to take pain mediation (as I’ve chosen to do).

Let me be the first to say that I have nothing whatsoever against pain medication. I am going to try my hardest to have this child without it, but I’ve made it as clear as I can to my husband that if I even HINT at wanting pain meds while in labor, he better make it happen right away.

Basically, what I’ve realized is this: For millennia, women didn’t have the option of having painless (or near painless) births through the aid of modern medicine. When it was discovered that women could give birth while under anesthesia, women welcomed this relief, but opponents fought it stating that pain in childbirth was a burden with which women were cursed. Finally, however, women won out, and soon giving birth while under anesthesia became the norm. And here’s where it gets really interesting: when women once again wanted to be awake and alert during birth, they once again were opposed! Women were challenging the norm, and those who wanted to protect the norm therefore opposed them.

What it comes down to is this: how a woman wants to give birth is her personal choice. I for one am thankful that pain medication exists. There are times when it is in the best interest of a mother and her child to take medication during labor. But I am also thankful that women have revived the art of natural childbirth. As the Lamaze philosphly of birth reminds us, birth is “normal, natural, and healthy.” And we as women already have great capacity and wisdom within us to give birth.

I’m starting a birthing class next week, where I am hoping to discover this inner wisdom for myself. In future blogs, I’ll let you know how that’s going. I hope also to do some biblical reflection on scriptures that talk about birth, especially those that have been misconstrued to support unhealthy practices against women (such as in Genesis and in Paul’s treatment of the Genesis texts).

Until then, be reminded of the great strength and wisdom that exists within you and within every woman--to give birth, yes, but also to do immesurably more. I am convinced that having this strength and wisdom within us is a key part of what it means to have been made in the image of God.

Noelle

Yeah, yeah…so it’s been a few days. After countless hours of analysis and self deprecation, it has been concluded that Noelle and yours truly simply do not have the “blogger’s knack.” Let me give you an idea of exactly what this means. It goes something like this:
Noelle: Katie, are you busy right now?
Katie: No, Noelle. What can I do for you?
Noelle: Well, um, I uh, was just, uh, wondering…
Katie: OH NO! I WILL NOT BLOG FOR YOU.
Noelle: But Katie, I am in my third trimester (that means nothing to me) and I am tired and don’t feel well and the baby is kicking and blogging might affect its health” and so on and so forth.
Just kidding, Noelle doesn’t really say those things to me, but some days it is a battle over who will or will not blog. This is all to say, after a pernicious, malicious and oh-so-sassy encounter…I LOST to the powerful pregnant one.

On another note, how about “service?” It has been on my mind since my alma mater asked me to write an essay on “Service & the Self.” What do I know about service? Probably not much, but I did manage to think of a few things I’d like to share. Here’s one.

I once stayed at a Benedictine monastery while on a discernment retreat, and I heard the most wonderful and heartbreaking story. Mother Teresa took her ministry to the streets after experiencing God’s powerful and real voice inside of her, telling her she was needed there. But she never experienced that kind of calling, so loud and so clear, ever again. She lived in constant darkness for the rest of her life, never knowing again what to do or where to go. Yet she remained faithful to the darkness, and she continued to serve. That is darkness, pain, and loneliness that I cannot even imagine.

Service, for me, is like this: God rarely gives us specific, map-quested directions telling us exactly where to go and whom to serve. More often our paths and lives of service will be a kaleidoscope of joy, despair, comfort, pain, doubt, and confusion. The beautiful thing is that we get to make our own decisions. God isn’t “out there” controlling our every thought and manipulating each move. God is within and around and here and there, breathing life into us and letting us wander, sometimes even into darkness.

And when the darkness comes knocking?

Well, I think of a William Blake line: “And we are put on earth a little space that we may learn to bear the beams of love.” Maybe that is another way to view service. Service is not only about loving it is also about being loved — allowing others to meet your needs and to serve you. So I say let the darkness be your womb when you need it to be. Steep in it. Remain in it. Risk being alone and feeling lonely. Bask in the glory of light when you have it, but don’t be afraid to get down and dirty with the darkness.

Shalom, all you garden gnomes…
-katie

Uh, blogging. I don’t really know what I am doing, and I am allowing only 14 minutes for this entry, because it is 5:47 p.m. and I get to leave the office at 6:01 p.m. I cannot think of anything else to say. But I will introduce myself. Katie Anderson – brand smokin’new NNPCW & REYWT Intern. I arrived in Louisville 2 weeks ago after chilling on a farm and hippie community outside of Atlanta, Georgia for the summer. I loved it. I am originally from Colorado, did the school thing in Nebraska and was a community organizer in Miami for a while. And here I am, with 10 minutes left to blog and still nothing to say. The problem must be that I actually have too much to say and only 7 minutes left to say it. So, I think I will wait patiently until tomorrow, (i hope you can as well) when I can tell you a bit more nonsense about myself and anything else in the nonsensical realm I can think of. Which is probably quite a lot. Just know that I am glad to be here and glad to be blogging...sort of. Bummer, look at the time - 5:59 p.m. More soon, you shiny happy people…

I’ve been thinking about my maternal grandmother a lot these days. My sisters and I call her Baba, the Ukrainian word for grandmother. Baba lives alone, in my aunt and uncle’s condo in Palm Springs. She used to live with her cat, Cookie, but Cookie recently passed away. So Baba lives all alone now, a couple hours from my mom and dad, my sisters, and my aunts and uncles.

I’ve started calling Baba more in the last year. I think it’s because I’ve become more aware of the short time I have left with her. She’s not my only living grandparent—my paternal grandmother is still alive—but she’s got the better memory of the two. And she has some amazing stories that I don’t want to forget. I’m trying to talk her into writing some of them down, but she’s not very keen on the idea.

For some reason today, while I was riding the elevator up to the floor where my office is located, I thought about Baba and about what a strong woman she is. At 5 feet, her fragile frame conceals a feisty disrupter of the status quo. Bound by the traditional roles expected of her as a woman at the time, she nevertheless began no fewer than 4 careers during her lifetime. It hit me today how difficult that must have been for her. What made her decide to do it? Where did she get her encouragement and inspiration?

I often take for granted how relatively easy it has been for me to get where I am now. My family supported me, both emotionally and financially, through college and graduate school. By and large, society supports the idea of women in higher education and in the workplace. And I have a husband who is more than willing to share in household chores and, soon, in caring for our child.

My grandmother didn’t have any of that. She put herself through school and worked while single-handedly taking care of her home and her family. Her husband, as much as I adore my grandfather (Gigi is the Ukrainian word), didn’t support her. I’m sure he didn’t object to what she was doing, but it didn’t translate into helping with keeping house or caring for their 5 children.

Baba is a living legend. Though I’m sure she never participated in a protest in her life (and probably wouldn’t be caught dead doing so), she challenged the systems and the status quo of her time. Feminism, womanism, mujerista movements—these aren’t mere intellectual pursuits. Baba reminded me of that today. As Ghandi said, “You must be the change you wish to see in the world.” We must think, but we must also act. And we must act not only as individuals but also as communities. Our foremothers are counting on us, and encouraging us on.

Noelle

I never meant to stay away this long.

I’m not yet in the habit of blogging every day (or even every other day, which might be more realistic for me), and last week was a busy one. I had quite a few technical difficulties at work, which set me back, while at home things were no less hectic.

My in-laws came in from Minnesota for the week to help my husband and I get our house ready for the arrival of our first baby in December. So for six straight days my house was turned upside-down, but it was well worth the short-lived chaos: at the end of the time my home office was cleaned out and a new desk was installed; the baby’s room was painted; three new closest were finished; and our entry way was re-painted.

During their stay, I had a lot of time to talk with my mother-in-law, whom I greatly respect. At one point during the week we got to talking about a few of our favorite TV shows, and the conversation turned to the portrayal of women in those shows. It was interesting to hear her perspective. Her take was that much of the way women are portrayed nowadays actually serves to turn back some of the advances made by earlier women’s movements.

She got me thinking, and in a lot of ways I agree. Just because the female medical interns outnumber the male medical interns on Grey’s Anatomy, this doesn’t automatically add up to a positive portrayal of women. The shows centers more on the female characters’ sexual practices than on their medical practices, and it doesn’t necessary portray their sexuality in a positive light. The portrayal seems more voyeuristic than anything, just another incarnation of female objectification.

I watch TV to take my mind off of other things, so it’s easy to treat a show like Grey’s Anatomy as harmless and fun (you really can’t take it too seriously, especially the way the plot has taken some ridiculous turns this past season). But the truth is that the media have the power to subtly shape society’s values, and they continue to shape the way society thinks about women and women’s issues.

My question to us is this: what are we—as women and as the church—doing to counter the values being propagated by the media? What are we doing to build the type of power that can have an impact? What role can NNPCW play in this struggle to uphold women in the image of God?

As always, I welcome your comments.

Noelle

I feel like I never quite woke up this morning. And to top it all off, I'm having a ton of trouble with my email these days. So my message to you today is short, but important:

Tomorrow (8/15) is the deadline for applying to be on CoCo, NNPCW's Coordinating Committee.

If you want to apply, but haven't yet, you can apply online: http://www.pcusa.org/nnpcw

The application isn't long. I know school's gearing up and everyone is busy, but if you're even thinking about applying, do it now. You don't want to pass up this opportunity!

If you need a refresher as to why you should apply for CoCo, read Jen Ross's blog entry from last week. (It's right below this entry. It's much more inspiring than this entry, too.)

Okay, it's time for me to finally end this Monday, and it's time for you to apply for CoCo!

Until Tuesday...

Noelle

Hey Everyone.

It’s Jen Ross here. I am going into my second year on the Coordinating Committee (CoCo) and I am also a representative to the Presbyterian Association for Community Transformation (PACT) which is part of the larger organization Presbyterian Health, Education and Welfare Association. Yes, if you haven’t guessed by now, the Presbyterian Church (USA) LOVES acronyms! Today, I wanted to write a little bit about my experience on the Coordinating Committee.

The mission of NNPCW is that “we are young women in college connected by our belief in God, seeking to understand what it means to claim a Christian faith that empowers women.” When I first heard that statement, it struck me. This is what I wanted and needed. The realization that there were other young women who were out searching for connection like me was empowering and exciting. I attended the Leadership Event in Chicago and learned more about the Church, God and myself than I though possible. I also learned about the Coordinating Committee of NNPCW. These amazing young women were so full of Spirit and answers to the questions that I asked them. But, they also had questions themselves, deep and difficult theological questions relating to their place in the Church and the Community of God. I knew I wanted to be a part of this group of strong and able women. The Coordinating Committee (or CoCo) is a group of twelve women from around the country who guide the work of NNPCW. Every year four new CoCo members are added and asked to serve a three year term on CoCo.

APPLICATIONS ARE DUE AUGUST 15 AND CAN BE FOUND AT WWW.PCUSA.ORG/NNPCW.

It is hard to describe the energy, the electricity that is in the room at our CoCo meetings (one in the Fall and one in the Spring). We are there for 3 days to be completely focused on God and the Network, thinking about what direction or new project or idea that NNPCW should take on, keeping in mind feedback we have heard from members of NNPCW. As hokey as it sounds, it really is magical.

More personally, the women on NNPCW have become some of my best friends. It is true that we really only see each other at NNPCW and PC (USA) events and communicate over email (and facebook) in the in between time, but there is a bond that I feel with these women that I don’t have with some friends who I have known for years. We get to know each other, care about and care for each other and make each other feel safe in the community that we are in. At our last CoCo meeting, two members of my class and I stayed up in the living room of the place where we were staying, making a makeshift bed out of couch cushions and talking well into the morning about theological issues, relationships (or lack thereof), school, family, friends, our lives, everything. I have relied and trusted this group with some things in my life that I haven’t even shared with my best friends or my family. The connection is unique and phenomenal.

I would encourage every young woman out there, if you feel interested and called to the work that we do, please consider applying. I swear, it will change your life.

Hi, everyone! This is Maisha Johnson, CoCo member, ACWC liaison, and glad to be a guest blogger for the day. I’ve been going back and forth trying to decide what to blog about. I feel like I’ve missed out on discussing one simple topic in a spiritual context – friendship. I’m sitting here trying to write a birthday card for one of my very best friends, and as I reflect on six years of friendship I find myself wondering why something that’s so important in women’s lives hasn’t come up more often in the many times I’ve been in circles of Christian women.

Unfortunately, I didn’t attend Brianne’s workshop on friendship at the NNPCW Leadership Event, but I still managed to gain a lot of perspective on it at the event. Perhaps the strangest part of spending those few days with the wonderful women I met there was saying our good-byes – and with them the words “nice meeting you!”

Really? I stopped and thought about it every time I said those words to someone or they said them to me. Had I really only just met these women with whom I’d laughed and prayed and felt remarkably comfortable? Even the ones I’d known before the Leadership Event, I’d technically met only a couple of times. But the bond between us was instant and unmistakable. What is it exactly that brought us so close together over the course of just a few days? There were some people with whom I hardly had anything in common – we asked about one another’s majors, and found that while I’m studying Creative Writing, she’s into Biology. Or that I’m from the west coast, and she was born and raised in the South. Or that I’m liberal, and she’s conservative. Yet we managed to find enough in common to form a friendship.

Maybe the word “friend” is used pretty loosely these days. I confess that many of my “friends” on websites like facebook.com are people that I hardly know. But when I returned from the Leadership Event to find that I had several new “friends” on the facebook and that all were women I’d met at the event (we even created an NNPCW facebook group – you should join if you haven’t already!), I definitely felt like I was reconnecting with old friends. Perhaps that’s the effect of coming together in the context of a group like NNPCW, and knowing that if we have nothing else in common, at least we know that we are all sisters in Christ. At the Leadership Event I learned that friendship can cross geographical lines, generational lines, and any other boundaries as long as people are open-minded and willing to love others regardless of who they are. That’s the joy of being with a group of people like the wonderful women of NNPCW.

So I’ll end this with a reminder that there’s one week left to apply for CoCo, the Coordinating Committee of NNPCW (apply at http://www.pcusa.org/nnpcw/ ). This will only be my second year as a member, but already I can hardly wait to attend the fall CoCo meeting, see my CoCo friends, and seize the opportunity to build new friendships with the new members. I'd love to discuss this more with anyone who has thoughts on it (on the forum, perhaps? http://nnpcw.forumsplace.com ), or who knows any helpful Biblical passages that may apply to friendship.

I got an unexpected call in my office this morning informing me that my good friend, Michael deBeer, died yesterday.

Mike was only a few years older than me—32 or 33, I can’t remember—and was one of the most active people I knew. In fact, he was kayaking with his girlfriend and her family when he died.

They said he died from a heart attack, which is simply impossible for me to imagine. Mike was young and active. He didn’t fit the bill.

His death doesn’t make medical sense to me, and it makes even less sense theologically. I have a very hard time understanding events like Mike’s death. They make me sad, they make me angry, and they tempt me to look at the world with increased cynicism. Which is exactly the opposite of what Michael would want.

Michael loved life with an excitement matched only by an eight-year-old on her way to Walt Disney World. The smallest things held immense joy for him: dinner and Scrabble with friends; sitting on his living room floor playing with his cats; going on an impromptu walk; being with his girlfriend; speculating about the nature of God and eternity. He lived every moment to its very fullest.

And so I imagine that Michael wouldn’t like my cynical reaction to his unexpected, unfair, and incomprehensible death. I imagine him saying to me, Carpe Diem! I imagine myself shooting him a sarcastic look, betraying my annoyance at his unyielding optimism; but I also imagine myself having to listen. Because more than anyone I know, Michael seized the day. More than anyone I know, he encouraged me to do the same. And more than anyone I know, he actually makes me think about listening to him.

Carpe diem. Seize the day. Mike didn’t waste a single day. His life was way too short, but his life was also full. And I’m sure he’s already making the most of his new life. I’m going to do my best to try to keep up with him down here.

Noelle

I’m an NPR junkie.

It wakes me up in the morning. I get ready while listening to it. I have it on at all times in the car (even listening to it through static while traveling between stations on long road trips), and I’ve even taken to playing it in my office while doing work that welcomes background noise.

One downfall of listening to NPR so constantly is that one story can easily run into another, and at times I find that I’m not really listening at all: instead, I’m simply finding comfort in having now familiar voices accompany me throughout my day.

But yesterday, while driving out to the southeastern edge of Jefferson County to check out a site for the upcoming NNPCW Coordinating Committee meeting (apply now to be on CoCo! www.pcusa.org/nnpcw), a story caught my ear and made me stop and listen. Really listen.

“Hundreds of women banging pots and pans in the streets of Oaxaca, Mexico, took over a local state-run television station earlier this week,” the story began.

It went on to explain that the women—over 500 of them—are supporting Oaxacan teachers, who are on strike to demand better salaries.

I had to stop and listen to this story for two reasons: one, the story was about women; and two, it was about women taking power into their own hands.

Now, I have to confess that everything I know about this situation begins and ends with what I heard on NPR, so I don’t know the extent to which this group of women used their power responsibly, or to what extent they may have abused it. (You can listen to the story yourself on NPR’s website: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5614073). What impressed me, however, was that they acted. They took the tools they had on hand—pots and pans—and they acted to bring about a greater degree of justice for themselves and for their city.

This story was a good reminder of what God calls us to do and to be as Christian women (and men). Through the prophets we are called again and again “to do justice” (Micah 6:8). Jesus proclaims in Luke 4:18 that his ministry here on earth is to “bring good news to the poor” and “to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free.” As his followers, we are called to follow in these footsteps.

The story of the Oaxacan women reminded me that this call to do justice, this call to let the oppressed go free, is not just a call to do for others. Yes, it is our duty to watch out for the “alien” among us, the “other.” God commands us to “love the alien as yourself” (Lev. 19:34) as well as to “love your neighbor as yourself (Matt. 22:39). But as both these verses imply, we are also to love ourselves, especially when it is we who are the alien, we who are the poor, we who are the oppressed.

I’m challenged and inspired by advocates—those who stand up for others. But to me the true heroes of this world are those who dare to stand up for themselves—those who dare to take power for themselves and the great responsibility that goes along with having power—and act.

The women of Oaxaca stand in a long line of witnesses who have done just that. Women (and men) before them have acted so that they (and also we) might have civil rights, voting rights, pay equity, affirmative action, laws condemning domestic violence—the list goes on and on. Their actions put flesh to our Christian calling to love our neighbor as ourselves, to act on our own behalf when justice is not present.

Who are your heroes? Who do you admire among the women who have gone before us who have dared to stand up for themselves, and in doing so, for us?

Several of my favorites are found in scripture, among them the daughters of Zelophehad. These five women (Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah and Tirzah) had no brothers, and as such, they were not legally entitled to inherit any land. But they stood up for themselves, confronted Moses, and demanded land, saying “Why should the name of our father be taken away from his clan because he had no son? Give to us a possession among our father’s brothers” (Numbers 27:4). Moses brought the case before God, whose answer always makes me grin: “The daughters of Zelophehad are right.” The land was granted to them, and the law was changed so that all men without sons would be able to pass their inheritance on to their daughters. (Read the entire story in Numbers 27:1-11.)

The story is less than perfect, I realize, but it is radical nevertheless. So again, who are your heroes? In light of the actions of the women of Oaxaca, let us remember those who have gone before us who have dared to stand up for themselves. And may we be inspired to do the same.

I welcome your comments…

Noelle

July was a month of transition. I’m glad August is here. It feels somehow like a new beginning, like the transition is turning now into normalcy.

Then again, I’m always trying to find a way out of necessary transition. I tend to value the destination over the journey. I want to have arrived. And I want to have arrived yesterday.

But if I’m honest with myself, and if I’m honest with you, I have to admit that this is probably just the beginning of a long season of transition: for myself and for NNPCW. Such a season of transition is inevitable, given the fact that I’m new to the network, that NNPCW will be getting a new intern at the end of this month, that a class of young women has graduated, and that a new class awaits at the threshold.

While transition doesn’t come naturally to me, however, I am learning to live with it (this year seems to be characterized by one transition after another!), and I’m even learning to appreciate it. I’ve felt this appreciation most strongly over the last few months, ever since I learned I was pregnant with my first child. The news came as a bit of a surprise, and I’ve actually appreciated the fact that I have a nine-month-long journey to arrive at this destination. Transition can give us the time we need to get used to change in our lives. It can be grace hidden in chaos.

So while I don’t naturally like to journey without knowing when I will “arrive,” a strange and calming peace has characterized my current transition into the position of Associate for NNPCW. I feel the stirrings of God’s Spirit among you, and I look ahead at our journey together with anticipation and excitement. Sure, I’m still excited to learn just where it is we’re going, and I’m sure once we figure that out it’s going to be tempting to take my eyes off the journey and fix them on the destination, but for now I’m okay with the unknowing. I’m okay with the transition, the easing in, the growing.

My prayer is that we will journey through this transition together with grace, patience, faithfulness and determination. I have no doubt that the journey will be difficult at times, but I have every confidence that it will be well worth it.

Let’s journey together.

Noelle

“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” –Hebrews 11:1

“I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work in you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ.” --Philippians 1:6