Network Notes

A Blog of Her Own

2008-10-13T17:52:00.004-04:00

NNPCW's blog has a new look, a new name, and a new location!

"Network Notes" is now "A Blog of Her Own."

Come visit us, and let us know what you think!

Network Notes archives will continue to be available on this site.

Internship Opportunities in Geneva, Switzerland

2008-10-02T11:30:00.002-04:00

The World Student Christian Federation, a global federation of student Christian groups, is offering two year-long internships based in Geneva, Switzerland.

One of the interships will focus on WSCF's work on human rights and solidarity, and the other will focus on communications.

Applications are due at the end of this month. The internships run from Feb 2009-Jan 2010. The starting date is negotiable.

Please email noelle.gulden@pcusa.org for a copy of the full job description and job application.

You can visit WSCF's website for more information about the organization.

2008-09-29T16:05:00.006-04:00

October is domestic violence awareness month.

Each year the Presbyterians Against Domestic Violence Network (PADVN) provides a packet to assist congregations and communities in ministering to individuals and families afftected by domestic violence.

This year's packet focuses on elder abuse, but you can find materials related to other forms of domestic violence here.

I encourage you to check out these resources and lead a worship service or domestic violence awareness event at your church, on your campus, or at your campus ministry.

Unfortunately, domestic violence affects every community of faith. The congregation where I worship was recently confronted with this brutal fact when one of our members was shot and killed by her husband. The resources offered by PADVN have been helpful to our faith community as we deal with the aftermath of this tragedy and as we seek to prevent such violence from occuring again. It is my prayer that they will be helpful to you as well.

Let us know what you do this coming month to help raise awareness about domestic violence.

How Then Shall We Vote?

2008-09-18T10:59:00.004-04:00

As each of us discerns how we are going to vote in this and subsequent elections, I would like to point you to several wonderful resources produced by the Presbyterian Church (USA).

1. Presbyterian Social Witness Policy Compilation:
Throughout the history of the Presbyterian Church (USA) and its predecessor denominations, the General Assemblies have adopted numerous social witness policies that help the church to discern faithful acts of public witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

All of these policies have been brought together in an online guide arranged by topic. (I suggest that you view the guide in Java by clicking the tab that says “Java” just beneath the PC(USA) logo.)

As you examine what the candidates have to say about such issues as war, public education, reproductive rights, immigration, and the economy (to name a few), you can use the compilation to see what our church’s social witness policies have to say about these same issues.

This resource is produced by the General Assembly Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy, and is updated annually. (Please note that the current copy online does not yet include policies adopted by the 218th General Assembly, which met this past June.)

2. “Christian and Citizen” Booklet:
The “Christian and Citizen” Booklet identifies some of the main policy issues that will be highlighted in this current election campaign, and gives the reader a sample of General Assembly statements that relate to these specific public policy issues.

The booklet also includes an theological introduction that outlines the challenging call we have as Christians to engage in political life.

This resource is produced by the PC(USA) Washington Office, and it does include policies adopted by the 218th General Assembly.

3. PC(USA) Washington Office Election Year Resource List:
The PC(USA) Washington Office website provides an extensive resource list every election year.

It includes voter registration information, worship resources, a study guide on Christians and Government, and several “how to” guides.

Many blessings as we each discern God’s call to engage in the public witness of the gospel this election season!

Reframing the Conversation

2008-09-16T10:22:00.002-04:00

A good conversation was begun over the weekend about the current presidential race, but as some of my postings and comments were perceived as supporting one party over the other, I want to reframe the conversation. Therefore, I have removed my last two posts. Please check back this week for new posts and a new conversation about the issues surrounding this race.

Blessings,
Noelle

NNPCW rocks my world

2008-09-02T14:49:00.002-04:00

a reflection on NNPCW's annual event by abigail king kaiser

the national network of presbyterian college women just might be the most fabulous part of PCUSA. though no longer a "college woman"(i am a student...) i always wanted to go to a nnpcw leadership event and never could make it while i was in college. but here i am in the same city as their annual leadership event, so i signed up and today i went.

"no one can give you the work you must do... your soul must call forth the work."rev. dr. katie cannon's keynote this morning took my breath away. she taught me a lot about myself. she challenged us to listen to our pleasure... something difficult for me. i think life should be hard, and that if i am not stressed and stretched, i am not working hard enough. i tend to think that if i am not hurting in some way, i am not contributing to the world. rev. dr. cannon reminded me that what we love, what gives us joys, what connects us with the divine is the imago dei in us... and to step on that or to allow others to step on that is a sin.

it is important to remember those folk who got me where i am... there are a long list of them... but it is also important to be able to see the contributions i make to others. these days i find myself apologizing to others (perhaps for no reason, or before the fact, or just in case) and calling myself/thinking of myself as just a minion--a tiny, replaceable cog in a big machine. maybe this is true, maybe it is not. but i, of all people, should not be giving myself a hard time. i am my biggest obstacle most often, and rev. dr. cannon showed me that... something important to remember as i embark on new journeys as a "pastoral assistant" and "local assistant to the moderator" (i promise to try to stop calling myself a minion and thinking of myself that way. big sin.)

and after this bit of church (it was a sacred time and place) i lead a workshop. there... i claimed my authority. i lead a workshop and had a blast! six fabulous women joined me and we played with art, talking through how the arts can contribute to our faith lives and social change. we did a visual lectio divina of micah 6:6-8, in two languages. i learned from each of the women about who God calls us to be. the beautiful images they created are still swirling in my head. i was worried i wouldn't be able to fill up an hour and a half (and yes found myself apologizing to these ladies before we had even done anything) and couldn't believe how quickly the time went. i hope they had as much fun as i did. and i hope that i am blessed enough to continue to work with some of these women in the church in the future.

so in closing, i heart nnpcw and you should too.

"What You Don't Know Can't Hurt You." Really?

2008-07-26T23:30:00.004-04:00

Here's something I didn't know until about five minutes ago: there is more than one type of breast cancer, and the most aggressive type is undetectable by self-examination or mammogram. It is called Inflammatory Breast Cancer.

My younger sister sent me a youtube video about IBC, which was the first time I had ever heard of it. Please watch the video.

Here are some of the major symptoms of IBC, according to the IBC Research Foundation:

Swelling, usually sudden, sometimes a cup size in a few days
Itching
Pink, red, or dark colored area (called erythema) sometimes with texture similar to the skin of an orange (called peau d’orange)
Ridges and thickened areas of the skin
Nipple retraction
Nipple discharge, may or may not be bloody
Breast is warm to the touch
Breast pain (from a constant ache to stabbing pains)
Change in color and texture of the areola

As I've been writing this, I've had the TV on in the background, and I've already heard several commercials about weight loss, feminine odor, and cosmetics--all targeted to women. It's this overabundance of useless information, and the dearth of life-saving information about women's health and overall wellbeing, that reminds me of why women's movements are absolutely crucial.

"What you don't know can't hurt you." So the saying goes, but I choose to disagree. I hope you will, too.

Please educate yourself, spread the word, and keeping working for a more just and loving world.

The Perils of Being a Perfectionist in an Imperfect Church

2008-07-10T10:58:00.009-04:00

For those of you who have never met me, I am a perfectionist.

For those of you who have met me, could that be more obvious?

You've heard the saying, "Don't let the good be the enemy of the great," right? Well my problem is letting the great (or perfect) become the enemy of the good (or imperfect).

My husband/partner, John, and I have recently begun a nightly discipline of reading scripture together, beginning in the book of Acts. We are practicing the ancient discipline of lectio divina, or holy reading, a contemplative reading of scripture that seeks connection with God.

Being the Bible nerd that I am (once upon a time I wanted to teach Old Testament; still do some days), I tend toward analyzation of the text rather than spiritual contemplation. Last night we read Acts 2:37-47. This passage, which talks about the very beginnings of the early church, totally facsinates me. When it was my turn to reflect on the passage, I couldn't stop talking. Of course, most of what I had to say wasn't very contemplative, but focused instead on asking questions about what it means to be church.

In my refecting, I realized that I have let the idea of a great and/or perfect church become an enemy of a good and imperfect church. I realized that I am looking for a very clear-cut answer of what it means to be "true" church--I'm looking for an instruction book of sorts. In some ways that's what I've grown up thinking the books of Acts was meant to be.

We're not there yet, but not too long and we will hit the part in the book of Acts where the disciples themselves start to develop different ideas about what it means to be church. From the very beginning of our story, the church has been trying to figure out what it means to be church. And the struggle continues: we saw that a few short weeks ago at GA. There is no clear cut answer. We have guides, such as the Bible and the Holy Spirit, but we will continue to disagree about what we think these guides are saying to us, just as the disciples did. And I'm learning that that's okay. There is no perfect church, not at least on this side of eternity. What we have is a little chaotic, and more than a little imperfect, but it is still church.

And the best way to continue figuring out how to be a faithful (not a perfect!) church is to get in and join the story. I'm still often tempted to step back and analyze from a distance, in hopes of finding a clean and effective model for the perfect church, but I'm actively resisting that tempatation. I'm just going to jump in and start messing up with the best of them...

noelle

Kids or Career? Do We Have to Choose?

2008-06-16T14:24:00.002-04:00

"My feminism doesn't extinguish my burning desire to one day bear and mother my own children. It just makes my commitment to changing the world, so that both my partner and I can be whole while parenting, all the more urgent." --Courtney E. Martin

Every once in a while I come across an article that speaks deeply into what I feel and names for me realities that I have been struggling to articulate. Here is one of them:

Alice and Rebecca Walker Clash: Do Feminist Mothers Have to Choose Between Dreams and Diapers? by Courtney E. Martin

I would love to hear if this article strikes a chord with anyone else!

Blessings,
Noelle

Where Two or Three are Gathered

2008-05-31T13:19:00.005-04:00

This past weekend my husband, son and I drove to Flat Rock, NC for the wedding of one of our best friends from seminary. Several other of our seminary friends made the journey, some from nearby and others from such faraway places as Rochester and San Francisco.

These friends were some of the women I was closest to during my time at Princeton. We all lived in the same dorm (Hodge Hall), and we met every Friday afternoon to talk about our joys and our struggles from the week in a time known as "Wine and Whine."

Being with these women again reminded me of the importance of creating circles of trust, and particularly of the importance of creating circles of trust made up of women. We gathered together over wine after the reception had ended and shared with each other the current joys and struggles of our lives. What a blessing it was to share in each other's happines as well as to bear one another's burdens!

Do you have a circle of trust on your campus, in your congregation, or somewhere else? If so, please share with us about it. If not, think about starting one (NNPCW has resources that can help get you started).

I'm thinking about starting something here in Louisville with a couple of the women I know best. It's in such gatherings as these that I most fully experience the life-giving power of God's Spirit. I wish that for all of you, too.

Try Fitting This on a Hallmark Card

2008-05-09T13:59:00.004-04:00

The Mother's Day Proclamation
by Julia Ward Howe

Arise, then, women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts,
Whether our baptism be of water or of tears!

Say firmly:
"We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
We, the women of one country, will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."

From the bosom of the devastated
Earth a voice goes up with our own.
It says: "Disarm! Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice."
Blood does not wipe out dishonor, nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil at the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel.

Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace,
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God.

In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality
May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient
And at the earliest period consistent with its objects,
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions,
The great and general interests of peace.

One of the earliest calls to celebrate Mother's Day, this proclamation was written in 1870.

Please Call Me Ms. Gulden

2008-05-05T13:16:00.006-04:00

A free t-shirt to the reader who guesses where I was when I heard the following this past weekend (from two separate men):

Man #1: "Hello, beautiful."

Man #2: "How do you keep your cute little figure? You must work hard at it."

Any guesses?

A bar? A party? A dance club?

Correct answer: Church.

That's right. Church. My church. Where my husband serves as pastor.

The first line was technically delivered after the service was over, as I was walking to get in line for the potluck being held that day. The second line was delivered right smack in the middle of worship, as I was walking up to the communion table. It came from the man I had been sitting next to all service, a man who was now standing behind me as we filed into line.

I didn't know how to respond to either of these comments. It's not that I didn't know how they made me feel: they both made me uncomfortable, and the second comment in particular made me feel quite vulnerable. (What part of my "cute little figure" was he looking at as he decided to pose his question to me?)

Had I been at work or in public, I probably would have responded with a polite yet firm "Please call me Ms. Gulden" to the first comment or "That's an inappropriate question" to the second. But instead I offerered only an annoyed sigh.

Why is that? Why didn't I know how to repond to these comments in my own church? Why do I think I would have reponded differently in a different context?

I seem to have a similarly difficult time standing up to such comments (directed either at me or at others) when they originate from members of my family or my husband's family. Again, why is that?

I talked with my husband after church about these two incidents, and he and I agreed that we both need to address such comments head-on when we hear them. I, as a woman, need to continue to learn how to assert myself and demand basic respect from others. He, as a man, needs to talk to other men and help them to understand why such comments are harmful and unacceptable.

But it needs to move beyond that. The church as a whole needs to remember that sexim and racism and other forms of discrimination are real. And they are alive and well in the church. We need to continue to struggle with how to rid our communities of these sins so that we can truly become the community that God created us to be: the beloved community, a community of justice and wholeness and peace--shalom.

Gate A-4 (poem)

2008-04-30T12:56:00.006-04:00

by Naomi Shihab Nye

Naomi Shihab Nye is a poet, essayist, and novelist. This poem was published in Peacework Magazine, Issue 382 - February 2008

Wandering around the Albuquerque Airport Terminal, after learning my flight had been detained four hours, I heard an announcement: "If anyone in the vicinity of Gate A-4 understands any Arabic, please come to the gate immediately." Well -- one pauses these days. Gate A-4 was my own gate. I went there. An older woman in full traditional Palestinian embroidered dress, just like my grandma wore, was crumpled to the floor, wailing loudly. "Help," said the Flight Service Person. "Talk to her. What is her problem? We told her the flight was going to be late and she did this." I stooped to put my arm around the woman and spoke to her haltingly. "Shu dow-a, Shu-bid-uck Habibti? Stani schway, Min fadlick, Shu-bit-se-wee?" The minute she heard any words she knew, however poorly used, she stopped crying. She thought the flight had been cancelled entirely. She needed to be in El Paso for major medical treatment the next day. I said, "You're fine, you'll get there, who is picking you up? Let's call him." We called her son and I spoke with him in English. I told him I would stay with his mother till we got on the plane and would ride next to her -- Southwest.

She talked to him. Then we called her other sons just for fun. Then we called my dad and he and she spoke for a while in Arabic and found out of course they had ten shared friends. Then I thought just for the heck of it why not call some Palestinian poets I know and let them chat with her? This all took up about two hours. She was laughing a lot by then. Telling about her life, patting my knee, answering questions. She had pulled a sack of homemade mamool cookies -- little powdered sugar crumbly mounds stuffed with dates and nuts -- out of her bag -- and was offering them to all the women at the gate. To my amazement, not a single woman declined one. It was like a sacrament. The traveler from Argentina, the mom from California, the lovely woman from Laredo -- we were all covered with the same powdered sugar. And smiling. There is no better cookie. And then the airline broke out the free beverages from huge coolers and two little girls from our flight ran around serving us all apple juice and they were covered with powdered sugar too. And I noticed my new best friend -- by now we were holding hands -- had a potted plant poking out of her bag, some medicinal thing, with green furry leaves. Such an old country traveling tradition. Always carry a plant. Always stay rooted to somewhere. And I looked around that gate of late and weary ones and thought, this is the world I want to live in. The shared world. Not a single person in this gate -- once the crying of confusion stopped -- seemed apprehensive about any other person. They took the cookies. I wanted to hug all those other women too. This can still happen anywhere. Not everything is lost.

thirtysomething

2008-04-27T14:34:00.005-04:00

I don't know how to be thirtysomething.

Caught between my twenties and my forties--between young adulthood and, well, just plain adulthood--I'm perplexed.

I think part of the reason for my confusion is that I am a church-going Christian, and I also happen to work for the church. And, as we all know, it's the thirtysomethings that are largely missing from the church. So the two places where I spend most of my time are virtually thirtysomethingless.

All you twentysomethings: am I romanticizing the decade I most recently left behind? Did I really know how to be twentysomething? Do you feel like you know how to fare this phase? I think having spent most of my twenties in school surrounded by other twentysomethings gave me a pretty good clue about what it meant to be twentysomething. And I'm sure it didn't hurt that most of the older adults in my life during that stage were used to working with twentysomethings.

But now I find myself in a strange no-woman's-land of missing thirtysomethings. There are a few of us around the church, but we're not quite as visible as the twentysomethings. And the older adults I'm encountering now don't seem to know quite what to do with the few of us that are here.

I love the intergenerational reality that is the mainline church. But I miss having space to be with other people my age. Most of the thirtysomethings I know are friends from other walks of life. We are figuring out together what it means to be thirty. But I find myself longing for a mentor, for a woman who's just a few more years into this decade than I am to take me by the hand and tell me that this uncertainly that I feel is normal. To assure me that I will eventually come to know what it is that I want to do with my life. To agree with me that the myth of the working supermother is both out-of-reach and dangerous. To challenge me to resist settling down if that means getting so tied to material things that I betray the truly important things.

Where are my fellow thirtysomethings? What does it mean to be thirtysomething? Have you figured it out? Who showed you the way?

I'm Back!

2008-04-25T16:50:00.003-04:00

Wow. That was a long--and unintentional--hiatus.

For some reason I've been blocked from accessing blogspot from my computer here at work. For several weeks. Access was finally restored again this afternoon.

So here I am, with a LOT on my mind. I'm ready to blog again. So stay tuned...

It's good to be back.

Tag, I'm It! (PresbyMEME5)

2008-03-29T21:43:00.008-04:00

Have you ever heard of a meme?

According to Bruce Reyes-Chow, one of the candidates for Moderator of the General Assembly, a meme is

"a list of questions that is passed along from blogger to blogger in order to learn things about people, increase traffic and be annoying to those who never do memes. Think chain letter for blogs, but without any horrible ramifications if you stop it."

Bruce recently started a Presbyterian Church (USA)-specific meme. John of Shuck and Jive tagged me; he was tagged by Drew of Notes from Off-Center.

Here are the rules, as set forth by Bruce:
- In about 25 words each, answer the following five questions;
- Tag five presbyterian bloggers and send them a note to let them know they were tagged;
- Be sure to link or send a trackback to this post.

So here we go. PresbyMEME 5:

What is your earliest memory of being distinctly Presbyterian?

I was baptized in the Ukranian Orthodox Church, received first communion and got confirmed in the Lutheran Church (ELCA), spent ten years in a non-denominational church, went to seminary at Princeton, and then married a PC(USA) minister and joined a PC(USA) congregation. I don't know that I am "distinctly" Presbyterian. Should I be?

On what issue/question should the PC(USA) spend LESS energy and time?

I think we need to spend less time focusing on all of those things of which we're so afraid (losing members, scarcity, "the other," etc.) and focus instead on casting out our fear.

On what issue/question should the PC(USA) spend MORE energy and time?

Young adults. Need I say more?

If you could have the PC(USA) focus on one passage of scripture for a entire year, what would it be?

"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all our mind and with all your strength.... Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these." (Mark 12:30-31)

If the PC(USA) were an animal what would it be and why?

A sheep. Maybe a stray one.

Extra Credit: Jesus shows up at General Assembly this year, what does he say to the Presbyterian Church (USA)?

So this is what you all have been doing for the last 2,000 years!

I tagged Mark Koenig and Amanda Craft (Swords into Plowshares), Lee Hinson-Hasty (A More Expansive View), Irene Pak (Me, Myself and Irene), Andrew Kang Bartlett (Food and Faith), and Jud Hendrix. (IWonder).

2008-03-05T11:20:00.001-05:00

Sumbitted by Hillary Mohaupt

One of the remarkable things about the Internet is that you can type nearly anything into a search engine and find whatever your heart desires. In the rise and fall of the last few weeks—experiencing the loss of my grandmother, getting my first acceptance letters for graduate schools, struggling with the snobbish side of Macalester’s culture, celebrating with a friend as she comes to know herself a little better by embracing the sexuality with which she has wrestled—I have been drawn back to a sentence I found years ago.

Sometime during my first year at Mac, I encountered the gentle reminder, “Life is once, twice and yet again.” I taped it on my computer monitor and it has hung there patiently, waiting for me to find it again this week. When I did find it, I wanted to contextualize it. So I turned to Google for help. The first few searches came up fruitless, and I was closer to distress than to annoyance. Here was a line that was speaking to my experience and I couldn’t even remember who wrote it!

But tonight, Google came through. Naly Yang’s poem, “In Remembrance,” appeared in Bamboo Among the Oaks: Contemporary Writing by Hmong Americans in 2002, and my sentence drew the poem to a close. As I wrap up my time at Macalester and in NNPCW, anything “in remembrance” seems particularly apt. As we remember, we re-experience and re-interpret.
There is hope in Naly Yang’s brief reminder. We can remember and re-interpret and even re-live what we have known, or, better, we can move on to something completely new and, dare I say, refreshing. We can renew our spirits and replenish our hearts. We are given the promise of unending love, which can transform us beyond our own experiences. God’s love in the world recalls what even Google can’t adequate convey: the darker moments will be brightened by friendships and adventures, and exuberant joy will be tempered by the call of the world to dig down deep to engage the world in hard work and complicated questions. We remember and we continue to live. In a sentence, “life is once, twice and yet again.”

Hillary is a senior at Macalester College in St. Paul, MN. She is currently a member of NNPCW's Coordinating Committee, but sadly, her term ends this year. We will miss her dearly.

When African-American history is just known as history

2008-02-20T13:58:00.005-05:00

A message to the PC(USA) from the vice-moderator

by Elder Robert E. Wilson
PC(USA) General Assembly vice-moderator

Do we need Black History Month? Yes.

But we need to get back to the original intent of the celebration.

Black History Month began as a yearlong study and discussion of African-American history, with the month of
February as the kickoff. Many say Black History Month is necessary until textbooks more completely and accurately portray the contributions Blacks have made.

We need to make sure books and curricula are upgraded so that schools and churches can teach Black History the whole year, rather than one month. Black students, as well as Asians, Native American, Hispanic/Latino and White students need to know more about African American culture than just the history associated with slave owners.

The main thing they need to know is about the people who were willing to make that ultimate sacrifice for freedom.

Did you know, for example, that in 1801 the General Assembly of the Presbyterian church appointed John Chavis (ca. 1763−1838) as the first Presbyterian missionary to African-American slaves? A free Black, Chavis preached to slaves and mixed audiences. He served as a missionary, teacher, and minister in Virginia from 1801−1807 and in North Carolina from 1807−1832.

We yearn for the time when African-American History is just known as history.

The PC(USA) professes that racism in all its forms is contrary to the gospel of Jesus Christ? It also acknowledges that racism is a reality in both church and society. The church is committed to spiritually confronting the ideology of racism and racial oppression and working to overcome racism with prayer, discernment and worship-based action.

Last month, on Race Relations Sunday, we affirmed that Jesus calls us to love in a world of challenges. God makes us live together. We are not made for separation; we are made for each other. We are not made for individuality; we are made for community. We are not made for division; we are made for love.

Unfortunately, every day we confess our complicity in creating and maintaining love of race throughout life,
including within the church. At the same time, though, we celebrate God’s vision of life together. We commit to confronting the love of race, and we renew our intention to live according to God’s vision. And, ultimately, it is God’s vision that will come to fruition.

It is time to join in God’s vision. Are you ready? Is your church ready?

This story may also be seen here:
http://www.pcusa.org/pcnews/2008/08133.htm

2008-02-11T13:02:00.001-05:00

submitted by Hailee Barnes

Does something have to be fact to be true? Can something be true in my life and faith without
being fact?

These questions were raised in my campus group this Sunday as we are following a series titled “Living the Questions.” Last night’s discussion was based on the topic of “Thinking Theologically.”

We were asked the questions: What is the character of your God? How does your church worship God in a way that fits with God’s character? And a few other questions that I cannot remember. There was a good discussion, but there were so many questions and thoughts presented that it was hard to leave and turn off those wheels long enough to get some homework done.

I feel a little too overwhelmed by the questions right now to discuss them so I am going to leave it at that and see if maybe these questions lead you anywhere or spark more questions.

Hailee is a student at the University of Montana in Missoula, MT. She is the incoming co-moderator of NNPCW's Coordinating Committee.

Love is All You Need

2008-02-04T09:45:00.000-05:00

by Jennifer Ross

For me, my faith and service work have always been inextricably connected. I believe serving others is my call as a Christian. We are told over and over again throughout the Bible to build community with others, to serve others. This summer, I will be traveling to Tanzania, Africa to build community with my brothers and sisters in Christ, teaching English to the Maasai people. This trip has been on my mind a lot lately and I mention it as a segue into a more general musing about why I think service is important.

I try to live my life by the Gospel lessons. Jesus came to earth to save us from our sins and commanded us to love our God and to love our neighbors as ourselves. In this globalized world, I think we often forget the love our neighbors as ourselves part. Jesus did not mean, love your friends and family, love the people who think and act like you, love those of a similar economic status, love those who have received the same amount of education as you or love yourself alone. No, Jesus tells us to love everyone. Everyone. The homeless, the working poor, the Republicans, the Democrats, the drug addicts, those in prison, anyone who is oppressed or an outcast of society in addition to the people that society deems easy to love.

Jesus lays it all out there for us, tells and shows us what we are supposed to do; all we have to do is follow it. Jesus ate with the tax collector, talked with the Samaritan woman, healed the lepers—defied social norms! How radical! Jesus shows us and now we have got to go out and do the same. That is what life is about for me. Serving, being in community with all of my brothers and sisters in Christ. Think about it, the most radical thing we can do, is to choose to love each other.

And so that is what I am going to do. I am going to make community with, to love, my brothers and sisters in Africa, in the hopes of doing something to lighten their load, sharing their burden and they in turn will share mine. That is the great thing about community—sharing. If I am open to it, their hopes, fears, burdens will become my hopes and fears and burden and my hopes, fears and burdens will become their hopes and fears and burdens. One thing that never ceases to amaze me is human beings’ capacity to love. In the face of the worst possible trial or tribulation, we never loose our ability to love.

Love is all you need.

I realize how silly and idealistic it seems, how one could say, "oh you young college student, you. You don't know the ways of the world!" But think about it! What can love not do? Love can bring food and water to those who don't have any, love can stop fighting, love can teach children how to read. Love can do all of these things because Love died on a cross to save us. When we love each other, we are realizing and affirming one another's humanity.

So go out in the world today and love someone. Because, as the old hymn says, “they will know we are Christians by our love, by our love…”

Jennifer is a senior at Rhodes College in Memphis, TN. She is also on NNPCW's Coordinating Committee.

Continuing the legacy of bold women

2008-01-31T13:31:00.000-05:00

Biblical women and modern-day mentors gave me courage to visualize my ministry

by Irene Pak

"She said to him, ‘Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.” (John 11:27)

Many of us are familiar with Jesus’ powerful words, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die” (John 11:25-26). What we usually don’t hear or remember is the question following that statement and the response.

Jesus then asks, “Do you believe this?” He is talking to Martha, a woman, and she responds with a profound articulate theological answer. “Yes, Lord, I believe you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.”

When I took the time to really listen to that response, I was surprised for a couple of reasons. I was surprised because throughout the gospels none of Jesus’ twelve disciples could articulate who Jesus was like Martha was able to do. They usually didn’t get it, or get him. They were the ones that asked questions of clarification and were told stories in parables. So, it surprised me to hear such a strong statement of understanding from a woman.

Then again, when I think about the women in the gospels, I notice a pattern. Women on the margins, women who are outcasts, the “other,” are the ones who dare to ask for healing and trust it will happen. They are the ones touching the cloak, wiping Jesus’ feet with perfume and hair, making bold faith statements, asking about living water, and making articulate claims as to who Jesus is as Savior.

Why is it then, even with these stories in my mind, I am surprised when a woman in the Bible or even in the present day can make strong statements of understanding and faith? Why is it that when I envision a “pastor” the first image that appears is an older white male?

As a young adult woman of color and candidate for ordination, these realizations bother me. It was what deterred me from responding to the calling I felt to ministry at a young age. Pastors were older, men, usually white, and “really holy.” I was none of those things and shoved the Spirit’s calling aside. I had never even seen or met an Asian American female pastor until I went to seminary years later!

Praise God for an older white male pastor who when I finally “gave in” to God’s calling gave me opportunities to lead, experience and share my faith and begin to articulate my understanding to God’s people. I am incredibly thankful for him and for the nurture and mentorship he provided me during those formative years.

It wasn’t, however, until I met other women and other women who looked like me in different forms of ministry that I began to fully enter into and feel empowered to do the work God was calling me to do.

In the recent celebration of 50 years of ordination of women as ministers of Word and Sacrament in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), my heart was grateful for all of the women who have paved the way for me so that I have the privilege to follow my own call. And yet, we all know that the line of strong women of faith traces its roots to biblical times. It’s amazing to know that I am a continuing part of that legacy.

When Martha responds, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world,” she affirms her belief in Jesus and who he is and springs forth life into his prior statement. This is the One who broke boundaries and dared to reach out, eat with, heal and touch those considered on the margins, including women. This is the One who she boldly affirms and puts her trust in.

As I dare to join the circle of women who have courageously walked in faith, I pray for a day when we automatically envision women and men of all races, ethnicities, age and abilities as leaders of the church. I am excited to be part of that vision.

Irene Pak is a young adult intern serving in the ministry of Racial Justice and Advocacy. A graduate of McCormick Theological Seminary, she is a candidate for ordination in the Presbytery of Utah.

Prophetic Words, Uncomfortable Words

2008-01-24T11:07:00.000-05:00

“Too much of the white church is timid and ineffectual, and some of it is shrill in its defense of bigotry and prejudice. In most communities, the spirit of status quo is endorsed by the churches.”
- Martin Luther King, Jr

These words, spoken in 1965, make me uncomfortable. These words, spoken almost 43 years ago, make me uncomfortable because these words are as true today as they were then.

Such are the words of true prophets: they stand for decades—even millennia—and as long as they stand they continue to afflict those who have ears to hear. When I hear these prophetic words, I am afflicted because not only do I know that they are true, but I know that they implicate me. I know that King is talking about my Church, about my actions, about me.

Toward the end of his life, King grew more and more disenchanted—angry, even—with moderate and liberal whites in America, and especially with the white church. In the same interview in which King spoke the words in the above quote, he shared that his personal disillusionment with the white church began when the white ministers, priests and rabbis of the South did not prove to be the strong allies he expected them to be during the Montgomery bus boycott.

The white church (and the majority of whites in America, really) only continued to disappoint King as his prophetic ministry continued through to its untimely end in 1968, when King was murdered. I am ashamed to imagine what he would say of us (and to us) today.

As a young white woman living in the United States, I benefit from the status quo. The status quo upholds white privilege, which not only makes it difficult for white persons to recognize and understand racism (“a fish doesn't know water,” as the saying goes), but also to move toward dismantling racism once we do begin to understand what racism is, why it is a sin, and why it is so destructive. For racism requires those of us who benefit from its oppressive structure to relinquish the ill-gotten privilege we receive from that structure. And let’s be honest: power and privilege are hard to let go.

But power and privilege hold nothing to God’s vision of shalom, of wholeness, justice and righteousness, and peace. And it is for nothing less than shalom—life abundant—that we are called to follow Christ. We cannot faithfully follow Christ’s call and still hold on to the sins of oppressive power and privilege. In order to follow Christ, we must seek a different sort of power, a God-given power that is shared by all, and this will require a giving up of power currently held by some so that it can indeed be shared with those from whom it has so long been withheld.
May God continue to provide us with prophetic voices in our midst to call us to God’s shalom. And may God give us the strength to answer that call.

“For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline” (II Timothy 1:7, NIV).

For information on how to combat racism, please visit the Web site of Racial Justice and Advocacy, a ministry of the General Assembly Council.

2008-01-14T13:49:00.000-05:00

by Rachael Whaley

Good afternoon, fellow feminists! I write to you on a rather blustery day in East Tennessee, and I am glad that winter weather has finally returned, although I did enjoy the few 70-degree days last week.

I am taking an Ethics course during this January mini-term, a three-week course that meets for 3 hours everyday (think summer school, except without the pool waiting for you in the afternoon). I have been pondering several concepts this week, such as what makes an act good? Or ethical, moral, etc. My assigned reading for today discussed virtue ethics, which asks what humanity ought to be rather than what we ought to do. (If this sounds a little mundane, I apologize for reviewing for my exam tomorrow while simultaneously writing this blog). The part of my reading which caught my attention was a section entitled, “Masculine and Feminine Virtues.” The following quotation is a portion of that section:

The context for women’s moral decision making is said to be one of relatedness…They are partial to their particular loved ones and think that one’s moral responsibility is first of all to these persons…Women stress the concrete experiences of this or that event and are concerned about the real harm that might befall a particular person or persons…Men are more inclined to talk in terms of fairness and justice and rights. They ask about the overall effects of some action and whether the good effects, when all considered, outweigh the bad. It is as though they think moral decisions ought to be made impersonally or from some unbiased and detached point of view.

The text also includes a table that lists contrasting virtues that fall in either masculine or feminine columns, such as men value reason while women value feeling, and women are partial while men are impartial. The logical inconsistencies not withstanding, I was appalled to find such blatant sexism in a textbook written in 2007.

I took a course during my sophomore year in Western Civilizations covering the Early Modern Period to the present, and anyone who has studied this time period knows that a large portion of the class was dedicated to colonialism. This particular course focused on British India in the 19th and 20th centuries. One particular lecture focused on the supposed justification for colonization, and the professor began to write a table on the chalkboard with opposing attributes that the British applied to themselves, the colonizers; and to the Indians, those being colonized. These attributes were lies the British told themselves in order to justify exerting power on another nation. This table looked something like this:
British--Indian
Masculine--Feminine
Rational--Irrational
Universal--Concrete
Strong--Weak

Look familiar? After reading the appalling list in the textbook I could not help but dwell on the uncanny resemblance to that colonization table. The idea that all women and all men think in certain ways is extremely problematic, but it is not the crux of the issue. The virtues associated with femininity in the first case and with the colonized Indians in the second case are commonly known as inferior virtues. In the post-Enlightenment West, impartiality, rationality, and universality are believed to be superior virtues of superior minds, and by applying these virtues to men (or to a colonial power) they are implying that they are superior beings.

I end this blog asking you to ponder one question: Is there such a thing as the female moral/ethical perspective? And if so, does it only apply to women? Is it superior or inferior? Do you think your gender has any affect on your ethical decision-making?

Rachael is a member of NNPCW's Coordinating Committee and a senior at Maryville College in Maryville, TN.

A Church to Call "Home

2008-01-07T18:03:00.000-05:00

by Maisha Johnson

For a while now, I've been without a church to call my own "home" church. There's no real reason for this, and I'm sure it's not uncommon for college students, busy and away from home, to go for a while without a home church. Recently I've been feeling the desire to find a church of my own. I can feel in my heart that somewhere in this city I live in is a faith community of love and joy, where I can feel comfortable and spiritually grounded.

So far, my search has been a promising one. But I have to admit, the optimism and hope that I've been feeling while looking for a church is somewhat new to me. In the past, I would step into a new church with trembling hands and an anxious heart. I'd sit in the back and stay quiet, reluctant to reveal too much about myself for fear of being judged. I'd pray, I'd sing, I'd prepare myself for the inevitable possibility that something would be said to make me feel offended, misjudged, out of place, or like I was doomed for the fiery pits of hell. And in the end, I would simply accept that this was church, and if I wished to express my devotion to God by attending church, this is what I would have to deal with.

I found my first PC(USA) home church by fleeing from one such experience into the sanctuary of United University Church in Los Angeles, where I felt nothing but welcomed and loved by a congregation that didn't even know me. I was surprised and relieved to discover that my previous experiences were not what make up the universal experience of "church." Since then, my search for a home church has changed. It begins, I'll admit, with the Internet. It ends, usually, with a feeling of comfort as I mingle with people who love each other and show that they would gladly extend their love to me. It turns out there are churches where feminism is not condemned, where all people are seen as equal, and where the focus is not moral judgment but compassion and social justice. These are the kinds of churches that I am looking for.

This past Sunday I continued my search. I wanted to attend church to mark the loss of a friend. It's times like these when I feel something missing without a home church, and the old feelings of anxiety began to creep in. I needed warmth, love, friends and family, and instead I would be spending my Sunday surrounded by strangers.

Oddly enough, I hardly noticed the difference. I was visiting a Presbyterian church with a small, close-knit congregation that welcomed me as one of their own. I didn't tell anyone why I was there, but when the time came to say prayers aloud I silently offered prayers for my friend and I felt that somehow I was heard. I even ran into a friend and member of NNPCW, Heather Grantham. I watched as the congregation said a heartfelt good-bye to one of their friends and staff members, and warmly welcomed Heather in her place. I felt that it was a place I could potentially call home.

If we want to follow Jesus' example we must pay attention to how he treated outsiders. I am grateful for everyone who has done as Jesus would, reaching out a hand when I felt alone and making me feel loved.

What do you look for in a home church? What do you love most about your church?

Maisha is an NNPCW Coordinating Committee member. She attends San Francisco State.

in anticipation...

2007-12-18T10:15:00.000-05:00

I love Advent. I love the hopeful anticipation of the season, the expectant waiting for Immanuel, God-with-us, to finally arrive.

Faith, for me, has always been a bit of a struggle. My creed echoes the words of the man who brought his son to Jesus for healing: "I believe; help my unbelief!" (Mark 9:24).

Advent reminds me that struggle and darkness are integral in this journey of faith. Advent reminds me that we live in the painful in-between of God-with-us and God-yet-to-come ("thy kingdom come, thy will be done"). I find comfort in Advent, in the willingness of God's people to dwell in this place of in-between while still holding on to hope. I feel at home here.

What does Advent mean to you?

Happy Holidays!

2007-12-10T17:28:00.000-05:00

Last Friday morning, as I was leaving my dentist's office after a particularly painful cleaning, the receptionist stopped me with what she felt was breaking news.

"Have you heard?" she exclaimed. Before I could answer she added, "I heard on the radio this morning that WalMart is going to begin saying 'Merry Christmas'!"

Perplexed--both at why she felt it necessary to stop me with this news, as well as at the news itself--I answered, "I thought they were already saying Merry Christmas." I thought I had recalled seeing a commercial sometime in the previous couple of weeks in which the phrase "Merry Christmas" was communicated from WalMart either in print or through the commercial's voice-over.

"No," she corrected me. "But they must have gotten a lot of pressure, becuase they're going to use 'Merry Christmas' from here on out. Target says 'Seasons Greetings,' so I don't shop there. At least not at Christmas. "

Still not knowing quite what to say, I told her that that was interesting news, and I continued on out the door.

I do not understand why so many Christians care what our secular, capitalistic corporations say during the holidays. And that is what they are: holidays. Plural. There is more than one holiday that falls during the months of December and January, what it commonly known as the holiday season.

But even if there were only one holiday, and if that holiday were Christmas, why would we care if a retail corporation like Target or WalMart refused to say "Merry Christmas"? Isn't their use of the phrase a co-opting of the very holiday? Shouldn't we much rather be up in arms about that, that these human-rights abusing, greed-perpetuating companies use our celebration of the birth of our Savior as a means of selling us their products?

How did we get this so backward?

Time

2007-11-24T10:25:00.001-05:00

submitted by Stephanie Cockerm

"There is a time for everything, and everthing on earth has its special season."--Eccleasiastes 3:1 (NCV)

I was thinking to myself the other day that I don't have enough time for myself. If I'm not at school, I'm at work; if I'm not at work, I'm doing photography, and so on. In everyone's life, one must have time for themselves such as having that QT (quality time) especially with Christ. By having time for other things but not having time for yourself can hurt you later in life. I've learned that this current semester and told myself what I should do to increased self-time:

1. Perhaps have lunch at a odd restuarant. Psychologically your body beings to feel good about itself.
2. Maybe get my nails and toes done. It's okay to pamper the body every now and then.
3. Take a leisure trip and explore. Whenever I take leisure trips (meaning I'm still in the same state, just different city) I go to clear my mind.

I can go on-and-on telling you what I should do, but what about you yourself? Do you have time for yourself? If not, I advise you to develop that QT with yourself. We as women have to face reality--we only have one life, why not give devote some time to yourself? I know that it is easier said than done, but think about it, your body deserves it....at least that's what I think.

To leave you with something to ponder about: 1. Time is not your friend...it leaves you in the dark. 2. time is not on your side. and 3. time runs out on you. So while you have some time, devote it to first GOD and then the point, yourself. Remember that anything you do can be done only if you ask in the name of Jesus. Amen

Stephanie is a student at Grambling State University in Louisianna. She is an NNPCW Coordinating Committee member.

Happy Turkeys Make Happy Thanksgivings

2007-11-20T09:53:00.000-05:00

I was a vegetarian for a year, but that ended abruptly one night when my husband (then my fiancee) came to my seminary dorm to study, a sausage breakfast sandwich from the local Wawa in hand. It was a shameful end to my vegetarianism.

I became a vegetarian because of my growing concern about factory farms, especially those that produce meat. The first two chapters of Genesis are in my top ten favorite passages of scripture, and one of the main reasons why is that I love the image of all of creation living in harmony with one another and with our Creator. And so it is important to me to "tread lightly upon the earth" as is often said. I know some would argue that this would mean becoming vegetarian, but, for better or for worse, I am someone currently feels that I need to eat meat. So the question became how to do that in a way that fits with my faith values.

I currently buy my meat (and my veggies) from a farmer named Adam Barr. He raises grass-finished beef, and he tells me his animals are happy. We don't eat much meat anymore, since it costs more to buy from a small farmer, but that's okay. I know that this is a step for me toward living in better harmony with others: people, animals, the rest of nature, and our Creator.

This Thanksgiving we are going to feast on a locally-grown, organic turkey. A shout-out to the folks at the PC(USA) Enough for Everyone program for encouraging the church toward alternative Thanksgiving traditions!

I know these are just small steps, and I know these aren't the only steps toward living out our call to "do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with [our] God" (Micah 6:8), but these are the steps that I have felt called to take in my walk as a disciple of Jesus. What steps are you taking? How can we better walk together with creation and our Creator?

Resistance

2007-11-13T13:09:00.000-05:00

submitted by Hillary Mohaupt

I have been thinking a lot about resistance lately. Not only the formal, organized Resistance I'm supposed to be studying for my senior seminar, but also everyday, unorganized, heartfelt and sometimes desperate acts of resistance towards systems of unnamable oppressions.

Because I am reading about the French Resistance, I have been impressed at the sheer amount of scholarship around two percent of a population that is so divided and so politically diverse. But my own study is recognizing that that "two percent" cited as the actual proportion of French people who resisted Fascism during World War II doesn't take into account the actions of non-French people, or the majority of those of French women.

But, most importantly, as I'm reading, I wonder what resistance looks like today. In an historical account it's easy to set up good versus evil, to render events clear-cut; it's easy to claim that we would be on the side of the resisters. How does each of us, though, participate in the oppressions? How do we doubt that resistance is possible and practical?

Progressive Christians cite Jesus' meals, foot-washing and associations with outcasts as Biblical evidence that God is on the side of the oppressed. Resistance against oppression, then, is a moral and spiritual duty—and that's often how women who participated in the French Resistance justify their decisions to shelter, aid, fight, and guide during a time of great social and political turmoil.

Does God still call us into that place of resistance, to the sides of those who are the most forgotten, the most abused? How do we follow that calling, in the fullness of our faith?

Hillary is a senior at Macalester College in St. Paul, MN.
She is on NNPCW's Coordinating Committee.

Christian Feminism: Freedom in Christ

2007-11-06T11:15:00.000-05:00

I recently read an article entitled "Confessions of a recovering feminist," written by a female M.Div. student at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary here in Louisville. You can find the article here: http://www.towersonline.net/printer.php?grp=issues&id=196

The author makes the claim that "feminism is at the very heart of our fallen nature," and that her recovery from feminism is about "repentance of [her] desire to be in control and to raise [her] fist against God's created order." She goes on to note:

Only through repentance and faith in Christ am I, or any one for that matter, able to renounce rebellion and submit to the lordship of Christ. Recovery from feminism also means truly believing that God's Word regarding gender, and everything else for that matter, is true.

I agree wholeheartedly that it is only through repentance and faith in Christ that we are able to renounce rebellion and submit to the lordship of Christ. What I don't agree with is that feminism is a rebellion against God's created order, or that a woman's submission to the lordship of Christ should result in her one-sided submission to men, based solely on gender, in either her personal or public relationships.

The good news (gospel) of Jesus Christ is that in Christ, we are set free from sin. We are set free from the curse of Genesis 3, in which humans are put into conflict with one another, with the land, and with the animals. (See Genesis 3:14-19.)

The discordance described in Genesis 3 is not God's created order! God's created order, which Christ came to restore, is beautifully described by Paul in his letter to the Galatians, in which he writes about Christian freedom.

For you were called to freedom, brothers and sister; only do not use your freedome as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another. For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself'" (Galatians 5:13-14).

In Christ, we are called to a particular type of freedom, one in which we are asked to serve one another as equals.

For in Christ Jesus you are all children of God though faith.... There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus" (Galatians 3:26, 28).

The unequal roles of "free" and "slave"--consequences of the curse of Genesis 3--are done away with. The unequal roles of "male" and "female"--also consequenses of the curse of Genesis 3--are also done away with.

There are times when we need to be reminded to serve the most vulnerable members of Christ's body as equals. That is where Christian feminists, liberation theologians, etc. best serve the church. These members of Christ's body call us in faithful and creative ways to remember what it means to be free in Christ.

I am blessed to be a part of a Christian feminist community, NNPCW. We commit to feminism as an extension of our Christian belief that all people are made in the image of God as equals. We affirm women's ability to think theologically, value women's diverse experiences of all systems of oppression, acknowledge our participation in such systems, and accept our responsibility as Christian women to work for God's fuller justice.

Far from being at the heart of our fallen nature, feminism can be a great means toward freedom and equality in Christ.

Giving Thanks for NNPCW

2007-10-29T09:13:00.000-04:00

submitted by Monica Ajak

Today I found myself thinking back to when I joined NNPCW. It was three months ago at the leadership conference this past July.

I didn’t really know what to expect before what happened was completely unexpected. During that week I learned about things that I’d never heard or thought about. And I found myself joining discussions, and actually voicing my opinions, which has always been hard for me to do. I felt empowered. I felt confident in myself when I was in the midst of you ladies. I just knew that this was where I belonged. I think it was the way everyone talked to me like you had known me for more than a few hours.

After that week, I went back to my new home in Maryland feeling refreshed. I knew that this was all God’s doing. Joining NNPCW couldn’t have come at a better time in my life. This was a time when I was filled with questions about my faith, my life, and everything in between.

So when I’m thinking back to that leadership conference I can’t help but feel thankful. Something about having NNPCW here with me makes things seem a whole lot better.

Thank you ladies!!
Monica

Monica is a member of NNPCW's Coodinating Committee

A Year of Ecumenism

2007-10-22T11:44:00.000-04:00

submitted by Hailee Barnes

It is half way through our fall semester here in Montana and so far this year has been filled with a variety of different faith circles for me. There is if course the Presbyterian/ecumenical NNPCW, I am attending the Catholic Campus Ministry (CCM), I sometimes go to the Lutheran Campus ministry discussions, and I attend the University Congregational Church.

Contrary to how this assortment of places and environments may present themselves, I am not one who likes change or surprise, and since I was not raised in any particular Christian circle there have been and continue to be lots of surprises and much change this year. During my first week on campus I attended all but two of the eight campus ministries at the University of Montana. I was surprised to find myself back at the Catholic group week after week but now that is home for me. I am in a women’s group on Monday, we have Unite on Tuesday, and Thursday night is 30 minute dance party night.

I have a weird way of organizing thoughts in my head and for some reason I felt really weird about going to CCM at first, mainly because I had never been Catholic. I have gotten over this weird feeling and now can’t think of a more open and better place for me to learn and grow in my faith. I am starting to understand how similar all Christians are and the barriers between so many of us are starting to come down.

Hailee is a student at the University of Montana in Missoula, MT. She is a member of NNPCW's Coordinating Committee.

2007-10-16T16:28:00.000-04:00

I just said goodbye to my mom who came up to Memphis to visit over Rhodes' fall break. As she was walking away from me, down the walkway past security at Memphis International Airport, I was struck by the sheer importance of family in life.

Like many teenagers, I was one of those teenagers who gave their parents a lot of grief. Looking back now, I realize how unfair I have been to my family, how I have only focused on the negatives that have happened rather than the countless blessings that my family has given me. Family is so crucial and so valuable- they can rejoice with you when you are happy and mourn with you when you are sad. They can build you up, and be your best audience. They can take the good and the bad and will always love you no matter what.

Don't get me wrong, I know that family can be a difficult for some, horrendous for many, but for me it has been so incredibly important to remember that those who you consider your family do not have to be of blood relation. I consider most of my friends to be part of my family and I know that the women of NNPCW are my sisters. And, I guess that is all that matters.

Submitted by Jennifer Ross
Rhodes College
NNPCW Coordinating Committee

To Know

2007-10-09T13:23:00.000-04:00

The heatwave that has been hovering over the Ohio Valley for the last couple of weeks has finally lifted, and the air is a cool 72 degrees. Life is good.

I was struck with an inexplicable sense of happiness as I walked from my car to the office upon returning from my lunch break today. Actually, what I was sensing was joy.

Much ado was made about the distinction between happiness and joy in the Christian circles in which I was raised, and I have to admit that I never understood the difference. To me it was simply a word game, a debate about semantics.

But today I understood. I knew that what I was sensing was joy. I knew it in my body. I knew it in my soul.

I still explain to you the difference between happiness and joy, but I can tell you that I understand the difference. I understand it because I have experienced it.

As people of faith, that is sometimes how it goes. How do we know anything as hard to understand as joy, or faith, or peace, or God? Yes, we use words--theology, Scripture--but sometimes we also just know in our souls and in our bodies and that is enough. Sometimes we don't need words--just the presence of the Spirit, God-with-us.

2007-09-08T21:29:00.000-04:00

Submitted by Hillary Mohaupt

I was sitting in the middle of the floor, somehow both in a beauty parlor, getting my hair painted pink, and also in the saferoom of a castle waiting out a raid by a greedy knight.

Imagination is, of course, a powerful, beautiful thing, and I was enjoying an afternoon in the living room with the kids I babysit. Zack was building a complex castle out of large, colorful cardboard blocks, and Abby was combing my hair with a doll's brush. Straddling these two separate worlds, I marveled at these kids' sense of their surroundings and of their mental power. This afternoon, the living room was a baseball diamond and a pirate ship, too, somehow among the puzzles and books and art supplies strewn across the floor. I am humbled by Zack and Abby's storytelling and I am grateful they let me take part, even though my adultifying brain has slowly stiffened into a mass that can no longer bend and twist the way theirs still can.

But… sitting on floor with them, I could almost feel the cool rock walls that shook with each invading cannon fire, and I could almost see my rosy coiffure in the imaginary mirror Abby presented me.

Almost…A powerful, beautiful, spiritual thing, I think.

Hillary is a senior at Macalester College in St. Paul, MN. She is also a member of NNPCW's Coordinating Committee.

When Does the Future Become the Present?

2007-08-09T16:07:00.000-04:00

Submitted by Hailee Barnes,
NNPCW Coordinating Committee member

When was the last time you heard someone of an older age said to you, “You are the future of the church”? I’ll bet it wasn’t that long ago because I hear it quite frequently. Whether it is in a group that I am being addressed or as an individual, I have most frequently heard it said in delight when they see something that the youth, young adults, or myself are doing that is pleasing to them. I have often been frustrated with this comment, I was not sure why until a few days ago as I was having a conversation about what being and doing church means.

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines “church” in these three ways;
1: a building for public and especially Christian worship
2: the clergy or officialdom of a religious body
3: often capitalized: a body or organization of religious believers: as a the whole body of Christians

I am certain that it is not to the first definition for which they are referring. It would be legitimate if they were referring to the second definition because for most of us it will take some time to become clergy, hence the future, but I am pretty sure that is also not what they are referring to. It is the third definition that I believe most people who speak of us “being the future of the church” are referring. So the church is “a body or organization of religious believers”, ok take NNPCW for example, “We are young women in college connected by our belief in God”. So we are a body of believers, hence we ARE church, not in the future, but today.

I believe that we should start valuing our youth and young adults in church for who they are and what they do in the church right now, not only what they will do as adults. There are high school students serving as elders, there are college students who are very involved with their home congregations or the national church. This will take looking at how we speak about and to youth and young leaders in the church. I believe it ties in very well with the use of inclusive language. Not only should we be using inclusive language for God, we should also use inclusive language for church and start to value and include youth and young adults in the church picture.

submitted by jennifer ross...

2007-07-17T11:43:00.000-04:00

In the three weeks that I have been in Berlin, Germany, I have been so fortunate to meet and build a community with a group of older women who have taken me under their wings and showed me the lay of the land. Last weekend, we decided to take a trip to Munich (one of those unplanned and fantastic trips that peppered my time with this group). On our second day in Munich, we travelled 30 minutes north of the city to the Dachau Concentration Camp. Dachau was the first regular concentration camp established by the National Socialist (Nazi) Government and served as the model camp for all of the other camps. This camp was officially described as a work camp for political prisoners- Arbeit Macht Frei (work sets you free) - though when this camp was liberated a much more horrific and gruesome picture was seen. It is at this camp that 200,000 prisoners were beaten, starved and worked to death. It is believed that 25 ,613 prisoners died in the camp and almost another 10,000 in its subcamps.

As we toured the camp, I got the honor of listening to the personal stories of the women I was with- stories of loved ones who were sent to concentration camps, stories of living under the Nazi regime, stories of fear and lies and hatred. As we neared the end of our time at Dachau we walked up to the memorial at one end of the camp. It is there that in five languages "Never Again" is written in huge, iron letters. When we saw this, one of the women said "We said "Never Again" after the Holocaust, we said "Never Again" after Bosnia, after Rwanda, after Kosovo. When is "Never Again" actually going to mean never again?

Never again. It has been 2 years, 11 months and 19 days since the United States labeled the crisis in Darfur genocide. Yet even with this label, in the almost three years that have past, little attention has been given and little action has been done to stop this genocide. It is only now that many celebrities have raised their concern and shown support of non-profits that this genocide has been brought into the public eye.

But we don't need celebrities to tell up what is right and wrong. We know that genocide is wrong. We know that hating and torturing and killing another person based on their race or their ethnicity or their culture or their gender is wrong. We have seen it too many times; we have leaned about it in school and we have watched it in the movies. And though it seems like a huge and insurmountable task, each individual person can do something to end this genocide. Educate yourself. Educate others. Talk, talk, talk! Talk to your friends and family, talk to your congregation, talk to your elected officials, talk to anyone who will listen. Start or join an awareness group in your area or at your college. And pray. Never forget to pray. Do something because the longer we wait, the more people will suffer and die. Do something so we can say with certainty and force "Never Again!"

Some resources:
STAND: Students Taking Action Now: Darfur: www.standnow.org
Save Darfur- www.savedarfur.org
Presbyterian Disaster Assistance (PDA)- http://www.pcusa.org/pda/response/africa/sudan-index.htm

submitted by hillary mohaupt...

2007-07-03T10:26:00.000-04:00

It’s just aft midnight, and I’ve just come in from a long late-night chat with a friend under the stars and over bubble tea. While the two of us have gotten to be close through Protestant activities at Macalester, we have each been navigating very different—and yet in some ways, very similar—questions of faith lately. One thing we’ve both learned from our time on campus is that there is power in being able to name our thoughts, that by saying aloud our anxieties and our hope we might be able to push forward beyond the obstacles and the limits of our imaginations. So I think the conclusion we parted with tonight will be fulfilled soon: we’ll talk again, and we’ll keep talking.

One of the things I like best about summer is being able to lie under a warm night sky and to look up into the constellations. The goose bumps I get aren’t from being chilled by the temperature; they come from being awed by the vastness. Which is so cliché, of course. But at the very beginning of the summer, I finally finished reading Virginia Woolf’s Jacob’s Room, which had been sitting on my night stand for months. One line struck me, a college student trying to get back down to earth after a semester abroad: “They say the sky is the same every where. Travelers, the shipwrecked, exiles, and the dying take comfort from the thought, and no doubt if you are of the mystical tendency consolation, and even explanation, have showered down from the unbroken surface.”

While the vastness of the sky can be overwhelming, I also love the immensity and the depth that hangs over the wandering and the restless like the kind of gigantic black umbrella a proper English gentleman might tuck into the crook of his elbow in case of a storm. It’s hard not to believe we are all interconnected and interdependent when we look up and see the same sky that shelters both our closest friends and people we will never meet.

One of things that I brought back from my recent travels is a 2x4 note card with a beachscape and an inspirational quote on it. The scape, as you can probably guess, is really mostly sky, and the quote in English goes something like this: “If you go to the ends of the earth, you will find traces of God; if you go to the deepest part of yourself, you will find God.”
I like looking up and knowing that the land on which I plant my feet is not the only place from which I can see the Big Dipper and the North Star. I like knowing, too, that God is nearby, whether I look for God in the penumbras and supernovas, or simply in the deepest questions shared between friends.

submitted by iyana davis...

2007-06-22T10:03:00.000-04:00

Hey Ladies,
Im working in the Congresssman's office now, and it's pretty cool. I was the stage manager for a pretty big event yesterday and it went so well..Thank God! I hope all of your summers are going really well..I know mine is. For some reason I miss Atlanta. New York is cool, but it's just not home for me anymore. Does anybody else feel that way, that home just isn't home anymore? Well, it's just a thought/feeling and I was curious to see if I was the only one. See you all in a few days..lol..
Very Truly Yours,
Iyana

submitted by hailee barnes...

2007-06-18T09:42:00.000-04:00

I was watching CSPAN this week and heard the introduction to a speech, I did not listen to the speech in its entirety because the introduction sent me into a whirlwind of thought. A man who worked at the institute where the speech was broadcast from introduced the speaker. In his introduction, the man kept referring to the next president to take office in 2009 and in his every reference he said "he or she". It got me thinking because not only did it strike me as wonderful that he referred to the future president of having the possibility of being a woman, but I realized despite my knowledge that Hillary Clinton is in the race to be the next president, I had not once heard or thought of the president being referred to as "she". Though one may think that is not important that I think of it is that wording specifically, it was wildly important to me.

In that rush of thought, I also remembered something that had been said to me in a conversation last week. It was "think of how much we don’t know and have to learn". Both when this was said to me and when I thought again about it, I thought about the last year, my involvement with NNPCW and how much I have learned from those experiences. As this year’s Leadership Event is approaching I think back to the days and weeks leading up to last year’s event. It was my first introduction to NNPCW and I was beyond intimidated by the "Jesus loves Feminists" bumper sticker I had received in the mail with my pre conference packet. I had little knowledge of what feminism was and had a strange connection with the word itself.

In a short year’s time, my life has changed drastically because of my involvement with NNPCW. I applied and was accepted to the Coordinating Committee and have been on the Leadership Event Planning Team for this year’s event. After over a dozen conference calls, many trips to Louisville, meeting and getting to know NNPCW staff and other members, learning more about the church structure, representing NNPCW at a conference, and being mentored and loved by other members and staff, I think that I am in a pretty good position to tell you why you should consider applying for the NNPCW Coordinating Committee (CoCo); and, in honor of NNPCW’s tendency to make lists, here are your top six reasons to apply for CoCo (please note that these are not qualifications but rather my thoughts).

6. You love getting meaningful and important emails that make you feel warm and fuzzy inside.
5. You want to learn more about the church, how you can be a part of it and be an advocate for young women in the church
4. You want to know and love14 young women who will care about who you are and what you do while learning how to work on a committee with them.
3. You want to create and advocate for safe space for women on their campuses, at the leadership event, and at CoCo meetings.
2. You want to be united with women who share a common faith in Jesus Christ and you want to share that with as many college women as you can!
1. You love NNPCW!!
Applications are available on the NNPCW website 9 http://www.pcusa.org/nnpcw/aboutus/coco.htm) and are due August 15th!!

Speaking Truth to Power

2007-06-14T17:46:00.000-04:00

If you haven't already heard, the theme for this year's Leaderhip Event is "Speaking Truth to Power: Women, Faith and Politics."

I've been thinking a lot lately about the phrase "speak truth to power," and I'm wondering what the phrase means, if anything, to those of you who keep up with this blog.

The phrase has meant different things to me during different periods of my life, but at this point in time the word that sticks out to me the most is "power." Before becoming the Associate for NNPCW I worked as a community organizer, and power is a key concept in organizing. Basically, in order to speak truth to power, you have to have power. And if you don't have power, then you have to build power. And how do you do that? By coming together with other people--many other people--and acting collectively.

We often hear that we are to speak truth to power in order to give voice to the voiceless. I believe, however, that we need to consider the ways in which the so-called voiceless might come together in large enough numbers so as to use their own voices and be heard.

What would this look like in your community? On your campus? Are you ever one from among the "voiceless"?

Throughout history, the so-called voiceless have routinely risen up on their own behalf to speak for themselves. Think of Cesar Chaves and Delores Huerta of the United Farm Workers. Think of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Think of the many women who have worked (and continue to work) for various women's rights.

So what does it mean to speak truth to power? Can we--should we--speak for others? How might we need to speak for ourselves? And how might we help to build the power necessary to make this possible?

The Pursuit of Happyness?

2007-06-05T14:46:00.000-04:00

Have you seen "The Pursuit of Happyness"? I just watched it last night, and I have to admit that I don't yet know what I think about it. I know the movie is supposed to be inspirational, but I mostly felt sad--and a little mad--at the end of it.

For one, I wanted to know what happened to Chris's mom. And I wanted to know more about why she left him and his dad in the first place. Was she as selflish as the movie made her out to be? Or was Hollywood just trying to draft a clean foil for Chris, Sr.? She was working double shifts and bringing in the only source of income for her family while her husband (unsuccessfully) tried his luck as a doctor-to-doctor salesman. That would make me frustrated, too. I'm not saying that she was justified in leaving her son, but I am saying that her side of the story is probably a lot more complicated than the movie's protrayal of it.

Secondly, I don't quite know what to do with the movie's "pull yourself up by the bootstraps" moral. I think Chris Gardner is an exceptional person for doing what he did, and I know in my heart that I never would have had the courage to do what he did. But he is just that: exceptional--an exception to the rule. I could not have done what he did, and millions of other people are not able to do what he did. What are we to make of that? I don't want to take away from his hard work and his incredible accomplishments, but what of the underlying social issues that keep other people on the edge financially or in and out of homeless shelters indfinately?

I'm curious to know what you think...

Is There Anything Young Women Can't Do?

2007-05-21T19:06:00.000-04:00

I caught the story at the end of this evening's news: earlier today an 18-year-old young woman named Samantha Larson became the youngest American to summit Mt. Everest.

Not the youngest American woman. The youngest American. Period.

With this climb, she's successfully summitted the highest peaks on each of the seven continents.

Is there anything young women can't do?

(You can read the LA Times' account of her climb or check out Samanta Larson's blog.)

Commercial Sexual Exploitation: What Does Church Have to do With It?

2007-05-09T10:15:00.000-04:00

I receive a web-based monthly magazine from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) that "explores contemporary issues of interest to young women."

The May issue included an article on commercial sexual exploitation, which I would like to share with you here (click on the highlighted phrase above to link to the article).

In Jen's post from the other day, she mentions "trying to navigate the space between virgin and whore." So much of women's--and increasingly men's--sexuality is defined by extemes: you are either a prowress or a prude. This is not a helpful way of talking about human sexuality. Our society tends to stress the former (prowress), while the church--even if only by keeping silent on the subject--stresses the later (prude). We are often left by ourselves to navigate the space in between.

What do you think is the church's role in helping its members--and especially its young women--develop a healthy sexuality? How can the church combat commercial sexual exploitation in the process?

Read the article and share your thoughts...

A Wild Feminist Rant - by Jen Ashbaugh

2007-05-03T15:28:00.000-04:00

A couple of years ago, I made the transition from working predominately with women to working also with boys and young men. And, I’ve got to say, I don’t think women would stand for being treated like a teenage boy. In the past few months, I’ve become increasingly worried about the state of men in the world. I’m worried about the young boys growing up without positive male role models. I’m concerned that the young minority men in my community dream of growing up to be sports stars or drug dealers. I’m upset that real men can’t cry. I’m annoyed that in spite of my enlightened views, I, too, have a too narrow definition of masculinity.

As a feminist, I’ve talked before about trying to navigate the space between virgin and whore, and claiming my identity as both an emotional and rational creature. As a woman, I believe that I have options and choices. This complexly confident person I have become is due in large part to all the kinds of Womanspace I have found.

I worried because I don’t see a similar space for the young men in my community. As far as the women’s movement has gone to saying women can do anything men do, we have not yet reached that moment where society says men can do anything women do. Men have deeply coded behaviors for work, sex, and family, and these expectations have not drastically changed in the past thirty years. Indeed, it seems that quite the opposite has occurred: we expect even more out of them. Society expects that men bring home a big paycheck and expects them to put in quality time at home. They are expected to treat women as partners, but they still need to be gentlemen and open our doors.

I’m also tired of sitting back and watching men take it. I’m tired of seeing the same old depictions of what it means to be a man. I’m tired of masculinity being tied up with sports, sex, drugs, or being a computer playing, nose in a book, financial analyst nerd. I know that this is such an incomplete depiction of men! From my father, to the boys I used to date, to my coworkers and friends, I have seen how hard it is to grow up male and how much more there is to men than they are willing to let on. And yet, while I feel men ask for my respect, they do not ask me to change my idea of what it means to be a man.

I think it’s time for a real men’s movement. Not an ideology that is going to narrow the definition of what it means to be male, but a movement that will let men be more complicated. I want men to move past the frat boy limits of what Manspace is and find a place where a boy can decide what kind of man he will be and find men to help him on that journey. I want the young boys I work with to find a man who will show them another way to be a man and give them the tools they need to succeed at something other than drugs and violence. And I, for one, will support that kid however I can – whether that’s watching the basketball game over a beer, offering my silence so he can cry, or giving him a separate space to claim his masculinity with others far better suited to give guidance. As the new NNPCW t-shirt says, “Nobody’s free until everybody’s free.”

Submitted by Hailee Barnes

2007-05-02T11:49:00.000-04:00

While on my way to church a few weeks ago I was listening to an NPR report, it was a very interesting story about the “end of the Mayan Calendar”. Thousands of years ago the Mayans accurately predicted December 21, 2012 to be the Winter Solstice. To give you a little more information on this report and event I will quote Jim Papp and have you read what he has written:

On this day a rare astronomical and Mayan mythical event occurs. In astronomic terms, the Sun conjuncts the intersection of the Milky Way and the plane of the ecliptic. The Milky Way, as most of us know, extends in a general north-south direction in the night sky. The plane of the ecliptic is the track the Sun, Moon, planets and stars appear to travel in the sky, from east to west. It intersects the Milky Way at a 60 degree angle near the constellation Sagittarius.
The cosmic cross formed by the intersecting Milky Way and plane of the ecliptic was called the Sacred Tree by the Maya. The trunk of the tree, the Axis Mundi, is the Milky Way, and the main branch intersecting the tree is the plane of the ecliptic. Mythically, at sunrise on December 21, 2012, the Sun - our Father - rises to conjoin the center of the Sacred Tree, the World Tree, the Tree of Life.
This rare astronomical event, foretold in the Mayan creation story of the Hero Twins, and calculated empirically by them, will happen for many of us in our lifetime. The Sun has not conjoined the Milky Way and the plane of the ecliptic since some 25,800 years ago, long before the Mayans arrived on the scene and long before their predecessors the Olmecs arrived. What does this mean?
Due to a phenomenon called the precession of the equinoxes, caused by the Earth's wobble that lasts almost 26,000 years, the apparent location of the Winter Solstice sunrise has been ever so slowly moving toward the Galactic Center. Precession may be understood by watching a spinning top. Over many revolutions the top will rise and dip on its axis, not unlike how the Earth does over an extremely long period of time. One complete rise and dip constitutes the cycle of precession.
The Mayans noticed the relative slippage of the positions of stars in the night sky over long periods of observation, indicative of precession, and foretold this great coming attraction. By using an invention called the Long Count, the Mayans fast-forwarded to anchor December 21, 2012 as the end of their Great Cycle and then counted backwards to decide where the calendar would begin. Thus the Great Cycle we are currently in began on August 11, 3114 B.C. But there's more.
The Great Cycle, lasting 1,872,000 days and equivalent to 5,125.36 years, is but one fifth of the Great Great Cycle, known scientifically as the Great Year or the Platonic Year - the length of the precession of the equinoxes. To use a metaphor from the modern industrial world, on Winter Solstice A.D. 2012 it is as if the Giant Odometer of Humanity on Earth hits 100,000 miles and all the cycles big and small turn over to begin anew. The present world age will end and a new world age will begin.
Over a year's time the Sun transits through the twelve houses of the zodiac. Many of us know this by what "Sun sign" is associated with our birthday. Upping the scale to the Platonic Year - the 26,000 year long cycle - we are shifting, astrologically, from the Age of Pisces to the Age of Aquarius. The Mayan calendar does not really "end" in 2012, but rather, all the cycles turn over and start again, vibrating to a new era. It is as if humanity and the Earth will graduate in the eyes of the Father Sun and Grandmother Milky Way.

So what does this mean for us? Is this the end? How were the Mayans able to accurately predict this event thousands of years ago? All of these questions have been streaming through my mind since hearing this report. What I have learned from this is that I don’t know what will happen on this day, but until that day, maybe I should take a little advice from the Mayans and pay more attention to my surroundings and try to stay true to the earth, be more kind to it and all who live in it. I doubt the Mayans would have been able to pay attention to the earth as well if they were writing a blog, listening to music, chatting online, researching schools that my friend whom I am chatting with tells me about, making a flier, and getting ready to go running all at the same time as I currently am.

My goal this summer is to spend at least half of an hour every day away from my computer, phone, books, people, and other distractions, be outside and just listen to the sounds of nature, of myself, look inward, look outward, and take time to just think freely and be centered.

A Time to Keep Silence

2007-04-26T14:05:00.000-04:00

Even though I am a visual learner, I still love words. Words hold power. They can hurt, but they can also heal. And yet, despite their power, words often fall short.

I am not alone in feeling that words fell short this past week when we tried to respond to the shootings at Virginia Tech. For those of us who tried to use them to heal, to comfort, to express sympathy and remorse, they fell short. For those of us who tried to use them to explain, to understand, to analyze the situation, they fell short.

And so everytime I sat at this desk and tried to write something in response to the events of this past week, words failed me. One of my favorite biblical authors, the writer of the book of Ecclesiastes, has put it well: "For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: ...a time to keep silence, and a time to speak" (Ecclesiastes 3:1,7b).

For me, this past week was a time to keep silence. I am fully aware that words still fail me this week, but words are all I have. And for now, all I feel that I can say is that 33 people died on April 16, 2007, that one of those 33 people killed the other 32, and that death sucks.

I do not at this time have words to heal or to comfort. I do not yet (and never intend to) have words that explain or understand what happened (or, for that matter, what happens every day in America and in other parts of the world when death comes prematurely to so many innocent people). So in using the limited words, the limiting words, with which I am left, I continue to keep a sort of silence. It is the season for such a silence, one that will eventually give way to a time to speak more fully. But words cannot be forced. They come when they are ready. And so until then, I hope my silence says at least in part what I have not yet found the words to say.

Submitted by Hillary Mohaupt

2007-04-12T09:33:00.000-04:00

This morning, my host mother shook her head and laughed as she buttered a chunk of French bread. The radio on the kitchen counter crackled out the morning Catholic prayer, and my host mother smiled as she lamented, "You'll go back to the United States and tell all your friends that you lived with crazy people who listen to morning prayers."

She was joking, of course, but one of the things that I really like about this semester I'm spending abroad in France is that I've gotten a chance to really dig down deep and think about my faith in a pretty lonely context. France historically is a Catholic state and today tries to practice a sort of secularism, so living with this conservative and practicing Catholic family is sort of a miracle. But the real blessing was spending a week in a village with a Protestant woman who practices her faith with a love that is both remarkable and neverending. And because this semester is a sort of repose from the stresses of ordinary university life, I've been able to really reflect upon the implications of life, love and faith, in contexts that are both ordinary and extraordinary.

So while learning French has been a great product of this semester, I feel certain that I have learned more about how life really works by listening to the morning prayers of my Catholic host mother and by observing the intense love of my new Protestant friend. Revitalized and reconvinced that love and faith, in fact, can literally change to world and the ways in which we look at it, I feel more confident in our ability as human beings to be the agents of that change. And that's not too shabby a lesson to learn from a radio's crackle.

Hillary is a junior at Macalester College in St. Paul, MN. She is a member of NNPCW's Coordinating Committee.

But Bunnies Don't Even Lay Eggs!

2007-04-10T14:58:00.000-04:00

Easter Sunday has always been a big deal in my family. My grandparents are from the Ukraine, and in the Ukraine, Easter is the holiday of all holidays. Preparations begin weeks before the feast, centering mostly around making special foods like holubtsi and varenyky (more commonly known as perogies) and decorating pysanky (Ukrainian Easter eggs).

I decorated my first pysanka at the age of 4 or 5. Every year, shortly after Ash Wednesday, my mother would take her jars of rainbow egg dyes out of the cupboard and set them out on the kitchen counter. In the weeks that followed, my mother, my sisters and I would make egg after egg for friends, teachers, and relatives. It was my favorite time of the year.

Ukrainians have been decorating pysanky since before the birth of Christ. When the Ukrainians became a Christian people in the late 900s, they recognized that the egg is a perfect symbol for the ressurrection, and they continued carrying on the tradition, giving it new meaning as they added Christian symbols to their intricate designs.

With the over-commercialism of every major holiday--including Easter--our symbols are often co-opted and consequently lose their meaning. For most of us, Easter eggs are objects to find on a hunt, magical delights filled with chocolate and jelly beans, put in their hiding places by the ever-elusive Easter Bunny.

For me, making pysanky is as much an act of subversion as it is a family tradition. It is a way to reclaim the meaning of Easter and its symolism using the very same object--an egg--that our consumeristic culture tries to make into a mass-produced, mass-marketed holiday product. It is a tradition for which I have not made much time in the last several years, but one that I am hoping to revive as I think about the values and beliefs that I want to pass on to my son.

What are your Easter traditions? What are the ways in which you reclaim the meaning of Easter?

2007-04-05T16:02:00.000-04:00

Happy Easter everyone.

I'm too overcome with the mysterious joy of holy week to write any more than that.

Christ has risen! Alleluia!

Welcome to the 21st Century

2007-04-03T14:11:00.000-04:00

I learned two new verbs today: to friend and to facebook.

If these words mean nothing to you, you are still in the 20th Century, a dark, distant land I exited only 3 short hours ago.

Yes, that's right: I am now a bona fide Facebook user, complete with my own profile, my NNPCW group, and--my personal favorite--the ability to poke.

Some of you may recall my first blog post on this fabulous site. It was in fact my first blog post ever. So you probably aren't surprised by the fact that I have just recently made my entree into the land of friending and facebooking. But you're right, it did take me a long time to get here. Too long.

I am of a different generation than young women in college today. My friends and I went all the way through college without cell phones--literally NO ONE we knew had one. We all got our first email accounts as college fresh(wo)men. And we had to be taught what to do with them. But worst of all, walking around my college campus you might have even spied a Walkman.

Indeed, I'm of totally different generation.

So it was a little difficult for me to understand the hype around Facebook. But I stepped out into the unknown today and found that the technology and tools of the 21st century aren't as scary as I thought they were. In fact, I kind of enjoyed playing around on Facebook this morning. I hope if you haven't already checked out the National Network of Presbyterian College Women group on Facebook that you will. I hope that you'll join it, too. And I'm actually hoping that while you're there, you might just go ahead and friend me...

2007-03-28T15:46:00.000-04:00

Four months and five days ago I gave birth to my first child: a boy named Quinn. I went into labor while I was at work one morning, several days before my due date. I stayed at work long enough to participate in a conference call and attend a staff meeting, because I wasn't convinced that the strange sensations pulsing through my tired pregnant body were what I had been waiting almost 9 months to experience. At about one o'clock, I decided to go home, "just in case."

Good thing I did. After doing everything I was told to do to stop false labor pains (eat, take a walk, take a bath), I finally concluded that this was it: this was real. I expected panic to set it at this point, but to my surprise, it didn't. Instead, my husband and I starting putting into practice all the techniques we had learned in our child birthing class. I breathed deeply, he massaged by lower back; I relaxed my muscles, he reminded me not to tense my shoulders and furrow my brow (a nasty habit of mine when I am stressed.)

Time passed quickly. We stayed at home for as long as possible, until the contractions were coming one quickly after the other and the pain was bordering on being unbearable. As we made the short drive to the hospital shortly after midnight, the pain intensified, and by the time I was in my hospital room it had definitively crossed over to the realm of the unbearable. For those of you who might have read my previous posts, you might already know that I was planning on having a natural child birth (i.e. without pain medication). By this point, however, I was seriously doubting my ability to go through with a natural child birth. But as each contraction faded, I kept telling myself that I could make it through one more. Just one more. And one by one, doubting myself the entire way, one by one, telling myself I could do it, the contractions gave way to an irresistable need to PUSH.

Fifteen minutes later it was over. A small, warm, beautiful boy lay on my chest. Fatigue gave way to joy, and I couldn't take my hands or my eyes off of him.

At that moment, I thought that child birth would be the most difficult thing I would ever endure. But the first few days of being a mother quickly convinced me that giving birth is cake compared to what follows. Becoming a mother, that's the real work.

At those moments when panic threatens to set in (and it sometimes does more than just threaten), I try to remember to breathe, relax, lower my shoulders and unscrunch my face. I'm constantly reminding myself that parenthood, that life, is not easy. Life is a long journey that requires endurance. The exercises from my child birthing class help. But what helps even more are the spiritual expercises I've learned during my time in the church.

This Lent I recommitted myself to several spiritual exercises. I have to admit that in recent years I have become lax in this area. But as surely as I would not have been able to give birth to Quinn naturally without putting into practice several key exercises, so I am convinced that I cannot make it through this life without putting into practice several key spiritual exercises. Prayer, reading, service--these are the breaths that get me through from one "contraction" to the next. And one by one, doubting myself the whole way, one by one, telling myself that--with God's help--I can do it, fear gives way to faith.

Vagina Monologues, anyone??? submitted by Jennifer Ashbaugh

2007-03-22T15:07:00.000-04:00

A few weeks ago, I went to see the Tulsa production of The Vagina Monologues. I have a very close relationship with TVM, as I affectionately call it. I put a four-person production in Belfast, with three actors and a guy to do the lighting, in the upstairs concert room of a local pub. I love the monologues! I love the electric energy in the room, the power of the words, the feeling of secrets finally being spilled. No matter how many times I’ve seen it, it never loses its power or its authenticity.

But I think what I love most about TVM, is introducing new people to The Vagina Monologues. Otherwise known as Vagina Virgins. I remember rounding up my sorority sisters to go to the midnight production. “You have to go,” I said, “Jenny is producing this year’s performance. And all these women, who in theory are very well acquainted with their vaginas, would grimace. To these Vagina Virgins, sitting through TVM was almost as nerve-wracking as surviving initiation night.

Then there was the time when I took my mom to see Eve Ensler herself perform TVM in Tulsa. This might have been the hardest one for me to sit through. I kept turning to see if she was going to purse her lips or turn white. But she didn’t. She laughed with the rest of us, and chanted with the rest of the crowd the Happy Fact about the clitoris. And the next year, she took the ladies in her bridge group to the production. You see, you just never know what will happen when you bring along a Vagina Virgin.

When I performed TVM, I remember standing in front of a crowded room of women and men, nursing their pints. As I stood there and talked about hair, abuse, and sexuality, I knew that many people were hearing these words for the first time. I believed the words I was saying really could change the world.

So now, I’m on a mission…to bring The Vagina Monologues to every citizen of the world! I’d love to hear about your own experience with TVM…and whether it made you nervous or you left feeling empowered.

2007-03-20T13:51:00.000-04:00

by Hailee Barnes
NNPCW Coordinating Committee member

I had a great conversation with one of my bosses from this summer on Monday of this week. I worked at a YMCA day camp in Seattle last summer and at the biannual staff meeting for our YMCA branch the branch executive director asked any of us camp staff to meet with her if at any time we had questions about the YMCA, careers at the YMCA, or wanted to chat about life in general. So I emailed Lonnie a few weeks ago and asked if week could meet and on Monday we met in her office, once she had determined that I had a sufficient amount of questions and we would be spending a while together she asked if I wanted to go to a coffee shop down the street. We walked into the greatest den of a coffee shop--it was a great place!

Among updating her on my current life events and reminiscing about this summer we discussed a lot about the YMCA, why she works there, why I was attracted to working there, and clarifying what is it that really interests me and that I am passionate about. One thing that I care a great deal about is children and their right to education, an enriching and safe environment, the opportunities to succeed, and being treated with respect. Lonnie responded by telling me a short story about an event that she helped organize for senior citizens at the Y. They invited seniors and families for a luncheon where there was food and music, basically a time to be together. She received little feedback as this was a rather ordinary event, but the feedback that she did receive from a few seniors was that they did not like the children there and that next time there should be no children there. I had heard of instances like this before, but had never really thought about it. Why is it ok and accepted when people say “I don’t like children, I don’t want them around”. Children are people! If this was said about women, Hispanics, Blacks, deaf people… it would not be tolerated, so why is it tolerated when said about children? I understand that some children can be rude or distracting in social situations, but shouldn’t the point be to educate the children and teach them how to behave rather than say you do not like them and don’t want them there?

At our leadership event this past summer we focused on ageism from a perspective of the gap between college and young women to older women of our parents and grandparents age, but we did not focus so much on children. What are your thoughts about this? I will start a discussion about this in the Cybercafe,, I would love to hear your thoughts.

The Cyclical Nature of Reality (submitted by Beth Ruhl)

2006-12-20T09:33:00.000-05:00

Death has been on my mind a lot this year. Many people around me have been faced with the deaths of loved ones, and somewhere in the back of my mind, I too am secretly anticipating with dread when death will strike someone around me. I am no different from the people around me, some are better people and some are worse, but death visits everyone.
Pain, grief, denial and acceptance are all words associated with the process we go through after the death of a loved one. However, one word we do not hear frequently is celebration. We seem to get so caught up in the loss that we face that we forget to celebrate our memories of the person. We forget to reminisce about the unique qualities that our loved one possessed and the gifts they gave us.
The western world has always viewed death as something to be feared. It is an uncertain place that is filled with the shadows of our subconscious minds. Time cannot be stopped, but this also means that the processes of time cannot be stopped. Birth, life, death and rebirth, which is a Christian idea, are a part of a powerful and beautifully complex process, which at times can be stunningly painful.
I am sad that my parents must get older, but I am also thrilled that as they age I will be able to begin my own family. I hope to someday marry and have children. I also hope to be writer and help the world with some of its struggles, but these events can only come with time, experience and maturational processes. I will hand down my love and experience to my children as I hope they will to their children.
We all have the ability to influence the world while we are hear, whether it be by having faith the size of a mustard seed or leading a revolution that helps people to learn how to be in a loving relationship amongst themselves and with the holy. Jesus’ life was about the here and now of how to live in a community of other people. We are in the season of advent right now, an anticipation of a birth. I would ask, however, that we remember the love and humility of Jesus throughout the year, whether it is in seasons of birth, life, death or rebirth. Once we discover that we are apart of a life cycle that is bigger than ourselves, we will begin the healing process that is necessary when we lose someone we love.

(Submitted by Carrie Simpson)

2006-12-15T16:59:00.000-05:00

Not too much to say and since I know whatever I write will not be nearly as beautiful or profound as Jen’s latest entry, I’ll just share some fun pictures with you all! I’m done with finals by the way!

So here are the fun projects I've been working on lately... This is the white elephant gift I made for a party I'm going to tonight. And this is another fun thing I made during one my more boring classes (I gave it eyes later). Here is my patriotic pup! (Dora)

Oh and here is a funny video of Dora's first experience w/ sleet/snow!

A picture is worth a thousand words. So how many do you think a video is worth?

Merry Christmas!!!

There Is Always New Life (submitted by Jen Ross)

2006-12-08T10:49:00.000-05:00

Right now, through a picture window in my kitchen, I am watching the rain pour down. This storm is frightening and daunting. The trees and branches are shaking and swaying in the wind, people are running by, trying in vain not to get soaked and my dog is hiding under the table, scared of the thunder. At the same time, this storm is absolutely beautiful; it is renewing and life-giving and it seems to make everything it touches new and whole again. This dichotomy is amazing to me, that something that seems so terrifying can also fill me with such awe and wonder. This terrible storm is creating a new earth. So what about the storms in my life? Is this dichotomy also present there? It seems so easy to see only the alarming and upsetting winds, rains, and thunder that happen in my personal life, but do I ever look for the rainbow that comes after the storm, the rainbow that is a physical representation of God’s undying love and care for me? It is not always something that I am looking for; rather, when I am in the midst of a terrible storm, I often forget that there is, or ever was, a rainbow waiting for me after the storm. God’s love and care is always there, during the storm and after, embracing each one of us in a blanket of love, drying us off and warming us up when the wind, rain and thunder stop. God is working hard to create a new earth in and through us and even though it sometimes seems too hard to continue on through the storm, God’s rainbow will be there after the storm, as it was in the beginning, is now and will be forever.

Rock my Soul...into Joy and Peace (posted by Hillary Mohaupt)

2006-12-07T13:31:00.000-05:00

I am listening to Christmas music as I procrastinate on the homily I have to write for this Sunday’s Vespers service at Macalester’s Chapel. I gave the homily for the Second Sunday of Advent last year, too, but this feeling of responsibility is no lighter this year than last.

I am trying to reconcile the end of this semester with the plethora of new things that have emerged in the last few weeks. As we prepare for Christmas and prepare our hearts for the coming of Christ, how can we calm our minds and our bodies enough to appreciate the divine peace that can pervade this season? Maybe I can write about “calm” because I am listening to a ten-second-long high note in “O Holy Night;” in reality, holidays, and this holiday in particular, can be painful or filled with lonely times of anything but peace and quiet. This time of year, responsibilities extend beyond final exams and final projects: somehow, we – I – have to think beyond the today in our own lives, to think about the tomorrow in the whole world.

This song is on repeat. I think by retreating into this soaring music, I’m procrastinating on really wrapping my mind around the big ideas I still have to tackle before winter break – before Christmas is over and winter is about frigid wind and dangerous ice, not about joy and peace. There’s no reason, though, why every season can’t be about joy and peace – and that seems like a gigantic responsibility.

I still have no idea what I’m going to write the homily about – maybe I’ll sink into this song one more time and let it rock my soul a little longer.

World AIDS Day, December 1st

2006-12-01T16:35:00.000-05:00

"...Our lives are not determined by what happens to us but by how we react to what happens, not by what life brings to us, but by the attitude we bring to life. A positive attitude causes a chain reaction of positive thoughts, events, and outcomes. It is a catalyst, a spark that creates extraordinary results." (anon)

http://www.myspace.com/worldaidsday

Hungry (Submitted by Iyana Davis)

2006-12-01T14:04:00.000-05:00

I am so hungry right now...it's not even funny. This lady was breast feeding her baby on the train the other day and she just so happened to be sitting in front of me. I wish that every time I am hungry someone would just feed me. I guess that is why it says in the Bible we should be like children. Christ said, "allow the children to come unto me and forbid them not, for such is the kingdom of heaven." If we are truly attempting to achieve heaven on earth, we must be like little children, always hungry. In God's word it says they that hunger and thirst for righteousness shall be filled...so here I sit...hungry. As a matter fact, I am starving, waiting for my next meal. It's not going to come from somebody else, I gotta get it myself. I think about all the times I would be in my dorm room wishing a sister had some ramen noodles, or some pb-'n-j, all the nights i go to sleep hungry. I'm turning over a new leaf! Today is a brand new day...and, God must be tired of spoon feeding me...

Thankful for New Life

2006-11-30T10:43:00.000-05:00

hey all...

i have great news - wait for it, wait...

okay. noelle gave birth to a boy last week (specifically november 22nd)! his name is quinn tennis gulden; he weighs nearly 7 lbs; and he is gorgeous. and let's be clear, not all babies are cute.

so, noelle will be on maternity leave through january, but feel free to pop her an email of congratulations.

as for me, well, i'm not going on maternity leave anytime soon. at least i hope not, but hey, i suppose anything can happen. kidding, i'm just kidding.

anyway, i hope you all returned from the thanksgiving holiday rested and grateful and not too annoyed by your families.

keep in mind that december 10th is national human rights day. more on that to come.

peace,
katie

Rekindled Excitement for NNPCW

2006-11-17T11:09:00.000-05:00

(Submitted by Hailee Barnes)

I slipped in 45 minutes into my Brain and Behavior class today. I took notes for the remaining 45 minutes, but my mind was racing so fast about other things as it had for the past 28 hours that today’s note taking was not my best let’s say. I had awoke at 5am in Louisville, KY, taken a cab to the airport, boarded my plane, did homework, changed planes in Minneapolis, read some stimulating textbooks, then deplaned, met my chaplain, raced to class and there I was in Portland, OR at 12:15pm West Coast time sitting in my seat trying to absorb the inner workings of the brain. I had spent the weekend with the Leadership Event Planning Team in our face-to-face meeting.

I should be exhausted now at 12 midnight West Coast time, but with the excitement of the weekend, coffee on the plane, and going to the gym a few hours ago my mind will not allow me to sleep. Most of the time I wonder why I am in college studying hour after hour never really seeming to master anything or being able to claim that I really know anything beyond regurgitating what I hear and maybe adding a little flare to it but I can say that the class part of college is not exactly what thrills me to death. My friend Stacy and I often refer to the “Stacy Scale of Life” when we are discussing our classes, stress, or whatever we are doing. It is a little scale she and I discussed and greatly agreed on over our spring break last year while we spent long nights house sitting and long days rowing on the crew team. It is about the relationships you make, nurture and have with people. While we are both dedicated students and do feel that classes are important, it is something we both think about very often and often factor into the decisions we make. It is so easy to get caught up in all that we have to do and forget that opportunities for relationships are often more important. For example, I could not believe that I went all the way to Kentucky this weekend with tests in all my classes two term papers and a major project due between now and next Wednesday. But by going to KY this weekend I was able to grow stronger in my relationships with the three members of the LEPT that I already knew and met and began getting to know the other two members. I greatly value these relationships and it is these relationships and others similar to them in my family, my community, my school, and throughout my life that make life beautiful and meaningful for me.

One of my life goals is to grow in my relationships with people, some will dwindle no doubt, but those that I put time, effort, love, and care into can be some of the most valuable things in life. People are interesting; they all have a story, a history, and their whole life’s worth of experiences. So here is to all our relationships with people we have known, know, and will know. Have a great Thanksgiving, remember to give thanks for all the great relationships that you have!

Hailee Barnes
Lewis and Clark College (Portland, OR)
NNPCW Coordinating Committee (class of 2009)

2006-11-16T12:30:00.000-05:00

(Submitted by Rachael Whaley)

Sometimes, reading the paper just makes me angry. Maryville College has implemented a College Newspaper Readership Program, which provides free newspapers (USA Today, the New York Times, and the Knoxville News Sentinel) to the campus community. Usually, on my way to class I pick up a New York Times and treat myself to a mid-morning break to catch up on what's happening in the world. Unfortunately for me, the NY Times is pretty popular around these parts, so if I don't get one early enough I am stuck with that symbol of industrialized and commercialized media: USA Today. In this morning's paper, the front page story was about Division I college football coaches and their outrageous salaries. Noteworthy, perhaps, enough for the front page of the sports section, or maybe just the front page of Meatheads Weekly. Buried as a sidebar, with barely an inch of space on the front page, was a headline about the soldier who finally confessed to gang raping a 14 year old Iraqi girl and murdering her family. This small, obviously unimportant headline was also fortunate enough to include Spc. James P. Barker's reasoning for committing this heinous crime with 3 other model American citizens: "I hated Iraqis, your honor."

Barker pleaded guilty and will testify against his fellow soldiers in exchange for escaping the death penalty- an option not open to his victim, her parents, or her 6-year-old sister.

I want to make it clear that I have nothing but respect for our soldiers who are trying to do their jobs honestly, as I have a sibling who is serving our country in the armed forces and I could not be more proud of her sacrifice. However, there is just something wrong with the state of the world when Americans perform these acts of terrorism (yes, even some Americans are terrorists) while trying to maintain an air of moral superiority. I don't know what makes me more upset- the fact that it happened, the reasoning behind it, or the fact that this story is not as interesting as what the football coach at UT Austin makes in a year.

Rachael Whaley
Maryville College (Maryville, TN)
NNPCW Coordinating Committee

A Sermon by Maren Haynes

2006-11-15T10:22:00.000-05:00

(The following is a sermon written by Maren Haynes, NNPCW Coordinating Committee member. The sermon was delievered at Southside Presbyterian Church in Tuscon, AZ on Nov 5, 2006.)

To be of Use

The people I love best
jump into work head first
without dallying in the shallows
and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.
They seem to become natives of that element,
the black sleek heads of seals
bouncing like half-submerged balls.

I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,
who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,
who strain in the mud and the much to move things forward,
who do what has to be done, again and again.

I want to be with people who submerge
in the task, who go into the fields to harvest
and work in a row and pass the bags along,
who stand in the line and haul in their places,
who are not parlor generals and field deserters
but move in a common rhythm
when the food must come in or the fire be put out.

The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.

Greek amphoras for wine or oil,
Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums
but you know they were made to be used.
The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real.

(By Marge Piercy, taken from Cries of the Spirit, a collection of poems)

I don't even know where to start in giving a brief overview of the ways women's gifts have been of use in the church. We can start in Biblical times with Jesus and his invitation for women, such as Mary and Martha, to join the circle as leaders spirituality and study for the first time in that culture's history, and as he built relationships with the downtrodden, outcast women of society.

The Apostle Paul, who we often think of as a misogynist, celebrates his sister in Christ, Thecla, who left her fiance, and dressed in men's clothing to become an evangelist in the area. Though persecuted by her neighbors, family and the state, Paul affirms her commission to ministry.

Hildegard of Bingen lived in the 12th century, and provided counsel to many people in the hierarchy of the church. Bishops, Kings and Popes sought her advice, and she was believed to have a supernatural connection to God which she explored through medicine and music. She wrote major works of visionary and theology, and is academically hailed in all these fields to the present day. Though not canonized, she has been called a Saint for centuries.

The 19th-20th century women's movement brings forth women like Quaker Elizabeth Cady Stanton who helped kick off the women's suffrage movement with the Women's Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, NY in 1848, and fellow Quaker Sojourner Truth, political activist and former slave who engaged the hard truth of the Social Gospel and seriously aimed to bring that Gospel to fruition. Many of the female leaders of that convention had very recently been leaders in the Underground Railroad movement of the 1800s.

And in the 21st century, I have had the opportunity to hear and meet so many amazing, challenging, engaging women, who take the gospel seriously. Among them have been Esther Byu of Thailand with the Fellowship of the Least Coin, Musimbi Kanyaro of Kenya with the Young Women's Christian Association, Lisa Larges of the United States of the Gay and Lesbian Ordination Activist group That All May Freely Serve, and thousands, thousands of others who have dynamically led the people by faithfully following God's call for their lives.

It is not a question of women's “contributions.” The church simply would not be without women.

Since this is so much the case, approaching a service or a sermon where we celebrate the gifts of women seems rather silly. We, at Southside, are so fortunate to see amazing women standing as partners with the men in nearly every venue, from our social justice outreach, to pulpit ministry, sunday school, to music ministry, women and men share their gifts here. But history has not often told this story.

When the women of Southside came together at the Women's Retreat and on last Wednesday night, we identified many ways women's involvement in the church has been marginalized.

Women in the Christian Church, historically, have been limited to actualize their callings through decidedly subordinate outlets. Although this has ebbed and flowed from Jesus' time until present, several women of Southside remember growing up in denominations where women could teach: Sunday School – but only to girls, or to boys under 12. Women could lead: Other women. Women could Pray: Silently.

History has often been reinterpreted to minimize the contributions of women. By keeping women illiterate, the task of recording history has been nearly completely a male activity, and thus women's accomplishments often went unrecorded, or were misattributed to their husbands or brothers. For example, recent scholarship has revealed that, perhaps, Miss Fanny composed at least half of the music attributed to her brother Felix Mendelssohn. Oftentimes, women were able to reveal their ideas solely by succumbing to this reality, penning under a pseudonym.

At its worst, history has tended to set up false dichotomies between masculine and feminine. The masculine characteristics, according to sociologist Janet Saltzman Chafetz include logical, rational, strong, unemotional, leader, individualistic, and independent. Simply put, these masculine values are considered the cornerstones of western society, and have up until very recently been almost fully integrated into the western understanding of Christianity.

If the characteristics of God are decidedly this archetypal masculine, then the feminine must be the opposite of God. Up until the last 50 years, or so, much of western society has recreated God in this image, and has thus excluded feminine characteristics from the realm of the Holy. Thus, at least my perspective is that the contemporary church has had struggles in adopting a more communitarian, less self-serving, more globally-minded set of ethics, despite the fact that the Bible's true text very clearly backs up these values right along side many masculine ones. Feminist Theologians like Rosemary Radford Reuther go so far as to argue that the feminine side of God was left out of the conversation for so long, we need to reinterpret every facet of our faith to break this cycle and get the whole story.

Certainly, this is not a struggle that is isolated to women's issues – it is a sizable lamentation to be made on behalf of all marginalized groups. I hope we can all unite around the belief that we have a really long way to go, and that for every wonderful woman we celebrate throughout our lifetimes, hundreds of thousands of women have been forgotten.

Many Southside women expressed extreme feelings of abandonment in the church in their 20's and 30's, especially those who grew up during the women's movement when it seemed women were gaining rights in society before gaining those same rights in the church. Some women expressed that such a split between faith and feminism pushed them to replace their faith with feminism. Today, too many young women look to the church in America as one of the most extreme places where even their basic rights aren't valued, to say nothing of full participation. Young women identify a church where we spend way more time focused on whether or not abortion should be legal, than actually addressing the pervasive, barbaric, and all too common issues of domestic partner abuse and rape, for example. It seems we creep along at a historical snail's pace toward what many of us believe, nearly instinctually, is the will of God, but that our church seems to identify as a wishy-washy fringe concern or political issue. Women, and many men, leave the church in droves over the seemingly endless battle we have been forced to fight over inclusion. It seems all too logical to give up on the Church when this realization is reached. If the will of God is that women should be honored, in daily life, in society, and in ministry, shouldn't God at least have the power to set right the agenda of the Church?

I found such solace in the passage from David's song, Psalm 68:7-10. This Psalm recounts the movement of the Jewish people out of the slavery of Egypt and into the Promised Land. The remainder of the Psalm goes on to recount the details of that journey, which was gory, costly, and difficult. Although we all know the ending, and this particular group of people did find solace in the place where it was promised, the realization of that promise came only with an enormous struggle which, I'm sure, often times caused its participants to wonder 'Where is God?'

We are guaranteed struggles in this world, especially where power dynamics are concerned. Most Christian theologians call this struggle “human sin,” and I'm very inclined to agree.

In Psalm 68: 7-10, though, we understand God, too, endures our struggles, going out in front of the people, paving the way through the wasteland to justice and solace. As Christians, we are constantly required to walk closely behind God, to redefine our faith as the time and place requires it, to empower the powerless, to give up power when we have too much, and to stand as a bulwark to fight for power when it is taken away. We must labor in the fields until the voices of all people are valued with equity. As we squelch the gifts of people whom God has called, to ministry or otherwise, we are bereft of those beautiful gifts, and our traditions and faith are deeply affected: they become skewed, fragmented and distorted.

My experience at Southside has been that this church is a haven of visionaries for laboring toward full participation and inclusion of all the people of God. I have no doubt that the people of Southside aim to stand on the cutting edge of these demands that God asks of us, and that we will move forward peaceably and thoughtfully, yet passionately.

I am thrilled to say we are continuing to see the fruits of our labors in the feminist theological movement. Each of us can attest to a huge number of female leaders in the church who have affected us. Women of Southside identified so many – student leaders, deacons, elders. One woman remembered the first female deacon in a neighboring church, who rose to become moderator of her Presbytery. Others recalled growing up with female pastors, others following the calling to become pastors themselves. In the church of the United States, we continue to see new avenues for women in leadership finally realized. This week, we celebrate our Anglican sister, Katharine Jefferts Schori as she assumes her role as the first female bishop in the Anglican church.

We honor the strength of groups of women to move mountains, such as the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo in Argentina who faithfully searched for sons and daughters of families who had lost them due to an estimated 30,000 disappearances by the government in attempts to build an army with the children of their country. We recognize a group of women in Africa who decided to abstain from sex with their husbands until the wars of their countries stopped. We honor the Presbyterian women of our own denomination who have consistently provided a prophetic vision for us, as a church, to engage the social issues of our time more fully.

The fruits are not limited to women as leaders: We are seeing adoption of more democratic decision making processes as Open Space and Consensus Model become much more mainstream (the Presbyterian Women even adopted Consensus Model at their business meeting this past summer! We can only hope the General Assembly will follow suit). We are seeing a quietly rising church engaging social action through an unlikely medium – monasticism – with movements like 'The Simple Way' and other intentional communities which take commitments to communitarian lifestyle, shared resources, living lightly on the earth, and the social gospel very, very seriously.

As more voices are invited to the table, and transformation occurs, we create larger caveats for the Holy Spirit to enter into our dialogue and discussion, and we have the ability to be more creative as the body of Christ in recognizing and affirming all our gifts. We are working toward something worthwhile, which will undoubtedly continue to transform our church and each of our lives, and which will reform our ways of understanding God in ways we cannot foresee.

Greek amphoras for wine or oil,
Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums
but you know they were made to be used.
The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real.
Let us continue doing the daily work that needs to be done toward celebrating the gifts of all our sisters and brothers in the work God has called each of us to do. Today, we celebrate the amazing women of the church.

A Message from Carrie

2006-11-14T10:04:00.000-05:00

Carrie speaking.

I don't like having to scroll to the bottom to see who's writing. Actually I might not even write long enough for scrolling to be necessary. We'll see.

I have to admit, I feel a little disconnected from the network since I no longer am in "college" away from my women's spirituality group and the chapel services I loved so dearly. I'm in graduate school, which I find more informative in a specific sense, yet not nearly as fun as college. I'm studying occupational therapy.

"What is occupational therapy?" you might ask. We'll I can tell you a little about it.

Occupational therapy is using a person's occupations to help improve their independence and better their quality of life. Occupations are defined as the things that occupy a person's time. So the idea is that you can help a patient who has suffered an injury to regain their independence by engaging them in activities of meaning. Thus activity is therapeutic. We do different things in different settings. Sometimes OTs (occupational therapists) use crafts, cooking or just the things a person does in their daily routine to promote engagement in activity. We work in schools,
hospitals, psychiatric hospitals, private clinics, etc. We work with diagnoses ranging from schizophrenia to Cerebral Palsy to Multiple Sclerosis to spinal cord injury. And hopefully we help people to regain or gain as much independence as possible.

That's what I'm doing these days.

Carrie Simpson
Texas Woman's University
School of Occupational Therapy

Contraception as an Option for the Man?!

2006-11-13T17:30:00.000-05:00

I wanted to share an article with you that was passed onto me by Shaya Gregory, Young Adult Intern with the Office of Women's Advocacy.

Here are her comments about the article:

1. Isn't it interesting how much technology is created to improve and increase men's sexual activity/performance/enjoyment and technology for women is all about circumscribing/controlling their ability to have children? It really leaves men out of the 'making of the baby' process and says a lot about our Nation's attitude towards paternal accountability and sexuality in general.

2. And the techonolgy for women that is NOT about our reproductive capabilities, is about improving our aesthectic appeal...so we can feel good about making men 'feel good!'

Read the article: "Contraception as an Option for the Man"

Please feel free to share your own thoughts once you've read the article.

Noelle

Your Turn

2006-11-09T15:22:00.000-05:00

I am still reeling from the events of this week--from the unexpected shift in political power, from Rumsfeld's resignation--and I am curious how these events have affected your thoughts and your lives.

Therefore, instead of writing my own thoughts, I'd like to solicit yours. What, if anything, has this election season taught you about democracy? Has it changed your opinion(s) about the state of our nation? Has it brought you hope? Left you wanting?

It's your turn to talk...

Noelle

I'm Engaged!

2006-11-07T14:19:00.000-05:00

Well, he's engaged, really. My baby, that is.

I went to the doctor yesterday, and she informed me that my baby's head has dropped (or "engaged") into my pelvis. It sounds painful, and to be honest, it kind of is. It also causes me to waddle a bit.

I'm in my 37th week of pregnancy now. 36 down, 4 to go. All in all, I have to say that I have enjoyed being pregnant. It has made me more aware of my body and myself, but it has also made me more aware of other people. I can’t really explain why this is, except perhaps for the fact that during the last 9 months, I have never really been alone: there has always been “an other” with me.

My friend asked me the other day if I felt like I had lost any part of myself to this baby growing inside me. I had to think for a minute about her question, but I concluded that no, I had not lost myself. For some reason he had not allowed me to do so. In contrast, he has instead made me aware of his complete otherness. While he is entirely dependent on me and on my body for his survival, he is neither me nor my body. He is an other. And as such, he demands that I look beyond myself when I feel him, or think of him, or imagine how he looks.

This is a blessing, because I tend to forget to see the people around me as others. Instead of losing myself in them, I tend to lose them in me. I am—like many of us—pretty self-centered most of the time. But what genuine community calls us toward is “to love our neighbor as ourselves,” which means loving ourselves (i.e. not losing ourselves in others), and loving others (i.e. not losing others in us).

For the time being, I have that genuine communion with my child. I am not naïve enough to believe this will always be there, but while it is, I cherish it. This is the type of communion I strive for with my husband. It is the type of communion I strive for with my friends and with my church.

We were not created to be alone. Humankind was created to be in community. This is no small or easy task: we continually fight against losing ourselves or annihilating others. But it is what we are called to do, who we were created to be. And when we get close to doing it right, it is divine.

Noelle

Dog is God spelled backwards

2006-11-03T14:33:00.000-05:00

God definitely works in mysterious ways. I have been very lonely lately. I have found myself in a deep lonely, loneliness in my soul. It is a searching lonely- I am desperately looking for something but I don’t exactly know what I am looking for.

And then my friend (who is also one of my roommates) had a great idea: let’s foster a few puppies. And so we went to the Memphis Humane Society and there we found a litter of 5 3-week old puppies that had been thrown in a dumpster. While we couldn’t take all 5 like we wanted to (our apartment isn’t that large), we did take home two little girls, Billie Jean Bonhoeffer and Shai Shalom. These two little puppies are completely dependent on me and my three roommates for all of their nee ds, everything from entertainment to potty breaks to bottle feedings. It is amazing how good it feels to have someone or something that is so reliant on me and I feel a little less lonely.

So maybe God spoke through my friend when she said that we should foster the puppies. Maybe God is watching out for me somewhere up there and knew that this would make me feel a little bit better.

My advice to everyone out there: get a dog. They work wonders for the soul. And remember, dog is God spelled backward.

Jen Ross
Rhodes College (Memphis, TN)
NNPCW Coordinating Committee

Media Perpetuate Religious Stereotypes (by Beth Ruhl)

2006-11-02T14:16:00.000-05:00

Christian. Muslim. Atheist.

Now that you have seen these words, please read them again and think about what images come to mind when you picture each of these types of people.

I would like to have an open discussion about stereotypes of religious and non-religious people in the media and how they limit our daily interactions with one another. There are wars going on right about how and where it is appropriate to express faith, who has the superior faith, and what to do about those who have no faith tradition at all. Read the rest of Beth's article.

2006-10-31T10:06:00.000-05:00

I spent the weekend in Chicago with my sister, blocks from McCormick Seminary and a few miles from Fourth Presbyterian Church. In many ways, these two Chicago institutions have played a pivotal role in shaping my faith. Two years ago, as a first year student at Macalester College, I joined four fellow Mac students and our associate chaplain at a Covenant Network conference at Fourth; we spent the night with recent Mac alumni who were living and studying at McCormick. The conference was my first awakening to real, live liberal Christianity: it was an introduction to a faith I could really claim.

In addition to being a Presbyterian nerd, I’m also a history nerd, and I love the rising notion among historians that memory and place are intimately tied together. Just as I associate Chicago with my spiritual awakening, so to do we as human beings create and construct our memories firmly on the foundation of where we’ve lived our lives. We are who we are because of where we’ve been, where we’ve cried and where we’ve laughed.

Sure, that might sound pretty obvious, and in a way it is. Louisville will always be the Presbyterian Mecca for me, and when someone says "Kentucky," I think I’ll always think of late-night pizza runs at the leadership event, navigating dark paths to the bathroom at CoCo meetings, and Humna.

What places have special significance to you? Why? What do those places say about you and the commitments you’ve made?

Hillary Mohaupt
Macalester College (St. Paul, MN)
NNPCW Coordinating Committee

2006-10-27T10:08:00.000-04:00

out beyond wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. i'll meet you there.
when the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about.
ideas, language, even the phrase 'each other'
doesn't make any sense.
(rumi)

“Belonging” has been the October theme for a worship community of which I am a part. Someone said, last night, that she is always amazed at our ability to belong to one another – to be in community and to live among each other. Belonging is not something I comprehend well. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense outside of faith. It is one of those things we cannot see but we trust is there, for us always. Belonging is truth, I think.
Belonging just is. And thank God, it always is.

enjoy the weekend,
katie

2006-10-12T11:36:00.000-04:00

The number one principle that everyone in Sunday school learns, first thing, is that God told us to "love thy neighbor". It makes sense that this is the first thing to learn at young age, I’m sure it cuts down on rowdiness in the classroom and potential fist fights breaking out before service begins. This message inevitably gets lost somewhere between middle school and high school graduation, because at that point, parents become concerned on just how much love their son or daughter is showing their neighbor. But now, somewhere between the beginning and the end of college, I’m starting to wonder just how much love is a good thing.

It’s a legitimate question for any person of any age to ask him or her self, but especially for a young woman like me. I go to a large school (over 30,000 students) in an even larger city (over 600,000 people) at a very urban campus. On a daily basis I interact with people from all walks of life, background, race, nationality, political persuasion, religion, sexuality, etc. We’re a diverse group, I must say, even within classes. While I try very hard to approach each situation with the love God would want me to show, I find that I fail most often in the little interactions: I ignore people begging on the street when I’m walking alone, I often forget important details involving friends—like their birthdays or what classes their taking. The biggest failure, I think for most people in my city, involves driving. If I’m behind the wheel, I will vocalize my opinions (rarely positive ones) about the people driving around me and especially the pedestrians walking nearby. Especially when I’m walking (which is most of the time), any car that comes near my crosswalk, regardless of the stoplight color, is almost always subjected to the dirtiest of looks. If looks could kill, that taxi cab driver would be dead, buried, and decomposed.

This semester in particular, I find myself wondering just what God meant by love your neighbor. Did He mean love them like you would your best friend or your family? Love them like your boyfriend? Because honestly, there are plenty of times when I question my love for all of those people, especially my family (we’re a kooky and opinionated lot). I mean, I love them at the end of the day, but there are plenty of times when I don’t especially like them. So can you love someone without liking them? And what kind of love is that?

Everyday, I wake up, and sincerely hope I do not interact with my next door neighbor, Paul. Literally, I have trouble loving my neighbor. He drives me absolutely crazy, and the worst part is, I’m not totally sure why. Outwardly, he’s a very nice fellow, but something about his manner seems to be off. It’s a serious thing, in a study abroad program of 9 people (yes, I’m studying abroad, forgot to mention that earlier) to thoroughly dislike someone, because you’re constantly with them. We live together and have class together, but thankfully do not work together. So four days a week, I’m guaranteed eight to ten Paul-free hours. But that doesn’t help the social time when it’s hard for eight of us to hang out without him, or to invite the boys from next door over, but leave him out of the invitation.

In my defense, I do have a little bit of justification for disliking him. He’s very demeaning toward women but in a chivalrous way. He constantly treats my roommates and me like we cannot handle anything. No, we can’t walk to the store by ourselves at 3:00 in the afternoon—it would be unsafe. No, four girls can’t go out to bars in a very safe neighborhood as a group—it’s not ok. We can’t even carry our groceries up the stairs. Again, this all sounds like a great thing—a man around the place to help out opening jars and reaching things on the high shelves—but it’s actually fairly insulting. All five of the women in my apartment have been managing independently for a few years now; we’re perfectly capable of taking care of ourselves. Moreover, the tension came to a head two weeks ago when Paul attempted to condone rape in the military because most of the rapes occurred when both parties are drunk. He left our apartment and hasn’ t been back since then, and honestly, I’m not sure he’ll ever be welcome again.

So, do I have to love him? To be a good Christian who follows God’s word, do I have to love him the way I would love my brother? I just can’t decide. I know I don’t hate him; for instance, if he was in physical danger, I ’d probably protect him if I could. I’m not planning on pushing him in front of a bus any time soon, but I’m also not planning on inviting him over for a cup of tea to hear about his day or to welcome him into my apartment to watch "Grey’s Anatomy" with the rest of us. There’s a clear line in my mind—I don’t want to be his friend, but I don’t want him to be tortured or killed or anything remotely similar. Essentially, as long as nothing horrible happens to him on my watch, I think we’ll be fine politely ignoring one another. I don’t sit or stand near him during class, and during our weekly full program dinners, I politely ignore his every word or movement. Basically, I pretend he does not exist, unless by societal standards, it would be rude not to acknowledge him. Again, I ’d save his life if I had to (I feel somewhat responsible for the bodily well-being of those around me, and even to some degree his emotional well-being), but in every interaction, I do just enough not to feel guilty. I behave, as best I can, above reproach. Can that be considered showing God’s love? Or, if nothing else, can I have a get out of sinning free card, because I’m human and I can’t always rise above? I’ll be looking for the answer in my prayers, and until then, I’ll just keep hoping that God loves Paul enough that I don’t have to.

Virginia Hines
Boston University (Boston, MA)
NNPCW Coordinating Committee

Life in College...

2006-10-09T09:41:00.000-04:00

Hello from Oregon! I am so excited to be blogging this week. I am Hailee Barnes and go to Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon. I am currently a sophomore and going through the sophomore crazy time of trying to figure out what exactly I want to study and do as a college student. College is a tricky time in our lives where we are in a transition from living with parents to having a career and life of our own. I feel as though I was in a daze and shock last year with all these new opportunities, responsibilities, and being away from home for the first time. My friends laugh at all my attempts at making "life plans" as there have been about four of these just since September of this year; I have lost count from last year. I try to trust that things will all work out, but this often gives me the chills, some may say that I am a control freak.

My campus can be quite conducive to making one feel very disconnected from the world and get caught up in the life of classes, papers, tests, sports, clubs, and parties. NNPCW so far has been my "get away." I thoroughly enjoyed attending the leadership event this summer. I had no idea what to expect. I shied away from the Christian groups on my campus due to contrasts in focus and activity and did not know what NNPCW would be like. To my great findings NNPCW was just what I was looking for, a group of college women who support each other and are joined together by their belief in Jesus Christ. I have learned so much already from my fellow NNPCW members and CoCo members. At the leadership event it was suggested to me to apply for CoCo [NNPCW's Coordinating Committee] and even though I did not have a clear idea what CoCo was I did and attended my first CoCo meeting in September. I am so excited to work with these amazing women and learn more about them and from them. I am excited to plan this year’s leadership event with other NNPCW members.

In this time of confusion and frustration I have been so thankful that I was directed to NNPCW. I often feel as though every decision I make is so important and stress over it for a long time. I am learning slowly to take a deep breath and remember that I am not alone in this journey of life and that if I focus on the small catches that I will miss the big picture. I have turned towards support from women going through this time and those who have already been here and am learning so much. As Noelle blogged about untold stories I am learning through my experiences what my mom, aunts, grandmother, and other older women must have gone through and how much they must have to teach me. One of my goals for the year is to ask women in my life their story, why they believe what they do, how they have come to that, and what experiences they have to share with me. Until next time, take care.

Hailee Barnes
Lewis and Clark College
NNPCW Coordinating Committee

2006-10-06T09:39:00.000-04:00

My current mood is road rage..because i realized I have a problem with anger..my friends may not notice it because I appear to be a patient person..on the outside i handle situations with the poise and grace..but its only by the grace of God that this happens..My father and I went to my favorite Chinese Food Restaurant in the city Charli Mom a place that most of the people reading this have been with me..My cookie read "The road to success is a lonely one." When youre called for a certain purpose and set apart by God..your lifes journey is a lonely one..From a young age Ive wondered why my life experiences have been 10 times worse than other peoples..I feel i have road rage becaue often times i am traveling on life’s journey with absolutely no worries, chillin in the HOV lane with all my family and good friends, cruise control is on and God has my life on auto-pilot..suddenly something goes wrong and the upset i feel is undescribable..I know many of you have felt this way..have you experienced pain so deep that you couldnt even word the way you felt?..or when you get surprised and you cant even react to the excitement of it all?..road rage can be brought on by other peoples actions or even your own..when someone does something so bad or hurtful to you that you just want to curse and carry on...but is that how God wants us to react? psalms 34:19 says many are the afflictions of the righteous but God will deliver you out of them all...isnt it great to know that the God I serve will be there to heal my every wound every time I crash and burn...

Fortune cookie read: The road to success is a lonely one

My fortune reads: The road to heaven is a lonely one, but "if I suffer with Him then Imma reign with him so either way I’m ordained to win"

Iyana Davis
NNPCW Coordinating Committee
Spelman College (Atlanta, GA)

And then there were two…

2006-10-04T16:02:00.000-04:00

This past Saturday marked the first day of the eighth month of my pregnancy. Two months to go. Eight short weeks.

I recently reread my blog post from the beginning of my third trimester, when I had three months to go. I was much more apprehensive about giving birth back then. I’m glad to say that time and my childbirth classes have served to calm my nerves.

What’s made the most difference, I think, is simply knowing more. I realize now how little I knew about birth before I began my childbirth classes, and my lack of knowledge startles me. What’s more, I realize that not only did I know so little about birth in general, I also knew very little about birth in particular. Think about all the women in your life who have given birth: your grandmothers, your mother, your step-mother, your sister, your aunts. How many of their birth stories do you know? I’m not talking about knowing a few details like how many hours she was in labor, or what each baby weighed. I’m talking about knowing her story: What did the experience make her feel? How did it change her view of the world? Did it alter her relationship with her body?

Do you know the birth stories of the women in your life? I confess that I do not. What other stories are we failing to share with each other as women?

We live in a society that has little patience for the laborious listening to stories. But stories shape us, they tell us what we know. It’s no wonder I know so little about birth, not having been told—or not having listened to—the stories that my friends and my family have to tell about their own birthing experiences. Again, I wonder what else worth knowing is not being shared, because the stories are not being told and heard. I wondered this as I visited my grandmother during a trip home this past weekend. She has severe dementia and doesn’t recognize me. Our time for sharing stories is past. What have I lost?

What I have gained is a determination to ask for people’s stories, and to share my own. I am going to send my other grandmother a tape recorder and a journal, so that she can record her stories for me. I encourage you to begin working to create a culture around you that shares stories. There is much to learn, and much to teach.

Noelle

"The Flood of 2006"

2006-09-25T17:55:00.000-04:00

Ever notice how the news media have to give a title and a theme song to every halfway notable event these days?

Example: We had a record-breaking amount of rain in our region over the weekend, which was quickly dubbed "The Flood of 2006." News updates on the weather could not take place without dramatic music playing in the background and the words "The Flood of 2006" superimposed somewhere on the screen.

I find this troubling. On the one hand, such action tends to overdramatize certain events. I do not want to downplay the events of this weekend--several lives were lost and much property was damaged--but when the "Flood of 2006" gets the same branding as the events currently taking place in the Middle East, it can seem like an overdramatizion.

At the same time, however, such branding also tends to trivialize the same event that also seems overdramatized. The fact that the severe weather we had over the weekend was given a title and a theme song moves it to the realm of the ridiculous, and as a result, it is ridiculed rather than reflected upon with the seriousness it deserves.

Theme songs and titles are the things of Hollywood. In my opinion they do not belong as a part of serious news media. Then again, they crop up in other "serious" places, too, including the church. Are such tools useful in conveying the most serious message that exists: the good news of the gospel? Or do they actually work against the message by mockingly overdramatizing it, and therefore simultaneously trivializing it?

(Just a few thoughts after a long weekend of cleaning out a flooded basement. Share your own thoughts with me...)

Noelle

a question for the masses

2006-09-21T17:47:00.000-04:00

This blog post isn't going to consist of any formulated thoughts, but rather some questions that have been floating around in my head today.

Let me tell you where I'm coming from first. Last night I went to my third childbirthing class. Today I went to my 30-week checkup with my obstetrician. And just a few minutes ago, I spoke with a colleage who was at an informational session on women's gynecologic health earlier today.

All of these events have caused me to realize one thing: I do not know my body as well as I should.

And here are my questions:

Why not? We live in the "information age." I know tons of useless things about tons of useless topics. Why don't I know my own body better than I do?

How well do you know your body?

What role, if any, does the church have in helping all people--but perhaps especially women, whose bodies have been demonized for eons--to better know and listen to their bodies? Is this beyond the church's mission? We are told to be stewards of creation. Should this not extend to the flesh and bone casings of humankind, men and women created in God's image?

My main question for you: What are your thoughts?

Noelle

seasons

2006-09-20T17:04:00.001-04:00

Fall is quickly approaching. It was only 51 degrees this morning when I left for work. I even had to turn the car heater on for a little while to warm up my feet during my short commute.

I love autumn. Its only downfall is that it never seems to last long enough. Just as soon as the leaves reach their peak, they are replaced by the cold and barren branches of the trees they’ve left behind. There is something necessary, however, in having fall as a transition from summer to winter, our two longest seasons in Louisville. Fall prepares us for the long dark of winter, just as spring reawakens us to experience the deep warmth of summer.

Having grown up in Los Angeles, I didn’t experience seasons like I now know them in Louisville. The weather is stereotypically near perfect in Los Angeles, with “winter” consisting of days mostly in the 50s and 60s. During my childhood, therefore, the seasons of the church provided a rhythm to life that weather patterns could not provide. I left the liturgical Lutheran church I was raised in and began attending a non-denominational church at the age of 15. We didn’t follow the church calendar, except to celebrate Easter and Christmas, two holidays that seemed to come out of nowhere without the preparatory time of Advent and Lent. Those years of attending a non-denominational church in Los Angeles left me feeling aimless in a lot of ways. I realize now that it was largely because there were no yearly seasons in my life. Time became linear, and I needed the repetition of cyclical time, of seasonal life, to give me structure and guidance.

I don’t enjoy winters here in Louisville, and summers can be a little too humid for my Southern California sensibilities, but I endure them knowing that another season is always on its way. This gives me hope. Hope for my life, for the life of the church, and for the life of the world.

sunshine for a cloudy day

2006-09-11T18:53:00.000-04:00

Katie and I are deep into last-minute logistics for NNPCW's fall Coordinating Committee, so this will be short and to the point:

Go see the film Little Miss Sunshine.

I have not laughed so hard at a movie since...I can't even remember when. What I like most about Little Miss Sunshine is how it is at once hilarious, disturbing, and redemptive. There are gospel themes woven throughout, probably unintentionally. It is an example of how Christ is so prone to break through into this mundane world of ours, even through such a lowly medium as film.

Go see it, and then let me know what you think...

Noelle

2006-09-08T17:41:00.000-04:00

I read an article in Wednesday’s New York Times, “To Stay Alive, Iraqis Change Their Names.” Whether Sunni or Shiite, men and women are being executed on the spot if they have a suspect name or a hometown dominated by the rival sect. This has sent thousands of Iraqi civilians in search of a mask. A mask to hide the very essence of who they are – their names. They know it is a shameful act; but it is moreso a matter of survival. They have no choice. I have searched within myself for the right words to say about this. After reading the article, I was angry – ready to deliver a hot-tempered manifesto on being/owning/living into one’s name – and that everyone must have that right. Now, as I sit down to type, my message is quite simple. This makes me profoundly sad. To be named is intended to be life-giving, not life-taking. So I am sad and also deeply grateful. Grateful to be called “Katie.” Grateful that when I hear my name called in the street I am not brutally killed on the spot. Grateful that my name makes me unique, for many reasons. Grateful that I can be proud. Grateful that I do not, and most likely never will have to make that choice. Song lyrics come to mind:

I need love, love’s divine…
Give me love, love is what I need to help me know my name.

Any thoughts?

In the name of the One who called us by name,
katie

Lucky You

2006-09-01T16:38:00.000-04:00

Lucky you. Yesterday it was all about different methods of birthing. Today it’s about breastfeeding.

Only it’s not really about breastfeeding. It’s about justice. A colleague in Presbyterian Women shared an article with me today about the “two-class” system that exists for working mothers who are also trying to nurse their babies.

The basic gist of the article is this: While doctors and public health officials insist that “breast is best” (I didn’t make it up; that’s a real slogan), society is structured in such a way that only makes breastfeeding accessible for working moms in mid- to high-level professional jobs. For working-class women, however, breastfeeding becomes almost impossible.

Why? There are no policies in place that provide working-class women with what they need to breastfeed their babies. The main way working moms provide breast milk to their babies is by pumping at work, and bringing their milk home. Working-class women are not provided the time and the space necessary to do this. The article cites a Starbucks employee who had to pump her breast milk in the customers’ restroom, all while counting down the minutes until her short break was over.

In my opinion, this was the most poignant line of the article:
“It is a particularly literal case of how well-being tends to beget further well-being, and disadvantage tends to create disadvantage — passed down in a mother’s milk, or lack thereof.”

Well-being tends to beget further well-being, and disadvantage tends to create disadvantage. This is how the world is—but is it how the world should be?

I claim that it is not. When the prophets speak of the world that God envisions for God’s people, themes of justice and equality abound. A society in which well-being begets further well-being and disadvantage creates disadvantage is exactly the kind of society God railed against through the prophets:

“Alas for those who lie on beds of ivory, and lounge on their couches, and eat lambs from the flock, and claves from the stall…. You have turned justice into poison and the fruit of righteousness into wormwood.” (Amos 6:4, 12)

Jesus calls us to follow him. If we are to answer that call, part of what that means is joining him in what he says the Spirit of Lord anointed him to do:

“The Spirit of the Lord us upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Women who cannot currently breastfeed their babies because unjust policies are currently in place do not need our charity. They need justice. They do not need a breast pump drive or a public education campaign as to why “breast is best.” They need us to stand with them in demanding adequate breaks and adequate space so that they can breastfeed.

The poor, the blind, the oppressed—none of these need our charity. They need us to walk alongside them, in Jesus’ footsteps, and to overturn systems of injustice that make charity necessary.

Noelle

I would encourage you to read the article I have alluded to in its entirety at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/01/health/01nurse.html?ex=1157774400&en=73902774845d88ce&ei=5059&partner=AOL

Third Trimester: Three Months to Go

2006-08-31T20:01:00.000-04:00

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

whining and shining - all in a day's work...

2006-08-29T17:23:00.000-04:00

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

allow me a brief introduction...

2006-08-24T18:02:00.000-04:00

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…

A Living Legend

2006-08-23T18:15:00.001-04:00

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

Minnesota vs. Hollywood

2006-08-22T15:37:00.000-04:00

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

Monday. Blah.

2006-08-14T17:50:00.000-04:00

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

Do you want to have a life changing experience?

2006-08-10T11:08:00.000-04:00

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.

Friends

2006-08-08T20:24:00.000-04:00

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.

Carpe Diem: In Memory of Mike

2006-08-07T16:37:00.000-04:00

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

Who are your heroes?

2006-08-04T15:32:00.000-04:00

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

Valuing the Journey

2006-08-02T16:24:00.000-04:00

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

Building relationships

2006-07-28T09:23:00.000-04:00

When a cry erupts in one of the nursery rooms at Macalester Plymouth United Church in St. Paul, I don’t have to guess who will be the first to respond. While I and my fellow Sunday morning child care providers keep an acute eye on the littlest members of Mac Plymouth, you can bet the most watchful eye is that of Nolia, a spunky two-and-a-half year-old girl and one of our most frequent charges. When one of the other children stubs her toe or experiences a sudden pang of separation anxiety, Nolia is the first one on the scene, wrapping her baby fat arm around a trembling shoulder as her eyebrow furrows in what looks like genuine concern.

I think I’m not the only college kid who relishes playtime with little kids as an escape, for however short a time, from the stresses of the college bubble. During the school year I leap at a chance to simply play -- but all the while, I know that play is not always so simple, that it is often a tool of infinite wisdom.

When we talk about intergenerational dialogue, I often notice that at our age we think of ourselves primarily as mentees, young women looking for nurturing friendships with women who have been there and done that. We often forget that we, too, possess the incredible ability to establish life-changing relationships with younger women and girls.

Like many NNPCW women, I was led to the Network by a life-changing woman I met at the very beginning of my days at Macalester College. She continues to listen when it seems no one else will and she operates on an innate desire to care for other people -- much like Nolia. And just as I love to indulge in her confidence-building, thought-provoking friendship, I marvel at what an impact we can have on each other’s lives. And as earlytwentysomethings wading through our college years, we can offer our own selves, consciously or unconsciously, as “the older woman” who takes interest in the hopes and dreams and thoughts of someone younger. We can mentor younger women on our campuses and in our communities, whether that mentoring takes the form of friendship or of consistency in a world where things change so quickly. Somehow we end up learning as much as we are teaching our younger friends. Even in play we are building the groundwork for deeper relationships and richer lessons.

Nolia smiles like a lot of kids her age: a big toothful grin that lets you know she trusts you, but all the same suspects you’re just about the neatest thing on the planet.

NOW is the time

2006-07-27T16:43:00.000-04:00

Hello everyone! I’m Heather Grantham, the current Office of Women’s Advocacy Young Adult Intern for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).

This past weekend, I had the opportunity to go to the National Organization for Women’s national conference in Albany, NY. This conference was awesome! Never before have I ever been around such an affirming group of women. I was affirmed for being a young adult, a feminist, a Christian, for being an activist, AND for being me. So much happened at this conference and I fear I cannot talk about it all in this blog post!

The National Organization for Women (NOW) is celebrating its 40th anniversary, so this conference was a definite celebration of how far women have come, but also a look at how far we have yet to go. The weekend was broken up into learning workshops, political briefings, and the business session. All day Friday was centered around Young Feminists, with special attention given to topics interesting young adults (i.e. The ABC of STDs and I’m Not a Feminist But…) The workshops I attended were: The Global Feminist Movement, Invisible Women: Stolen and Sold, Working Together for a Feminist Future: Intergenerational Perspectives, Winning the Battle One State at a Time: Reproductive Rights and the States, Immigration is a Feminist Issue, Faith and Feminism, and Feminist Media Reform.

I would like to take this opportunity to highlight just a few things from the workshops. NOW is doing some wonderful things in regards to learning about feminism from different cultures. Recently a delegation went down to Venezuela and Cuba to learn from women in that context. This trip wasn’t about teaching women how to be feminist – it was about learning who these women are and how they respond to crises as women for women. For example, did you know abortion is absolutely legal in Cuba? The law only says if a woman chooses to have an abortion, it has to be done by a doctor in a hospital (so it will be safe). For more information www.now.org/nnt/summer-2006/venezuela.html

Did you know that more than 800,000 people are trafficked each year – and that number is severely under-estimated due to the lack of sources. If you are at all interested in human trafficking or the current slavery trends please visit www.humantrafficking.org/, www.anti-slavery.org/, or www.catwinternational.org

I do want to emphasize to you the importance of meeting with women who came before you. When I went to the workshop Working Together for a Feminist Future, I was able to sit down with women who knew feminist figureheads such as Betty Freidan and Alice Paul. I was amazed to hear the stories of these women who were fighting the same fight we are fighting today. I didn’t feel as isolated as I did before. Having an intergenerational dialogue (much like the NNPCW Leadership Event this year) is so important. I urge each of you to sit down with a woman who is older and ask her about her life.

That is all I have the space for now, however, I want to invite you all to go to http://now.org and read conference highlights (not up yet). I also invite you to use that website as a tool to write to your congressperson on things you are passionate about. ALSO, find a women’s group near you and GET ACTIVE!!!

feel free to ask questions!!

Finding our Place in the Chain

2006-07-26T19:51:00.000-04:00

Evenin’, sisters!

My name is Amy Robinson, and I am currently serving as the representative of the NNPCW on the Churchwide Coordinating Team (CCT) of Presbyterian Women. On behalf of this week’s bloggers, I’d like to apologize for the silence these last few days. Since both Brianne and Noelle are out of the office, a volunteer team was recruited to write to you all about our perspectives on recent goings-on in the life of the Women’s Ministries Program Area. However, because of a few gaffes on our part, we seem to have gotten turned around about who is writing when and how to get into blogger. No surprises there - I have reasons for choosing political science over computer science in my undergraduate years ;). We may be playing a little bit of catch up in the next few days. Of course, that’ll simply give you all more to enjoy!

I met many of you all a few weeks ago, at the NNPCW leadership event. Back in my undergraduate days, I remember the thrill of those conferences packed with worship and exploration of that intoxicating combination of faith and feminism that got me started on my path towards faith-based social praxis. This summer, I was able to see the conference from the flip side. I tell you, it raised more than a few eyebrows when I told people that, at 25, I was asked to be one of the older-women-mentor-figures at the Intergenerational Dialogue event for NNPCW ;). However, this type of relationship building across age barriers is something that I have thoroughly enjoyed in my time with Presbyterian Women, and that I am excited to see my younger sisters exploring.

For example, my (and now your) friend Beulah Townsend was another one of the PW participants, there to build relationships throughout the decades. I first met Beulah when I came to my first leadership event, in Federal Way WA back in 1999. You all remember her amusing tangents, outrageous outfits, and charming sense of humor. What you may not know about Beulah is her role as a dynasty in Presbyterian Women and NNPCW’s own recent history. When NNPCW was first struggling to come into it’s own, Beulah was a member of Hamblen Park Presbyterian Church in Spokane WA, and served as both the representative of the Synod of Alaska Northwest to the CCT as well as on our Presbytery’s Justice for Women Committee. There, more than five years before Whitworth’s now flourishing WISE was formed, Beulah and her comrades in Spokane met on Whitworth (my alma mater)’s campus in order to begin conversations with student and find those among us who had a passion for women’s empowerment. She began to plant seeds. There was little response from the student body at the time, but her work was to later bear great fruit.

Meanwhile, a young woman named Emily Meyer found her way into the choir at Hamblen Park Presbyterian Church, and was assigned to share her music with our very own Beulah Townsend. A beautiful intergenerational friendship flourished between the teenager and her older buddy. Beulah shared with Emily her excitement about the new, growing ministry for college women based in our denomination. Emily, too, bought into the vision of faith and feminism. She went on to become our co-moderator with Rebecca Barnes (now Barnes-Davies of Presbyterians Restoring Creation), and led the Coordinating Committee through a tumultuous period. Her ministry with us was a direct result of Beulah’s passion.

I, then, met Emily when I was a Youth Advisory Delegate that same summer of ‘99, to the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA). I had read about the NNPCW and found it exciting and innovative, but was yet to get involved. There at General Assembly, I became acquainted with Emily and witnessed the faith that was manifest in her work and the work of her ‘generation’ in the Network. I was introduced to Gusti Newquist, Rebecca Morrison, and many others who continue to bear witness to God’s truth. They enabled me to find my place in the church. They inspired me to become involved.

That September, Kelsey Rice and I both began at Whitworth College, two students winding our way through academia and discovering our faith. In time, we both found our way into the pews of that same Hamblen Park Presbyterian Church. There, I reunited with my friend Beulah who had sat alongside me as I first explored the relationship between faith and feminism in a conference center on the Puget Sound. I introduced her to Kelsey; and Beulah, beautiful passionate woman of faith that she is, began to preach once gain of the wonders of the NNPCW. That was Kelsey’s first exposure to the NNPCW; we all know where it went from there.

Now, those few and faithful Spokanites who have listened and acted upon our understanding of Christian feminism have grown in number and are reaching greater levels. Our immediate past co-moderator (and one of my favorite songwriters ;) ), Maren Haynes, is a recent alumna of Whitworth College, whose WISE group is a direct result of contact Kelsey made when she first moved to Louisville. Hannah Kimball, one of our sisters and participants in our most recent Leadership Event, is a member of the steady supply from Hamblen Park Presbyterian Church.

This is the produce of intergenerational conversation; through relationships with those of other ages, whether older by four or forty years, we learn where we have been and what we have achieved. We retain our history and learn our traditions. We find causes to inspire us. In the same process, we give hope and renewed energy for those older than us, who are looking for those to carry on the baton. We partner together, to learn from and strengthen each other. In the process, we each grow in our faith and our passion. May this beautiful chain of intergenerational communication continue.

Mizpah,

Amy

Finishing This Race

2006-07-21T14:34:00.000-04:00

Well, this is it, folks. It is time to pass the baton, and finally cede the computer and the cozy office chair to Noelle for good. We covered the budget this morning, so I guess I’ve imparted everything I know—I can walk out of the classroom now and forget it all.

But first, I have to blog. If you’re currently on the NNPCW listserv (click here to get on it), you’ve probably already read the sappy e-mail messages I sent out to NNPCW members and alumnae saying goodbye. Indeed, I’m good at doing the sappy thing. I still worry, though, that it sounds overly grandiose as I resort to platitudes to express deep emotion.

I will try to keep the following from getting too sappy or too grandiose. I do want to tell you, though, just a little bit about how much this work has changed my life.

When I started working for the Network, I was fresh out of college and basically looking for a job that had to do with women. I had gotten really into feminist critical theory in college lit classes, but I suspected that I really didn’t want to pursue that as a career. So I started thinking about doing something related to women, just for a few years until I got my act together to pursue grad work in English or history.

I’ve told many of you the story of how unlikely it was for me to come to NNPCW—I was not on CoCo, not a member of the Network, not even a Presbyterian. I can remember, the day before flying to Louisville for my face-to-face interview, sitting in the dorm room I shared with Amy Robinson as she explained to me what a stated clerk was, even what a presbytery was. I had no clue.

But the first time I talked with Gusti Newquist, Lindsey Childs, and Anna Hrachovec on the phone, I felt drawn. Their interview was actually fun. Yet I was surprised when they asked me to come to Louisville, and nervous when I found out that all the other applicants had much more experience than I did with NNPCW and women’s theologies. Still, I came, not even thinking I had a shot at getting an internship with this office.

Then, the morning after the interview when I had returned to my little dorm room at Whitworth, I got the phone call offering me a job with NNPCW. And I can look back on that moment today and say that I didn’t have a clue how powerfully the Spirit was about to move in my life. The decision I made, to leave my friends and family in Washington and follow God’s call here, has made all the difference in the person I am now.

Working with the students of NNPCW and the staff here in the office has challenged me to expand my understanding of God’s grace and love, to overcome my fears of the unknown and unanswered, and to act for those around me who are in need. I have been inspired by so many of you, who dare to live authentically and with integrity in a world where we’re encouraged to hide our true selves. You’ve prompted me to critically examine my own prejudices and assumptions by your witness. You’ve taught me to stop measuring success by a letter grade, or signups on a sheet, or applause at a presentation. You’ve showed me what loving your neighbor really means.

And for this, even platitudes cannot express the depth of my thanks.

Now, in parting, a blessing: may the great I AM, Mother and Father to us all, bless your witness as you proclaim God’s coming realm of justice and love. And may the love of Christ shine upon you until we meet again.

“As for me, I am already being poured out as a libation, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” --2 Timothy 4:6-7

Kelsey

Getting Down to the Wire

2006-07-20T19:55:00.000-04:00

And then there were two.

So I’m down to my last two days of work with NNPCW. It is kind of odd, I suppose… as it gets closer to my leaving day, I start to feel more and more superfluous to the workings of this operation. As John the Baptist said, others must become greater, and I must become less.

Back in the day, after Robin left, and Tammy left, and Gusti left, and Ann left, I was told that I had become the so-called “institutional memory” of the office. With my departure tomorrow, only three people in Women’s Ministries will have been here for more than a year. It is a new day for our offices, a new opportunity for fresh perspectives.

And yet as the “institutional memory,” it seems that one of my last blog posts should be to remind the Network of its roots—why do we exist, and what is worth fighting for to keep us alive? All I can offer is my perspective, for what it’s worth. After all, what are you going to do? Fire me? (Hee hee)

NNPCW as a ministry began with a group of young women meeting together in 1991 in Des Moines, Iowa. Though the hair was definitely bigger back then, the commitments that group articulated are still very much the same commitments we pay homage to today—diversity of all kinds in an inclusive community of women, spiritual growth, lifting up the voices of young women, ecumenism, evangelism, etc. In the 15 years since then, women have loved this ministry and fought for it. They have risked shame and ostracism from the larger church to uphold many of these values inherent to NNPCW. They have spent hours planning and programming, laughing and crying so that the seeds of the liberating gospel might be planted in both women and men.

In my mind, they have given too much to this ministry for us to sacrifice our values to the altar of convenience and acquiescence. And what are those values, to me? Justice for women, inclusive and caring community, the boldness to engage in the hard dialogue that comes with diversity and to do it without fear. If we lose these elements, we become nothing more than a nice Presbyterian girls’ club, one that shames the legacy of the courageous women who carved this space for us.

After the Leadership Event, several of us engaged in one of the aforementioned hard dialogues about the role of NNPCW in the church. Do we simply plant the seeds of growth in women, challenging them to expand from their comfort zones for future action, or are we supposed to be the prophetic voice of the church? Even when, as the prophetic voice, we alienate some of the young women we want to reach?

In some ways, we are a both/and ministry. We give young women the space to find their voices, to be challenged out of their comfort zones. We meet them where they are, not necessarily with the agenda of “changing” or “improving” them, but to let them have the room to explore their faith without judgment.

And at the same time, our very existence is an act of advocacy. In our internal structures, in our commitment to safe space, we model the behaviors of living in community that we wish to see in the larger church. Because we’re here in the first place, young women in the church are taken seriously as a force in the life of the denomination. It was amazing to see the moderator of Presbyterian Women stand with NNPCW co-moderator Maren Haynes, in front of 3,200 women at this last Churchwide Gathering of Presbyterian Women, and declare our equal partnership in bringing about conversation and change among women. The existence of NNPCW, united with our sisters in Racial Ethnic Young Women Together, the Office of Women’s Advocacy, and Presbyterian Women, prevents women from being pushed to the margins of the church’s power structures. Ultimately, we’re a ministry of advocacy because justice for young women is the focus of what we do.

So in parting, I hope you all keep the faith and fight the good fight for God’s love and justice to be poured out. If you do that, I’ll know that the last three years have been worth it.

“I am giving you these instructions, Timothy, my child, in accordance with the prophecies made earlier about you, so that by following them you may fight the good fight, having faith and a good conscience.” --1 Timothy 1:18-19a

Kelsey

My First Blog. Ever.

2006-07-19T16:55:00.001-04:00

As a child I spent a week each summer with my Aunt Kay. She’d take my older sister and me to Sea World, the San Diego Zoo, the miniature golf course and the movies. Toward the end of each summer, right when the dawn of a new school year threatened to overtake summer’s laziness, Aunt Kay would send us each a photo album filled with memories of our summer adventures. I still have each of the photo albums she made for me, and I still go through them from time to time. But one of the memories not captured in those books are the quirky sayings Aunt Kay so readily used. One of the things I remember hearing her say time and time again is, “I’m dating myself!” It took me awhile (until I was 8 or 9) to understand that what she meant wasn’t that she was romantically involved with herself, but rather that whatever she had just said had in some way betrayed her “old” age.

I never thought I’d be old enough to date myself, but that’s just what I’m about to do. I have to admit to you that until I took this job, I didn’t really know what a blog was. Sure, I’d heard the term used before and I had a general sense of what it must be by the way it was described, but I had never actually seen one. I had never read a blog entry. And I had certainly never written one of my own! You see, the internet and email accounts were the new thing when I started college. Back then people didn’t ask you what your email address was; they asked you if you had an email address. (We still carried around pagers back then, too. No one I knew had a cell phone except for my friend Liz’s dad, and it was about the size of a standard cordless phone today.)

As the new program associate for NNPCW, let me assure you that what I don’t know about blogging I make up for in other areas. That’s exactly why I’m so excited about this position--because it combines so many of my different passions and experiences. In line with NNPCW’s mission, I, too, feel called to live within and share God’s grace, acceptance and love; I long to build a community of women that reflects God’s extravagant hospitality to all persons; I strive to challenge systems of oppression, domination, exploitation and suffering; and I choose to work for justice and reconciliation in both church and society. And I am blessed to have had formative experiences in my life that have led me to this place, feeling equipped and excited to work as the staff person for this faithful and prophetic ministry. After graduating with a degree in biblical studies from Azusa Pacific University, I attended Princeton Theological Seminary and graduated with an M.Div. in 2003. I’ve spent the last two and-a-half years working as a community organizer with local faith-based justice organizations, first in Toledo, OH, and then here in Louisville, KY.

These experiences have shaped me into the woman I am today: a young woman (“dated”, however, by my earlier admission) committed to working with other young women to better understand what it means to “claim a Christian faith that empowers women” (to quote NNPCW’s mission statement.) I am eager to begin this journey, and I look forward to working and journeying with many of you.

In anticipation of all that is to come,
Noelle Tennis Gulden
NNPCW Program Associate

How Much Is That Mustang In the Parking Lot??

2006-07-18T09:01:00.001-04:00

Although I’ve already told you the story of my selling the ‘Stang, the fact that I’m doing it has become all the more painful and poignant in my last week here in Louisville. I have composed a song to describe my angst—it goes something like this:

(to the tune of “How Much is that Doggie in the Window”)

How much is that Mustang in the parking lot?? ($3000, FYI)
The one with the wobbly spoiler?
How much is that Mustang in the parking lot??
Do you think that poor Mustang’s for sale?

I don’t want to go to Massachusetts,
And leave my poor Mustang alone.
If she has a buyer, she won’t be lonesome,
And the Mustang will have a good home.

(Repeat chorus)

Yes, I’m still trying to sell my car. Because of the Leadership Event, I did not put an ad out for it in the paper (not to mention that my mom was afraid some stranger would murder me if I did that ). I did, however, put up flyers in PresbyLand, hoping that one of my colleagues would give the ‘Stang a good home. No takers yet….

So it is looking like CarMax for the Mustang. For those of you who aren’t familiar with this, CarMax is a car lot that will buy your vehicle without a trade-in—all you need is photo ID, your title, and your registration. About half the cars they buy will end up on their lot to sell, and the other half will go to auction. It is a good deal if, like David and me, you’re looking to get rid of your car quickly with as little hassle as possible.

But for me, there is something repulsive about just handing my beloved car away to CarMax—it feels like I’m giving up my only child for adoption, never to know what became of her. I would much rather have the ‘Stang go to a good new owner, one who would care for her as I did for the past three years.

Not helping the situation are all my friends and family, who seem united together in opposing my sale of the car (with the exception of David, of course). Whenever I mention that my car has got to go, I am met with exclamations of shock and looks of dismay. Even friends like Amy, who believe firmly in the merits of public transportation and don’t drive themselves, ask me if there is any way I could just keep the car stored away until I need it again. Never mind that a ten-year-old Ford won’t keep well in the 3+ years we’ll be living the urban life.

In all our minds, I think the Mustang has become more than a car—it is a focal point for my past. I can’t look at that car without thinking of the day in which my friend Casey and I hopped in and pulled out of that driveway in Dryden, Washington, headed east to a world of new adventures, personal and spiritual growth, and romance, too. That period of my life is ending now, to be replaced by different growth and challenges as I begin married life in earnest.

And even as I can’t wait for the new to begin, my mourning the car symbolizes my grief for an era of my life that is ending. To tell you the truth, I don’t particularly want to take the Mustang with me to Boston. But part of me hurts that I’m leaving it, and the life it represents, behind.

So we may leave the ‘Stang at CarMax on Saturday morning, and I may even cry about it. But I hope that when it’s all over, I’ll dry my eyes and look east toward the world opening up before me. And I’ll look over at David, and know that the adventure is only beginning.

“Therefore, my beloved, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the work of the Lord, because you know that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.” --1 Corinthians 15:58

Kelsey