Category: Blog Stuff

Welcome Back to onehandclapping

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Old onehandclapping header

I started this blog, onehandclapping, back in 2005 when I was a new mom in the middle of deconstructing my faith and trying to figure out how I could use my voice. At first the blog was a random assortment of book reviews, commentary on politics and pop culture, silly memes and quizzes, and pictures of my life. Over the next decade as I grew in my writing and explored my beliefs it became more theology and social justice oriented. It saw the publication of my books, my experiences as a conference speaker, my time in seminary, and the development of the Emerging Church movement that I was a part of.

Then it went silent. My life got complicated. Relationships fell apart. Trauma and betrayal made it hard to even feel like writing. Special needs kids entering their teen years and all the joys and sorrows that entails took nearly all my energy and their struggles were not my story to tell. A global pandemic and the rise of fascism in the United States made living uncertain. Personal health issues lead to multiple surgeries that eventually left me with mobility issues and multiple disabilities. Life consumed me, I allowed myself to be caged, and I lost myself as a result. Then computer problems ended up deleting most of the blog and not everything was able to be recovered. I sat with an empty blog for a long time unsure of what to do with it.

And a decade went by.

So now, 20 years later, I’ve decided to republish onehandclapping. And I’m going to do it mostly as it was. Some posts have been lost to the digital nether, some posts of family pictures and updates I am leaving off, and some posts that were links go nowhere these days. But the blog is a fascinating glimpse into my development of thought and into the world as it was during that time. There are many things I wrote that I no longer agree with. There is commentary on pop culture that is no longer relevant (my speculations on what will happen on LOST) and pop culture that is now problematic (Harry Potter, Joss Whedon…). How we interact with media has change in those 20 years – pictures, memes, quizzes, and articles are now posted on Facebook or Instagram while blogs are for more serious lengthy writing. But it is a history of my story of deconstruction that shows my evolution and so it is being posted as it was written during that time. I probably will revisit some older posts as I try to explore in writing who I am now, but the archives exist as they were.

As I’ve grown older and dealt with trauma both physical and emotional, I am a different person. I’ve grown more liberal and compassionate, and yet far more timid in using my voice. I want that to change. Writing helps me and for years I’ve been too scared and stuck to write. I need to make myself speak again. I need to engage deeply with thought again, connecting ideas and stories. It will look different than it did 20 years ago because I am different. My beliefs, my interests, and my dreams have shifted as the years passed by, but there is still so much story to tell.

So, I welcome you back to onehandclapping and invite you to join me as I rediscover my voice.

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And the Winner Is…

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Cover of Everyday Justice by Julie ClawsonThank you everyone for participating in the contest to win a copy of Everyday Justice. Congrats to Elisha Murrell who was randomly selected to win a copy of the book! For all of you who didn’t win – the book is available at Amazon or click here to find it at a local bookstore near where you live.

It was exciting to read all the comments about the ways people seek justice. And there were some really good questions raised as well. I’ll be interacting with some of those during the upcoming week, so stay tuned for the continuing conversation.

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Book Giveaway – Mama’s Got a Fake I.D.

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So Caryn Dahlstrand Rivadeneira, the author of the fantastic new book Mama’s Got a Fake ID: How to Reveal the Real You Behind All That Mom, has offered to let me do a giveaway of her book here. That means all you cool people have a chance to win a FREE copy of what I think is one of the best books on parenting I have ever read.

I reviewed the book here recently – but what I love about it (besides its honesty and humor) is how it admits lies fed to moms and encourages us to live into the person God created us to be – even as a mom. And this book isn’t just for moms – but is a good perspective on parenting for dads, grandparents, pastors, teachers, and whoever might encounter parents regularly.

So if you would like to win a copy just leave a comment here by the end of Sunday April 12. One of the comments will then be selected (in a super secret scientific system created by my four year old) as the lucky winner. And if you would rather not just leave a “hi, I want a book” comment, I invite you share what you think are some of the identity struggles parents face these days.

Happy commenting, and good luck.

And if you are really observant, or just really want to increase your chances of winning the book, you’ll notice that we have the same offer up at both the Emerging Parents and Emerging Women blogs. :)

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Blog and Preach to Honor International Women’s Day This Sunday

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Each year on March 8 the world takes time to observe International Women’s Day. It is a day dedicated to the celebration of women’s social, economic, and political achievements worldwide. In the United States, this official day of observance is rooted in women’s efforts to campaign for rights to work, vote, and hold public office, culminating on March 8, 1908, when 15,000 women marched through New York City demanding shorter work hours, better pay, voting rights, and an end to sweatshop conditions and child labor. In the early 1910s, the concept gained recognition in the international community and grew momentum as women across Europe continued to fight for the right to work and protest against ensuing world conflict.

This year March 8 falls on a Sunday. I know Sundays aren’t typically big blogging days since they are days when we take time to focus on our faith. But for that reason, I think we should make an effort this year to bring our faith to the celebration of IWD. So I’d like to suggest a joint synchroblog/synchrosermon observance of the day for Christians. Too often in the church not only are the voices of women not heard, but the stories of biblical women remain untold. But the Bible is full of inspiring examples of women faithfully following God and making a tremendous difference for the kingdom. So this year on International Women’s Day I invite men and women alike to take the time to explore the lives of these great women through a:

Synchroblog – On March 8 post something on your blog about biblical women. This could be your experience (or lack thereof) with learning about these women, a reflection on the life of a particular woman, an exploration of the ways women led in scripture, or a midrashic retelling of the life of one of these women. Have fun with it, push yourself to discover new things, and let’s tell these stories together.

Synchrosermon – These stories of women are rarely told from the pulpit, so I encourage those of you preaching or teaching on March 8 to include the stories of biblical women in whatever you do. The church often won’t hear about these women or learn from their example unless pastors and teachers make a deliberate effort to dwell on the mothers of our faith as much as they usually dwell on the fathers.

It’s not difficult. This isn’t like other negative or angry IWD blog endeavours I’ve seen (and participated in) in the past. It is simply a way to positively encourage women and let women’s voices be heard.

So if you are interested in participating, leave a comment here so I can post the list of participants. Feel free to promote this among your networks as well. And thanks for helping women continue to have a voice.

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Link Love

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First – I have a new post up at the God’s Politics blog. (see below)

And in honor of Blog Comment Day, here are a few blogs I’ve commented on today. Join in on the conversation.

Mike (my hubby) on the Relational nature of Sin.

Eugene Cho asks what movies have influenced you?

Alan Knox discusses friendships and what church structures hide

Jeromy asks about church and numbers at A Mending Shift.

Anhinga has a nice picture of the crescent moon, venus, and saturn proximity two nights ago, which was really stunning.

Dave Wainscott discusses the meaning and theology in the new U2 Christmas song.

Andrew writes on idolatry and Christmas.

more to come (hopefully…)

Questioning the ‘Survivor’ Mentality of Some Christians

First a confession –- I watch Survivor.  I know it’s the symbol of the downward spiral of television into endless reality programming, but there is something strangely fascinating about it.  So this past weekend when I was invited to attend a Women’s Holiday Tea with featured speaker “Leslie from Survivor: China,” I knew this was something I had to hear.

For the non-Survivor obsessed readers out there, Leslie was the contestant who walked out of the Buddhist welcoming ceremony during the first episode because she was a Christian.  She also broke down crying at one point because she didn’t have access to her Bible.  Her tribe voted her off on the third episode, but her short run on the show prompted media mocking of Christians around the country.  So needless to say, I was curious as to what she would say.

Her basic message of “good Christians stand up for their faith and go against the flow” wasn’t much of a surprise, but the whole time I just couldn’t get past how uncomfortable I was with her rationales.  She laughed at her critics and their fear of Christians because, in her opinion, what they fear (pushy, Bible-banging, judgmental Christians) doesn’t really exist.  Since she’s apparently never met a mean Christian, those that think they have must just be delusional.  To back that up she told the group that people will actually like you better if you act different and stand up for what you believe.  I’m not exactly sure who she was talking about though since, in good Survivor language, she had already told us that good Christians “vote their non-believing friends out of their lives,” but it seemed to resonate with the crowd in that room.

As I sat amongst that crowd of over a thousand women amen-ing and applauding her words, I couldn’t help but hope that there were no actual non-Christians in the room who had been hurt by Christians at one time or another.  To hear a woman say that she did the right thing by refusing the hospitality of the Buddhists and that God wanted her to remove the evil influences of unbelievers from her life is the epitome of the stereotyped mean Christian Leslie doesn’t think exists.  If there were any non-Christians in the room, I doubt that by the time she encouraged them to pray the prayer so that an angry God wouldn’t send them to hell they were even vaguely open to hearing what she had to say.

The average woman in the room though seemed pleased to be encouraged and affirmed in her religious walk.  Although this is Texas and, as conservative evangelicals in a megachurch, they are pretty much in power culturally, the standard churchy myth is that the world is out to get them and they must stand up for their faith by deriding and disassociating from that world.  They want to play the role of the oppressed minority, but are in reality surrounded by others exactly like them.  Gathering together for an expensive event and hearing how they are known as Christians by their disapproval of others simply shored up the patterns of thought they already had.  As much as they disparaged Christians who seek to simply love others, I’m not seeing churches who deliver that sort of message filling up hotel ballrooms to have it heard.

Most of the women there are wonderful women.  Some of them are good friends.  But I left the event wondering if this sort of message was really one the church needs to continue to hear.  At what point do we move past the description of all that we are against and actually take an active stand for something?  When do we stop just talking about religion and wishing others would be more like us and instead start doing the things Jesus asked us to do?  If over a thousand women could devote an afternoon to high tea and hearing about how we should resist the culture, how awesome would it be if that many women instead took an afternoon to be the hands and feet of Jesus to this hurting world?

But unfortunately it is a lot easier to condemn and disassociate from the world than it is to remain in relationship with and accept hospitality from those different from you.  To love our neighbor as ourself and to serve them wholeheartedly might require us to thoughtfully and respectfully engage who they are -– differences and all.  Unlike in the game of Survivor, our goal as Christians is not to be in power or end up on top, but to in humility place others first and to assume the position of their servant.  But honestly, how can we serve those we are attempting to “vote off”?

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Blog Comment Day

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Thanks to the awesome John Smulo tomorrow – December 3 – is Blog Comment Day. I know that I don’t often do a great job at commenting on blogs (or even responding here), but part of what I love about blogging are the conversations it creates. So I’m all for a push to get us all to comment more.

Here’s the official scoop from John –

People blog for all kinds of different reasons. Some blog to get their thoughts out in a public diary; others blog to share their expertise with others; many more blog for a dozen other reasons.I blog for the interaction, learning, and friendship that comes from putting my heart and mind out in public and the privilege of people responding through comments.

Though there may be 100 reasons why people blog, I’ve yet to meet a blogger who doesn’t appreciate comments. For this reason I’m starting Blog Comment Day on December 3, 2008. Here’s how it works:

  • On December 3, 2008 you will leave one comment on at least 5 different blogs.
  • Out of the 5 blogs you comment on, at least 2 of them will be blogs you haven’t commented on previously.

That’s it. Simple, right?

And he’d appreciate it if you’d let him know if you’re participating by leaving a comment in this post.

And while we are all sharing the love, it would be fun to post some of links to the blogs where we have commented to encourage further conversation. Anyway – happy commenting, I’m looking forward to the conversations!

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Subversive Blogger

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So I just noticed a few of the recent links to my blog. Over the last few days, I’ve been labeled as “feminist priestess blogger” and given a Subversive Blogger Award (thanks Mak). Given with differing intentions, I guess they go together well. The Subversive Blogger Award was started by Jake Bouma and is fitting of my blogging style of late.

“Subversive bloggers are unsatisfied with the status quo, whether in church, politics, economics or any other power-laden institution, and they are searching for (and blogging about) what is new (or a “return to”) – even though it may be labeled as sacrilege, dangerous, or subversive.”

The rules of participation are pretty straightforward:

1. If you are tagged, write a post with links to five subversive blogs.
2. Link back to this post on JakeBouma.com so people can easily find the origin of the meme.
3. Optional: Proudly display the “Subversive Blogger Award” somewhere on your blog.

That’s all there is to it. Keep in mind that this award is meant as an encouragement to bloggers to keep doing what they’re already doing – being subversive (however you interpret it). May we never forget that Jesus (and His message) was the original and ultimate subversive.

Alright so onward with my nominations. Some of these bloggers are getting double tagged because they are just that cool. :)

1. Kathy Escobar – for her good questions and fresh ways of looking at things.
2. Grounded & Rooted in Love blog – a subversive church
3. Matt Stone – for asking the hard questions about worship
4. Friendly Atheist – for moving the atheist/Christian conversation forward in healthy ways
5. Empire Remixed blog – rethinking everything

Thank you all for your subversiveness (is that a word?) and continue in the good fight.

 

 

Posted by Julie Clawson

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Defining and Defending the Blog

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This past week fellow Daily Scribe blogger Nick Norelli asked the following questions on his blog – “Is a blog a blog if it doesn’t allow comments? And if it is then is it a blog worth reading?” My initial response was to answer “no” to both questions. Something may perhaps fit the technical definition of a blog and may even contain good information, but in my opinion, a good blog is one that allows conversation, that invites interaction and doesn’t hide dissenting opinions. I find blogs where the authors pontificate on their own opinions but don’t allow questions or criticisms to represent the height of arrogance. It’s even worse when comments appear to be allowed, but dissenting opinions are deleted or edited or when only pre-approved voices are allowed access. Now I’ve deleted a handful of comments here, but only the spam and the super-creepy sexual ones. I prefer the open comment policy. But from my experience the bloggers who don’t allow comments aren’t interested in conversation at all – just in attempting to get everyone to think they are right. They tell the world what to believe, or (more commonly) ridicule ideas or people they don’t like and then walk away. Sure some bloggers don’t have time to respond to every comment, but not allowing commentary at all seems like a way of avoiding responsibility for one’s opinions. But then again, I’m not a fan of having some authority on high telling me what I should believe without allowing me to question or examine their ideas.

These questions reminded me of the recent discussion we had over at the Emerging Women blog regarding the benefits blogging has brought to marginalized voices. In the church world where the voices of white men predominate (or are at least perceived to do so), blogs have provided women and others on the margins with the opportunity to have a voice. So I find it interesting that it is generally white males in positions of power who don’t allow comments on their blogs or who complain (on their blog) about too many voices out there blogging. Why? Some dislike the open source nature of blog discussion preferring instead good old traditional authority. Others think there are too many voices out there for conversation to be meaningful and therefore blogging should be restricted (to those with authority perhaps?). Others don’t like giving the “uneducated” or “unsupervised” the opportunity to have a voice. And perhaps some just want theirs to be the only voice that gets heard.

I admit, there can be issues with blogs. I’ve encountered the crazies out there (blogrush is such great entertainment – did you know that aliens will aid Jesus in his second coming by bringing him to Roswell??), I see the dangers of posting pictures of yourself partying in Cancun that any potential employer can google, and I’ve stuck my foot in my mouth on a few too many occasions – but I still support the freedoms it brings. I like that blogging helps me to examine my world and think critically about ideas I encounter. I like that I get pushed to justify my opinions (not that I always succeed at doing so). I like that as a mom who is often confined to the house I can have adult conversations and maintain friendships with people around the world. I like that women are breaking free from the lies the church has told them and realizing that yes, they can do theology and have a voice in these sorts of discussions. Without the blog many post-evangelical women would be left with no one to talk to, no one to encourage them, and no way to move forward in their faith. So for a man who has never experienced the same confines and dismissal as these women to say that our blogs are just noise that need to go away in order for the important voices to be better heard really irks me (even though I know that most of the men making such statements are not necessarily directing them at women).

I’m all for the conversation. I want to learn from others and I want to question, challenge, and clarify what I read online. To me, such interaction is the trademark of a good discussion, a good educational setting, or a good church not to mention a good blog. I find it frustrating these days to listen to a sermon or read a book and not be able to push deeper by questioning it. I recall the most frustrating classes in college were the ones where the profs refused to respond to questions – instead saying meaningless things like “that’s a good question” and continue on with their lecture. I didn’t want more notes to take, I wanted to engage with what I was learning. Blogs have provided me with that opportunity to continue learning by engaging my world. Sure I enjoy “real-life” conversations, but once a month or so is far too infrequent and I don’t have the babysitting funds for much more (and don’t even get me started on the local Feminist Thought Club I tried to join which ended up being a bunch of college guys trying to pick up women…). I need more than that.  So I am grateful for blogs and for the discussion they should support. I am not afraid of the hard questions nor do I think the “simple questions” are just creating noise. The opportunity to read and engage daily with others is needed at this stage in my life. For me, it’s what helps me grow.

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My Blog Turns 2!

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So my blog officially turns two today. I know that in the grand scheme of the blogworld that isn’t very old, but its been quite a journey for me. I think the process started a little over two years ago when I attended the 2005 Emergent Gathering in Nashville. We had recently left our jobs at our old church, had no new jobs lined up, and had a three month old baby. At the time – after spending nearly 4 months on strict bedrest (and drugs that prevented me from reading) and not having a full night’s sleep since Emma was born, I was feeling very disconnected. I didn’t think I would ever have functioning use of my brain again. At the Convention, I attended the Emerging Women’s luncheon and ended up at a table with a bunch of women who were in seminary. They spent the whole lunch discussing the conversations they were having on their blogs. I felt so stupid. I could barely put a coherent sentence together much less have anything meaningful to say on a blog. I desperately wanted to be part of the conversation, but didn’t think I had the right or ability to.

Fast forward a couple of months. By then I had realized that nursing a baby gave me large amounts of time to read. Granted, it was only fiction, but I was reading again. So as not to drive Mike nuts by telling him about books he had absolutely no interest in whatsoever, I started a blog. The idea was to post reviews, summaries, and thoughts about the books I was reading. I did do that, occasionally, but mostly I just posted fun blog things and pictures of Emma. From time to time I wanted to post my thoughts on certain topics, but was honestly too afraid. I was afraid of what the people who knew me would think about what I would write (obviously I never spoke my ideas aloud). So this blog remained a random picture blog with the occasional book review thrown in for about a year.

What changed things though was when I attended the Emerging Women ReGathering in April of 2006. One of the themes of that gathering was to explore how women (even in the Emerging Church) have often not been allowed (by others and ourselves) to have a voice. The weekend provided times of healing and encouragement to speak up in whatever was we can. I left having made a personal commitment to use my voice by putting my thoughts into writing – no matter how jumbled or incoherent they may at times be. I’m not saying that my writing is good or all that meaningful, just that it is a vehicle for my voice and a means to develop and refine my thoughts.

So this blog has been part of my journey of awakening and self-discovery the last couple of years. I have enjoyed crafting it and plan on continuing to express my thoughts through random reviews, reflections, and rants. Who knows where (if anywhere) this will lead, but for now I’m enjoying the journey.

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Five Things I Dig About Jesus Meme

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So I’ve been tagged…

This one was actually started by John Smulo and is called 5 Things I Dig About Jesus. Here’s how it works:

1. Those tagged will share 5 Things They Dig About Jesus.
2. Those tagged will tag 5 people.
3. Those tagged will leave a link to their meme in the comments section of this post

Fun stuff. My first reaction though was the very evangelical – aren’t we supposed to like everything about Jesus? Anyway, here are 5 things that I find really spiffy.

    1. Jesus was all about relationships and stories over lectures and arguments. I’ve sat through enough pointless sermons amongst the braindead sanctuary crowd to know that I greatly prefer Jesus’ approach.

 

    1. Jesus accepted women as his students and supporters. Gives me hope that one day his followers might actually do the same.

 

    1. Jesus questioned God and worked through his questioning instead of ignoring or suppressing it.

 

    1. Jesus wasn’t afraid to promote the Biblical values of peace, justice, and love even in the face of Empire

 

    1. Jesus gave everyone a chance. He accepted those who were not just like him (or the cultural moral majority) and called them his followers.

My choices are of course influenced by my cultural and historical perspective, but its still hope for today.

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