Our Thursday walk

and now, let’s give some link love

This Kid Just Died. What He Did Was Wondertacular. at UpWorthy

Her Way by Kelley Nikondeha for SheLoves Magazine

We Need Thicker Skin by Zack Hunt of The American Jesus

When I See Your Face by Megan Gahan

Adventure Stories by Dulcé Chale for A Deeper Family

Affiliation, Certainty & Conformity to Freedom, Diversity, & Mystery by Kathy Escobar

Grey Days, Always, and Never by Ashleigh Baker

To Carry Hope by Settle Monroe for SheLoves Magazine

God is Not a Belief System by Jim Palmer

Why Some Evangelicals Are Trying to Stop Obsessing Over Pre-marital Sex by Abigail Rine for The Atlantic (and yes, it’s a bit of a turn to see my name and story referenced in this great article)

The Justice Side of Porn by Marney McNall for Relevant

Be, Still. by Hilary Sherratt of The Wild Love

25 Things Every New, Middle, and Graduating Parent and Their Grad Need to Know by Ann Voskamp

2013 Summer Reading Guide by Anne of Modern Mrs. Darcy

5 Ways to Keep Literacy Skills Sharp Over the Summer Break by Kara Fleck of Simple Kids

Don’t forget to enter to win this tote from tukula! Entries still open.

Mother Shuns Disney Princesses: Dresses Daughter Up As Female Heroes at Daily Mail

50 Things Only 80s Kids Can Understand at Buzzfeed

Me and the Internet (language warning) by Jenny Lawson of The Bloggess

Oklahoma

I lived in Oklahoma for four years of my life: the kindest, warmest people & such beautiful land. Heavy heart because of the tornado this past week. I have no doubt that if anyone can show the rest of us how to take care of each other, and rebuild, and press on, it’s Oklahoma.

And Together as One, We Groan by Megan Tietz

Photos: Tornadoes wreak havoc in US at The Big Picture

Oklahoma Relief Efforts by Laura of Hollywood Housewife

favourite instagram

Wendy’s fast food + Wonder Pets on the computer = how I rock the solo parenting when Brian is travelling for a week

my own most-read post

In which words like “real” and “true” mean things ::

Critical thinking is one of the better habits I picked up in higher education, along with an awareness of my own ignorance, an appreciation for the humanities, and the ability to cook an entire meal using only a hot pot and the expired contents of a communal fridge. My critical thinking went into overdrive in that bookshop because there is actually no such thing as true womanhood or real femininity. We only have our culturally and contextually conditioned versions of those words, they are not clear.

We use words like “true” and “real” in reference to womanhood or motherhood or marriage, and I think it’s wrong to do this.

weekend meditation

“The very least you can do in your life is figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance but live right in it, under its roof.” – Barbara Kingsolver (from Animal Dreams)

and finally

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 Have a lovely weekend!

]]>Our Thursday walk and now, let’s give some link love This Kid Just Died. What He Did Was Wondertacular. at UpWorthy Her Way by Kelley Nikondeha for SheLoves Magazine We Need Thicker Skin by Zack Hunt of The American Jesus When I See Your Face by Megan Gahan Adventure Stories by Dulcé Chale for A [...]http://sarahbessey.com/in-which-i-link-you-up-vol-24/feed/0http://sarahbessey.com/in-which-i-link-you-up-vol-24/http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/EmergingMummy/~3/WaDenlB97jM/friendswomenSarah BesseyThu, 23 May 2013 12:19:04 PDThttp://sarahbessey.com/?p=5322I read Sarah Cunningham’s book, Dear Church: Letters from a Disillusioned Generation, years ago and loved it. Like many of you, I’ve followed her work online for a while and was pleasantly surprised to be included in her ongoing series Women Talk Women. She interviewed me a few weeks ago and today the full interview is up at her blog.

We discussed everything from friendship to jealousy, cattiness to criticism, even Madeleine L’Engle and my sister.

Sarah Cunningham: Have you had an easier time building friendships with men or women? And what do you think are the challenges of both?

Sarah Bessey: I do have friendships with men, primarily professional friendships or through my husband. But my deepest friendships are with women. I think one of the great lies of our culture is that women can’t be trusted. We hear from reality television and some church people alike that women are catty, insecure, jealous, gossip-prone. My experience has absolutely been the opposite. On the whole, I’ve found women to be funny, strong, supportive, motivated, wise, and deeply spiritual. Anything else tends to be the excepting minority.

I think women in the church today are rather tired of being pitted against one another and I believe we want to transcend the competitive staging of our relationships. For instance, the “mummy wars” are usually more of a myth to sell magazines than my actual experience. I see women around me – in work, in my neighbourhood, in many faith traditions, in professional encounters, even online – as very committed to each other’s well-being. The underlying sense of sisterhood among women of faith is strong. I have found women on the whole to be willing to be friends even without point-by-point agreement on every aspect of life.

SC: Love. Why didn’t I interview you earlier? As a strong leader, you’ve probably occasionally run up against another woman who acted “catty” toward you. What do you do with that?

SB: Cattiness from women is usually gossip about surface things – my weight, my looks, my mannerisms, that sort of thing. (And that can get under my skin almost more than someone who thinks I’m a heretic!) But I don’t confuse criticism with cattiness. Someone can disagree with me very well without being catty, so I try to separate out “catty” from “critic.” I’ve been attacked by women, but I’ve also been attacked by men. I’ve been gossipped about, sure, but it’s not gender-specific.

Read the rest of the interview at Sarah Cunningham’s blog, Crowdsourcing Life.

My thanks to Sarah for the invitation! She’s one to follow.

Babel was about everyone speaking one official imperial language. Pentecost is about the borderless God who speaks in every language.

— Brian Zahnd (@BrianZahnd) May 22, 2013

I was prepared to dominate English 101 at university; I had read almost every single book in the catalogue, I had high honours from high school, I was confident (okay, fine, an irritating slip of a teenage know-it-all). English 101? In the words of Kristen Howerton, come at me, bro.

The very first book we studied was new to me; a collection of essays by well-known writers and linguists about how we use and mis-use words, co-opting our language for political, marketing, and ideological purposes. Culturally, we use our words, and yet their meaning is muddy. It was my first foray into the outer limits of postmodern thought, and I remember reading these essays like I was drinking from a firehose: it was too much new information all at once. I remember one essay in particular; the author argued that we cannot use subjective words such as “feminine” as a descriptor of women because, by very nature of womanhood, if you are a woman, then it is, in fact, regardless of stereotypes, feminine.

If I am a woman, and I am doing it, it is, by statement of fact, womanly.

My eighteen-year-old mind was blown.

I had a very clear – and narrow – idea of what femininity or womanly meant in those years. Those beliefs were more informed by culture wars than Scripture. I came to realize that my understanding of these words was based more on pop culture, bad theology, and advertising than on the actual words themselves. And years later, when I began to study the kaleidoscope of womanhood in Scripture, and experience the freedom of Christ with the broad gorgeousness of the church, culture, and terrible beauty in the world, I began understand that words, so easily tossed around, matter. Words matter, particularly when we apply them to people, and words have power.

I have had an uneasy and respectful relationship with words, particularly words of religion, sex and gender, politics and ideology ever since.

Language is a responsibility. Scripture affirms this truth: our words have power.

A few weeks ago, we were at a Christian bookstore. There is only one in our city and it’s an independent shop. Brian gets most of his commentaries from retiring pastors in the area who have off-loaded their life’s work to the used book section, and I do like to prowl through the stacks while he’s weighing the entire new arrivals section. In the women’s section of the store, I again noticed the trend of divisive language cloaked in soft colours.

Critical thinking is one of the better habits I picked up in higher education, along with an awareness of my own ignorance, an appreciation for the humanities, and the ability to cook an entire meal using only a hot pot and the expired contents of a communal fridge. My critical thinking went into overdrive in that bookshop because there is actually no such thing as true womanhood or real femininity. We only have our culturally and contextually conditioned versions of those words, they are not clear.

We use words like “true” and “real” in reference to womanhood or motherhood or marriage, and I think it’s wrong to do this.

We use these words like they are freeing or universal or helpful, but they are forging new chains for a new law.  There is no such thing as “real” woman or a “real” man. If you are a man, you are a real man. If you are a woman, you are a real woman.

The funny bit of perhaps-irony is that from the outside, my life even likely affirms those narrow descriptors of “true” womanhood. After all, I married young, I am a stay-at-home mother of three tinies, I care for our home and family, I cook, I clean, I fold laundry, and I honour my husband. And yet, the doing of these things do not make me a “real” woman. If I worked outside the home or if I never got married or if I did not or could not have children or if I burnt supper, it does not make me less of a real woman, particularly when one is in Christ. One need only open their eyes (or more radically, read their Bible) to see women all around us who do not meet these narrow and misleading definitions of “real” or true” and yet live and move and have their being in their full womanhood, affirmed as daughters of the King. Womanhood in Christ must mean more than these words propose.

And that wholeness, that realness, that trueness, is not represented by marital status or income level, adherence to a sitcom society that never existed or a division of modern labour. You are a true woman. You are a true man. Already.

The implication of words like “true” and “real” is that if you do not meet their arbitrary standard, then somehow you must be a fake woman or an unreal woman or less-of a woman. Maybe these words are used more to affirm our own beliefs and life choices, maybe it’s out of fear, or a loss of power, or a lack of real thoughtfulness. Rachel Held Evans wrote an entire book about how the word “biblical” is a pretty terrible adjective in front of “womanhood” for this same reason.

This is why words matter, and why I don’t like the use of subjective language to burden and divide in the name of God.

I believe that part of God’s Kingdom includes the wholeness of restored image-bearers of God, working and living and loving in beautiful communion together. Carolyn Custis James calls it “the blessed alliance” and it’s not exclusive to married couples by a long shot. The blessed alliance is what happens when men and women are both walking in the fullness of their unique gifts and callings, in wholeness and in right relationship with God and each other, it’s what happens when we are restored in God’s Kingdom.

I celebrate the differences between men and women, I do, although I’m wary of universalizing traits, temperament, and personalities for entire genders. In our culture, we do use words like “womanly” and “feminine” to describe certain types of women, and there is a tacit agreement about what those words mean. But in the Kingdom of God, we are not reliant on the world’s culture to affirm and celebrate each other.

And words like “true” and “real” in reference to womanhood or manhood are not celebrating the differences. They are narrow, misleading descriptors, a one-size-fits-all paper-thin straw man argument.

They are words that divide and agitate and burden, there is no freedom in this language. This is cookie-cutter language, this is not the language of the Cross, and it is not the language of the Kingdom of God. There is no Gospel in a new law with extra requirements and add-ons to life in Christ.

I believe that in the Kingdom of God, true womanhood and true manhood is not so different from true personhood. Christ came to unveil what it means to be fully human, and to reconcile us with our Father, and to save us, set us free, heal us, to walk us out into our created purposes and wholeness. He calls us by name, not by a number. Words have creative power, words can build up or tear down, set free or forge chains. Words matter, and words mean things.

image source: Judy Drew, Love of a Child

(These musings were also helped along this morning by a Twitter convo with @JesusRockStar, @CarisAdel, and @SarahBostAskins.)

As tukula‘s first artisan, Bennah has been the heartbeat of our group from the very beginning.

When we met Bennah she was living alone in a room the size of most people’s walk in closets. Every morning she would wake up, put her mattress against the wall and begin her day sewing. For months, we worked together on making a line of bags and accessories that we were proud of. During those months something rare happened – Bennah became a part of our family. We watched as she got married, we held her first child when he was just born, and we rejoiced as she moved into a 2 bedroom house. After working with tukula for a year and a half Bennah was able to provide for herself and save for her children.

But just when she thought she was moving forward, Bennah became ill and was physically unable to sit at her machine and sew.  Tragically, Bennah’s husband didn’t want to help her or their child (Jacob) and he started abusing her. Even when she began to feel better, her husband would not allow her to go back to work yet he continued refusing to help pay for her and Jacob’s needs.

Bennah worked up the courage to reach out for help from her fellow tukula co-workers. After a period of time, Bennah was able to move into her own home with her tukula savings and started sewing again, allowing her, a newly single mother of two, to care for her son and new daughter, Deborah.  She is bold and intelligent, and we can’t imagine tukula without her!

Abusive husbands, lack of money for medical needs, and caring for children alone are just some of the issues women in Uganda face on a daily basis. Tukula works to combat these issues by providing consistent income, quality health care, savings programs for their children, and encouraging work environment, and a loving community.

tukula

giveaway

We’re giving away one Firefly Tote bag - made by Bennah – from tukula!

Leave a comment on this post with your favourite item from the tukula shop and you’ll be entered to win.

The winner will be selected randomly on Monday 27 May 2013.

US or Canadian mailing addresses only, please.

We went for a walk before supper. The pizza dough for Sunday night was still rising on the oven, and so we put on our old runners and the jeans with worn-out seams. I had a group of dear friends in town this weekend which was lovely and full, so I’m feeling a bit tired and talked out. We headed for an old playground tucked behind a few dodgy houses, the neglected kind with a wooden play structure that is too tall for insurance purposes, and bits of wood, too-full trash cans, loitering teenagers who slink away when adults show up, and those old swings on long, long chains that make sure a kid touches the sky. Everything is becoming so safe, but still kids love that thrill of danger and delicious fear at an old playground, and so we hunt them up, hope the city continues to neglect them, and we swing too high for a while.  I miss the old merry-go-rounds, the ones you could lay out on, full stretch, while someone swung you round and round, faster and faster, and the clouds blurred and you felt immortal and wild and still in the whirl.

I answer a lot of questions: Joseph is four years old now, and he can question like a CIA interrogator, relentless, for hours at a time, until I’m reduced to saying, “No more! No more questions! Not one!” and then he says, after a beat or two, “Mama, why don’t fish breathe air?” They were playing pirates on the gigantic slide tower. Anne stood guard, her butterfly net in hand, staring off into the distance on watch for invaders. The storm clouds were gathering above her head, and I pulled out my camera phone, snapped a quick shot because I couldn’t believe how strong she looked, standing high up in the sky, staring off into the gathering darkness, resolute.

We walked home together, talking about decisions and dreams and daily work. Anne ran straight down the hill ahead of us, her hair streaming behind her, legs churning like an adolescent colt while Joe stumbled and rolled like a puppy after wards. After everyone washed their hands, I rolled out pizza dough and then we turned on a television show so they could have Pizza and a Movie Night (always a big treat). I read a book over my food, Brian watched hockey on his computer, and it felt lazy and wonderful. Then I gathered  my babies on the couch for our bedtime reading. Tonight was another worn-out Berenstein Bears book, the one where Brother and Sister Get In A Fight.

But I stopped reading all of a sudden. Just trailed off, really, because I was distracted by the light coming through the front window blinds. It took me a minute to figure out that the light was catching the cottonwood fluff in mid-drift down from the forests around the city. Somehow the effect of the cottonwood fluff thick in the air and the light and the trick of the blinds made it look like glitter flying in the street, like tiny stars on fire, and I stopped reading until I got a good poke in the ribs, “Mama, you stopped!”

But look at the light, look at the light, look at the light, I stuttered. Look at coming down, it’s just cottonwood fluff and light and blinds and look at the light. How is that happening? The world is full of stars in the daylight.

It’s Pentecost today, I wanted to write something today about Pentecost. I wanted to write about Pentecost because I speak in tongues, and I love the words and freedom of the Spirit, and I believe in fire descending and the birth and rebirth of the Church and scarlet geraniums. I wanted to write about the way that God is For us and the ways that God is With us, and the ways that God is Among us, but instead, I ended up sitting on my couch, covered in children, Evelynn had red socks on her feet.

I ended up with nothing to say but this: There are buttons on the table and craft glue under my nails, and I was struck quiet, arrested, by the way the light catches the every day seeds flying, looking for a place to land among us. A simple holy day, immortal and wild and still: For, With, Among, descending, let the language of our birth stop for just a while, light is descending.

This is for when the day has been a bit long and your patience has been a bit short.

It’s for when you forgot to eat breakfast and so you ate the crusts of peanut butter toast left over. It’s for when you are in the time between being finished with writing your first book and the actual release of it, and you are pretty sure everyone will hate it, in fact, you kind of hate it now, too.

It’s for when you miss sleeping in and staying out. It’s for when you wonder what your life is for, exactly. It’s for wanting to run away to live in a library in Paris, eating nothing but bread and cheese and apples for the rest of your life, washed down with wine; maybe you’ll get a few chickens, but you’re out of coffee.

It’s for when you stay up too late just because you are so happy to have a quiet house.It’s for another night of grilled cheese and tomato soup for supper. It’s for the days when you are not so much “balancing” motherhood and work and life and family as you are juggling it all like flaming torches.

It’s for unfolded laundry and unrealised dreams.

This is for the days when you aren’t so much soaring like an eagle as you are plodding one foot in front of the other like a tired workhorse. This is for the days when it’s less grand and epic story and more of a “long obedience in the same direction” like Eugene Peterson said.

This is for the daily and holy unappreciated work. This is for what Madeline L’Engle called “the tired thirties.”

Read the rest of this post over at SheLoves Magazine….