Month: December 2010

A Princess Story I Can Get Behind

Posted on

as posted at The Christian Century blog –

I am not a fan of Disney princesses. I can deal with the tiaras and the pink, but I’m disturbed by the sexualized visions of thinness, the suggestion that to be ugly is to be evil and the promotion of extreme body modification in order to get the guy.

But my five-year-old daughter lives in the real world. Escaping the princess culture isn’t even an option. So when I heard that Disney’s latest princess flick, Tangled, has a female lead who is strong, adventurous and in possession of a personality, I allowed myself to hope for a non-cringe-worthy princess.

I took my daughter to see Tangled on opening day, and I wasn’t disappointed. The story focuses on Rapunzel’s journey to break free from the woman (Gothel) who kidnapped her as a baby and has held her captive in a tower. But it isn’t just a simple tale of rescue and escape; it is the story of Rapunzel discovering her passions. Her captivity convinced her that she was weak, good for nothing but domestic chores, and in need of protection from the evil world. Yet as she enters that world she discovers that it is a beautiful place where dreams can be fulfilled. The true evil was captivity, which kept her from being whole.

The characters are all living others’ dreams instead of their own. Gothel believes she must remain forever young and beautiful. Flynn Rider is convinced that if he had enough money he could find happiness. The brigands live a life of crime while their true dreams–one wants to be a concert pianist, another a mime–are left unfulfilled. Even Rapunzel’s sidekick is a chameleon, changing to fit into its surroundings. Those who find redemption in the film turn away from the pressure to be what others tell them they should be and embrace who they were born to be.

Disney is finally telling a story that delivers a life-affirming message. As a Christian who constantly prays that my children will be able to live into who God created them to be and not be swayed by the siren calls of our culture, I found the message faith-affirming as well.

Other Christians don’t agree. Todd Hertz’s review misses the point of the redemption story, reducing the film to a story of a girl finding her parents. He suggests that the manipulative words Gothel uses to keep Rapunzel captive (the world is evil, so good must be kept protected) have biblical roots and would be a good discussion starter for family reflection. Armond White condemns the film, asserting that it is “strained through a sieve of political correctness that includes condescending to fashionable notions about girlhood, patriarchy, romance, and what is now the most suspicious of cultural tenets, faith.” He derides the Rapunzel character as “a girl of contemporary spunk, daring, and godlessness,” all apparently evil traits.

It’s hard to raise a daughter. While the culture feeds her lies about how being a pretty princess is all that matters, the church too holds her back from living life fully. Its message is that she cannot be who she was created to be if that involves questioning authority, exposing herself to danger or showing a little spunk from time to time. Women have been held captive by these messages for too long, and I’m grateful that Tangled offers something more affirming–even if it’s in the guise of a princess.

Read more

God Showed Up

Posted on

Our Advent service at Journey today was all about the unexpected ways God shows up in our lives. We decorated the room in cheezy Christmas decor and played the video to Stephen Colbert’s Another Christmas Song juxtaposed against traditional seating in rows (really odd for my church) and somber hymns. For even in those everyday extremes God shows up in unexpected ways. We told the story of Elizabeth and how God unexpectedly turned her world upside down. The following are some readings and a monologue for Elizabeth that I wrote for the service.

God Showed Up
(to be read by two readers, like slam poetry)

A: Unexpectedly
B: Intrusively
A: Undeniably
B: God showed up
A: In the least likely of places
B: Where no one thought God would ever go
A:God appeared
B: Fear not, I am with you, Be not dismayed
A: For unto you this day is born, a savior
B: A baby
A: A child for the woman who thought she could bear none
B: A child for the girl who was not yet wed
A: A child to change their lives
B: A child to change the world

Elizabeth’s Story

I was, how do I put this nicely, well advanced in years when God showed up. You would think with a priest for a husband that I would be ready for God to appear in my life, but I think God likes to show up where we least expect him.

You see, my husband served in the temple, we were good folk, but that doesn’t mean that I never heard the rumors. The whispered questions wondering how Zechariah could be approved to serve as a priest when God was so obviously withholding his blessing from us. The questions that echoed the cries I had uttered to God for years. Why God can we not have children? Why are we not granted this joy? Eventually my cries had turned to reluctant acceptance. At the age when other women were getting a rest from their labors as daughters and daughter-in-laws assumed the brunt of the day to day chores, I finally had to accept that I would never have what I had spent so many years longing for. That doesn’t mean that my heart didn’t break everyday knowing that the dream was lost to me forever, but I had no choice but to accept that my body had long since passed the point where children were a possibility.

So the last thing I expected was for God to send an angelic messenger to my husband to tell him that we would soon have a child. Thankfully I didn’t laugh out loud like my foremother Sarah did when she heard similar news. But I do admit to a moment, okay, maybe a few moments of incredulity. Me, have a child? At my age? It seemed impossible. But I soon learned that the words “God” and “impossible” don’t go together well. God showed up and turned my world upside down.

I barely knew what to do with myself. How I ached and the confinement nearly drove me crazy, but I rejoiced in every moment of it. This blessing was so unexpected and wonderful at the same time. I think I started even seeing the world differently. When God shows up in such a dramatic way in one area, it was hard to expect God not to show up in similar ways in everyone’s lives. So I think it was this impact of the unexpected blessing of my pregnancy that prompted my exclamation of joy when my cousin Mary showed up for a visit. I took one look at her and felt my babe leap inside me. Out of nowhere I exclaimed, “You’re so blessed among women, and the babe in your womb, also blessed! And why am I so blessed that the mother of my Lord visits me? The moment the sound of your greeting entered my ears, The babe in my womb skipped like a lamb for sheer joy. Blessed woman, who believed what God said, believed every word would come true!”

I think I scared the poor child. She heard me say those words and immediately burst into tears. It took a while to work it out but apparently God had shown up a bit unexpectedly in her life as well. Young and not yet wed she too was with child. And she was beside herself with fear. She knew she carried the hope of our people inside her, but who in the world would ever believe that the child was of the Lord?

We needed that time together, helping each other see the joy in the unexpected. Sharing in those few months our special bond, a secret that shouldn’t be so secret, but somehow always is – that God can show up in the most unlikely of places. That God can shatter every preconceived notion of how this world should work. That God uses even ordinary folks like us to turn the world upside-down.

Sending Blessing
May God enter your life in unexpected ways. May you see God at work in even the busyness and commercialism of the season. May you always be discovering that your box for God is too small. May you be impregnated with possibilities you never dreamed were possible. May God turn your world upside down. Go in peace and expect the unexpected.

Read more

Second Sunday of Advent 2010

Posted on

My reflections for Advent this year are focusing on the unexpected ways that God shows up in our lives and in the Christmas story. For this second week I want to explore the idea of how unexpected it was that God showed up in a womb.

Obviously kings and messiahs have to be born of women, but that fact is generally overlooked. It is the great men they become that is focus of the narrative, not their humble origins as children. Perhaps if the hero of the story performed some miracle as a child or possessed great wisdom tales would grow around the events of their younger years, but usually the humble story of a woman carrying a child in her womb has no part in the stories of great men. Kings win battles, they are anointed by prophets, they inspire the people – their stories don’t start with God appearing and announcing that one woman’s world will be turned upside down.

Mary was no Bathsheba or Jezebel – women only included in the narrative for their role in destroying the great men in their lives. Mary was ordinary and yet God showed up unexpectedly in her life – and her tale ended up being told. On one hand I can lament the fact that telling the story of a woman’s pregnancy is unexpected. But I can also rejoice that surprisingly the narrative of God scorning not the virgin’s womb is part of the story of redemption.

Often in our theologizing about the role of Mary we forget the unexpected physicality of this part of the story. We want to jump ahead to the story of the child she carried or debate her role as mediator. But God does not just show up in the safe boxes of our sanitized theologies. God was in the womb. Mary’s reality – from suffering bouts of morning sickness to feeling the savior of the world kicking her lungs with an intensity that took her breath away – matters. God showed up and grew in her. It is an easy thing to overlook or skip over in the telling of the tale, but God showed up there nevertheless.

In a church that often despises the offerings of women or sees our contributions as inferior, it is important that God showing up in a womb is remembered. The ability of women to gestate and birth the divine is just as possible today as it was with Mary. Perhaps recalling that God elevated this often overlooked contribution of women can help us not be so surprised when God chooses to speak through women these days. God shows up where the culture least expects just to remind us that perhaps we should have been expecting God there all along.

Read more

The Entitlement Trap

Posted on

As posted at The Christian Century Blog

I can’t stand the word “entitlement.” I use it sometimes, when people annoy me with their belief that the world owes them something or that their needs are more important than those of others. But when I do this, I’m guilty of the same thing they are: dismissing the importance of someone else’s desires and asserting the importance of my own. I get caught in an entitlement trap.

Looking at the story of the prodigal son in church, I found myself focusing on the theme of entitlement. The story is one of those passages that reveals something different each time I encounter it. What struck me this time was how each brother thinks the world owes him something.

The younger brother’s sense of entitlement is obvious: he demands his inheritance so he can live as he pleases. But the older brother displays a similar sense of entitlement in his condemnation and rejection of his brother. He believes that his hard work and good behavior entitle him to the economic benefits and stability of his father’s love. Each brother is deeply flawed, yet the father graciously extends mercy to both.

Read more

WikiLeaks and Government Responsibility

Posted on

Since WikiLeaks released the first of the leaked government cables for public viewing, the outcry regarding the act has been overwhelming. Government officials are condemning the release, Amazon dropped WikiLeaks from its servers after they received a visit from Homeland Security, and media groups are calling the release an act of terrorism.

While I understand the need for discussion whether the release of these cables might endanger some people, I am uneasy condemning them simply because they reveal the embarrassing sins of the United States. In our country we have forgotten that social sin does indeed exist. Governments are not above morality and justice, but sadly often have the power and wealth to hide their sins from the judging eyes of the world. When all the people see is the façade the government constructs for themselves (while being sold the message that unquestioning patriotism is the highest virtue), it is easy for governments to avoid responsibility and accountability for their actions.
I don’t believe innocence is bliss. If my government is committing injustices or betraying the ideals of our nation, then the people who they supposedly report to should know about it. We are the only ones who can hold governments responsible – if we abdicate that role or if it is denied to us then government sin can abound.

But no one likes being called out on their sins. When John the Baptist called out Herod on his sinful ways, he was beheaded to shut him up. Intimidation and fear are the governments’ tools for keeping truth suppressed so they can continue to avoid responsibility. Amazon already gave into the pressure to be silenced, Julian Assange (WikiLeak’s founder) is currently in hiding, and the public is being told that revealing the truth is an act of terrorism. We are made to feel guilty for knowing the truth instead of the government owning up to those truths and taking responsibility for them.

Government is complex, I get that. But that doesn’t mean that it is exempt from morality. Perhaps WikiLeaks is the martyr that will wake us up to the need to hold our government to those basic standards of morality.

Read more

My Arm Doesn’t Need Healing

Posted on

a post I wrote for the Christian Century blog

I was born missing my left arm below the elbow. This technically means I have a disability, though I find it hard to identify with the label. Missing my arm is simply what I know, part of my basic everyday existence. I know the limits of my ability, but I see no need to define myself by them. Similarly, I don’t mind being asked about my arm, just as I don’t mind being asked about a new haircut–I feel no need to be ashamed or apologetic for my physical form.

So it is always a bit jarring when I encounter people who think I should feel ashamed about my appearance. These people, when meeting me, look at my arm and immediately say, “I’m sorry.” From their point of view my life must be so miserable that I deserve their pity.

I have church friends (and yes, family members) who let me know that they have been praying for years that God would grow my arm. According to their view, if I only had the faith of a mustard seed then some sort of miraculous arm sprouting would occur. I’ve learned to take such responses in stride, knowing that their rejection of who I am says more about their insecurities than it says about me. But I struggle more when I hear such things from church leaders.

For instance, Rowan Williams, writing about the eucharistic interdependence of the corporate body of Christ, says that abled people should not respond in fright to handicapped people but instead realize that abled people need the healing of the handicapped for their own good–just as the handicapped need abled people’s wholeness for theirs. He calls this the outworking of the sacramental vision.

I could barely read any farther, as his words forced me to realize that he views people with disabilities as “other.” Instead of being allowed to be ourselves, we are reduced to a category of people who must be healed before we can be accepted as equals.

Few people would deny that it is hurtful to tell a woman she must become a man or to tell a black man he must become white in order to be a full member of the body and experience wholeness. But some people still assume that people who are differently-abled need to become like someone else in order to be whole.

Our faith celebrates the idea of the word becoming flesh and dwelling among us, yet we reject physical bodies that seem different. It is one thing to say that our condition as human beings is broken. It’s another thing to assert that some people are more broken simply because they have only one arm, or use a wheelchair, or have different mental processes. We are all the broken body of Christ struggling to be in communion with God and each other.

God created me to be tall, to be a woman, to have brown hair and a left arm that ends at the elbow. I don’t need to be healed of any of that in order to be a member of the body of Christ.

Read more