Was it only weeks ago we were all wearing seasonal smiles as we watched, first, Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye with their pantlegs rolled up, waving ice blue feather fans around as they sang 'Sisters, Sisters'?
Recently, sisters, and many others, wore pink hats that set off a fire storm of discussion here in the United States and around the world. Someday I may be able to walk 3.6 miles, but that Saturday I stood and watched a stroll down 4th Avenue in Seattle by 175,000 people that would not stop. It was one of the most iconic moments of my life. Like the birth of my children, there is now, before the parade of democracy, and after.
Speaking up, speaking out, has always been sacred to me. In younger years, I did not join the chorus against Nixon and involvement in Vietnam for two reason: first, my family forbid it as it would, supposedly, jeopardize my brother's work in the defense department/Navy, and two, because, to me, it seemed like my peers just wanted time off from Spring Quarter.
But all my life I've wondered what I would do if I lived under a dictator, and now the imagined has become reality. It is time to speak.
I am a woman of faith. I have friends with whom I agree completely on the centrality of faith and disagree in a vast array of ways about how that faith ought to be lived out on this earth. When I followed up my decision with a posting of the new first lady in a pornographic picture, I threw gas on a bonfire. For the life of me I could not, cannot understand the 53% who allegedly voted for Trump, except as I understand racism.
My attitude toward discord amongst people is a little unusual in this culture. I believe in any verbal match, both sides have to stay on the field, in the ring, face to face, staying connected in the strong, healthy places until the disagreement is resolved. Resolved, is probably an unknown, so that action of togetherness probably means, co-creating the resolution.
Yea, people pretty much don't do that. /Name calling, shouting matches, division and broken relationships is generally the process of having differing opinions.
The lewd picture brought good discussion, but I wearied of seeing the very thing I opposed, women resorting to using their nakedness and sexuality in service to the prurient interests of men ( and women) to get ahead financially and career-wise, plastered on my feed as people repeatedly commented. I got blocked by a lot of people who didn't like porn on their feed either, or disagreed vehemently with my posting of it.
What's a girl to do? I was the only female child in my family. I had three brothers. I was in the middle. In ninth grade, I had the thought flash through my brain and heart, "You have to learn to like women." I did not know the word 'misogyny, but their was some of that going on. When my little brother was born I had another thought, "I want to treat him differently than I've been treated". Shout out to a terrifically successful experiment. We have a kind and loving and respectful relationship.
But it pains me to have this separation with my sisters in the faith. Now, three days ago, I was going to write some fluff with examples of how we were working it through. But yesterday I realized I have mostly questions to ask them, not just statements that seem oppositional. Yesterday, it became more than clear, the new president is not well mentally or emotionally. Yesterday brought up a discussion, and sometimes a fight, I've been having with the church for the last two decades. The questions like, 'How do women become co dependent?". "Why do women support men behaving badly?" "How did I get to where I am and how is that alike or different from other women?" seeped to the front of my daily presence.
So, instead of tying up this column, this blogpost, with a clever, tidy, humorous observation and resolve, I will end by saying, I'm committed to intentional conversations with my sisters in the other half of this country.
It's not how blogs are supposed to end. But these are new and dangerous times. Friendships with women, solidarity, empathic conversations, resonance in fellowship and service and worship have always been a place of groundedness for me. A meat clever just sliced through that little bowl of ambrosia. Whack! There's cool whip and coconut and canned fruit everywhere!!
I don't know what's going to happen. Do you? Care to share? I'm thinking. I'm pondering. I'm praying. Because we need some big strategies for getting out on the dance floor in our ice blue chiffon dresses or with our pantlegs rolled up and our sock garters showing. This is the life or death of our country, our churches, our faith community. Pressing on.
Love,
Deborah
No comments:
Post a Comment