Small Things

During the last two weeks my life has been full of small things. I have been sweeping and vacuuming, cooking and wiping countertops, taking my mother-in-law to the bank, making oatmeal, and being present to people: my husband, his family, others in my congregation. It seems that I have not had so much time to juggle all of the many responsibilities of my work; I haven't had so much time to ponder the big things, the important things -- the flourishing of our community life, urging and organizing people to do justice.

In the past, women, for the most part, were not allowed to do the "big" things, the "important" things -- we were relegated to private life: wiping countertops, wiping faces, cooking and cleaning and being present to people. We were relegated to working in private spaces and told that they were Not Important.

In the meantime, men were, for the most part, out in the public arena, changing the world: sometimes for the better, sometimes for worse. They were making their voices heard.

I want to change the world. In the world now, women, and not just men can do that.

But I also want to live in a world where wiping countertops, wiping faces, and being present to people is acknowledged as important, whether it's called "women's work" or "human work." These everyday activities need to be done, and they are holy too.

....But I Digress

At the women's leadership conference I attended this last weekend, I remembered something that happened to me when I was in the 7th or 8th grade. It wasn't a big, dramatic experience; and I hadn't totally repressed it, either. I just had not thought about it for a long time. This weekend I started thinking about it in a different light.

My home congregation was a mission church. We were growing like crazy in the 1960s. People packed into the sanctuary every Sunday. But that was not going to be the permanent sanctuary. When I was in junior high, we set about building a new, larger sanctuary; it would be modern and square, with a bell tower and a balcony.

This was very exciting to me. We were in on the ground floor of something very exciting. There was a model of the new building up; there were plans to expand even more after the sanctuary was completed.

I remember sitting with my family the first Sunday after the sanctuary was completed. As I was listening to my pastor preach (and I often did listen to the pastor, who preached short and interesting sermons peppered with anecdotes), I suddenly thought, "If I was a man, that's what I would want to do."

Now you have to understand something: at the time, I had never ever spoken in front of people in a group. I was very shy, so it seemed to me that this thought came out of nowhere, and I quickly repressed it. Of course, the thought also seemed to come out of nowhere because only men preached.

I have always thought that the thought was so strange that it had somehow to be directly from God.

But this weekend, I had another thought, as well.

I thought about the fact that since almost the time I could write, I had been writing: poetry, stories, plays, essays, pretty much everything. But I would never dare to speak the things that I was writing down. And most of the writing stayed private as well. Perhaps one of the things I was fascinated with was the idea that someone could take their thoughts, their ideas, their words, their creativity, and put them out in public where everyone could hear.

That would take courage.

The voice of God in my head when I was in church that day? I still think it was a call to ministry. But now I also think it was a call to have courage.

I heard that call again this weekend.

You Be The Judge

Yesterday I attended a small group meeting of pastors and other lay professionals. We all meet once a month to encourage one another and to hold each other accountable for growing and developing as leaders in our congregation and in our communities.

I'm not sure how this came up, but right at the beginning of the meeting, one of the other members (a Franciscan brother, by the way) looked at me and said, "If you dyed your hair, you could pass for a teenager."

I have a really nice streak of gray in front. I'm actually a little proud of it.

I'm not planning on dying my hair any time soon.

I must have had a funny look on my face after that comment, because he (and others) assured me, "You should take it as a compliment."

Now, I don't think this was an insult, but really: is this what a woman who desires to be a more effective leader really needs? To be told she could pass for a teenager?

Here's what I think: Maturity in men is attractive. Maturity in women is... what? Yet, as a leader, I want to project an image of substance, force, depth with grace. Somehow the word "teenager" doesn't really do that for me.