Lust- Alive and Well Among Women

When we were in Laguna Beach, Dale and I grabbed breakfast with a good friend of ours, a young, smart, finely-featured single guy named Gabe. He told us about a recent experience he had endured at a local bar. Several women, friends of friends, came up to him and enjoyed seemingly harmless chit-chat back and forth.

Upon learning that no, Gabe was not dating anyone and yes, he was straight, the young women began jockeying in earnest for his attention. When one of the more buxom females slapped his butt, Gabe protested, “Excuse me, but that is my butt.”

“Oh, you know you like it!” she responded.

At this point in Gabe's story he told us he had no idea what to do. He didn't like it, but he didn't know how to protect himself. I told him how invasive and horrible that must have been. Dale said, “That’s sexual harassment!”

I asked him if this had happened before.

“Yep,” Gabe said. “Girls have grabbed my crotch, one girl, I thought she was a good friend I could trust, but,” he cut another bite out of his Belgium waffle. “She just kept coming up to my dorm room only at night. This one time she told me she wanted to mess around. I told her I wasn’t interested and she said I didn’t really have a choice because she would accuse me of raping her if I didn't have sex.”

Lustful Women

Gabe is not an anomaly. There are many men who endure the lusty side of women, namely because lots of lusty women exist. Women's attraction to the male body is a widely experienced but little publicized nugget of truth. Need a few examples? "The Naked Truth about Woman's Lust." For the short version just remember when Obama walked the beaches topless, and the way females responded.

In the Middle Ages, church priests informed their parishioners that women were naturally more lustful, carnal, insatiable, and visually stimulated. Men were naturally spiritual and motivated by pure reason. For a popular example see the sexually voracious wife of Bath in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. In these olden days, the proverbs spoke of oversexed wives whose husbands couldn't give enough sex to keep them satisfied.

Hence, the church fathers' instruction for women to cover their heads for even angels, Tertullian explained, would be tempted to sin by seeing a virgin unveiled. His explanation of 1 Cor 11:10 continues, "She has the burden of her own humility to bear . . . For what is a crown on the head of a woman, but beauty made seductive, but mark of utter wantonness,-a notable casting away of modesty, a setting temptation on fire?” (De Cultu Feminarum, book 1, chap 14).

Isn’t it curious how opposite we think of lust today? Among most people, but more so Christians, it just seems common sense that men are the carnal, lustful, insatiable, visually stimulated ones. When I read Shannon Ethridge's book Every Woman's Battle, she says men are visually stimulated, that men give love to get sex, but that women give sex to get love, end of story. In high school chapels we were told that a guy thinks about sex once every 30 seconds.

Men-- the red-blooded oversexed humans has wriggled into Christian folklore as fact. In Walt (M.D.) and Barb Larimore's book His Brain, Her Brain, you can find tongue-in-cheek drawings of brain differences between men and women. As Barb Larimore explains, the male brain's largest section is the "24/7 Sex Hemisphere." The woman's "Family and Friends." (p 42-43).

I know it's meant as a joke, but talk about unhelpful stereotypes!

One thousand years ago, however, the church father's would have drawn the woman's brain with this 24/7 sex thoughts section and man with a much larger purity and reasoning capacity. Another well-meaning, but unhelpful guide in building mythology about women, For Men Only, by Shaunti and Jeff Feldhahn, explains in the chapter “With Sex, Her ‘No Doesn’t Mean You” this Truth #3: “Your Body (no matter how much of a stud you are) does not by itself turn on her body” (P. 133). Personally I beg to disagree. I know how much a man's body can turn a woman on... ask any woman you know about how she feels in Abercrombie and Fitch.

But with all these Christian sources written by journalists with statistics (the Feldhahn couple gathered stats from 300 women) and doctors (Dr. Walt Larimore) no wonder many in the church are convinced that all men pursue, crave and fantasize about sex much much more than women.

Today, we're convinced either by our marriages or by what we read that all men pursue, crave and fantasize about sex much much more than women.That's why Playboy sells more than Playgirl, right? That's why men talk about struggles with porn and women don't.

Well, I have news for you. The internet has made porn much more accessible without public shame. I consistently meet girls and women addicted or dabbling in porn. And these are only the brave ones, courageous enough to ask for help. The internet filter review from ChristianityToday.com documents these helpful statistics

• Breakdown of male/female visitors to pornography sites: 72% male & 28% female.
• 70% of women keep their cyber activities secret.
• 17% of all women struggle with pornography addiction.
• Women favor chat rooms 2X more than men.
• 1 of 3 visitors to all adult web sites are women.
• 9.4 million women access adult web sites each month.
• Women admitting to accessing pornography at work: 13%
• Women, far more than men, are likely to act out their behaviors in real life, such as having multiple partners, casual sex, or affairs.
• In a survey conducted by Today's Christian Woman's online newsletter, many women admitted to intentionally accessing Internet porn. While some women wrote in to explain they'd accessed these sites to better understand what was luring their husbands.

From my personal experience of my internal desires and listening to women who confess privately to me, I know women who have had affairs, women acting out on their sexuality. And many of them are Christians. Women are just as red-blooded as men. Many women love sex for the sheer pleasure of being with an attractive man's body, women think about sex and many women find themselves lusting after other men. I think the rate of adultery where every man has to have sex with a willing woman should indicate that women are just as susceptible to this vice. (Photo: Steve Baccon)

What is Lust?

Lust, as defined by philosopher and spiritual formation director Dallas Willard, is the desire to have sex with someone you have not married. This is also Jesus' definition in Matthew 5:27-29, looking on another human with a desire to commit adultery with them in your mind's eye. I believe Willard would say that it is impossible to lust after your own marriage partner. When a woman lusts after a man she is imagining sexual interaction with him, it could be kissing, cuddling, oral sex or any other form of sexual engagement.

In Romans 1, Paul writes that God gave both men and women over to their lusts. As friends of mine in lesbian communities have pointed out, the absence of men does not mean faithfulness improves. Infidelity is just as rampant among lesbian couples, if not more so, as it is among heterosexual couples.

How Do Women Lust?

I am one of those women who have found myself struggling with lust. I am not addicted to pornography, but I am distracted to lust after well-built men. This is something Dale and I talk about as he struggles against lust as well.

When a beautiful man or woman passes us on the street or monopolizes our time after a speaking event we both code awareness to each other. We use our eyes to say, "Yes, this is a beautiful body in front of me, but no worries. My appetite has been cultivated for you."

Talking about the beautiful people around us allows us both to safely confess and grow into desiring each other. It also means our temptations are never alone faced alone. If you're reading this, male or female, and feel like you're facing lust alone, let me highly recommend XXXChurch as well as emailing someone to talk safely with. If you need recommendations for a counselor in your area for you or someone you know, please request that I email you by commenting below.

In our marriage, we also leave room to admire another man or woman and even point them out to each other without arousing suspicion about lust. When I do find myself lusting for another man, I will tell Dale. Years ago, after harboring fear and shame and deeply buried disgust for myself in my heart I confessed to him. Dale responded so well, "Would you like to pursue counseling about it? Would you like us to cut off communcition with this person? What can I do to help?"

This is a perfect response, but then, I've married a good man.

Baby Lust

Women don't always want a man's body for the sake of pure sexual delight. I've noticed how many women lust for men because males provide 1/2 the necessary ingredients for babies. I've heard husband confide to us that they know their wives make love to them only because they're hoping to get pregnant. Others share that since having kids their wives are completely uninterested in sex, even decades later. There are many women who are willing to fight for their right to have a baby, even at the cost of the man they married.

Having read the story of Jon and Kate Gosselin in their New York Times Bestseller Multiple Bles8ings, just a week before the story of their failing marriage broke, I had underlined several passages that concerned me. Kate Gosselin lived like babies were her God-given entitlement. In her book she talks about overwhelming desire to be pregnant, to feel life fluttering within her womb, to weaken her husband's armor (since he was content with their twin daughters). She speaks of pregnancy as a right, beating down her husband for months with arguments to try in vitro fertilization again. She writes,

"I sensed a crack in his (her husband, Jon's) armor. He was softening. He knew only one thing in the world would fill the aching void I felt, and that one thing was downy soft, sweet-smelling (most of the time), and had the power to light up the whole room with one toothless grin. Finally, he agreed to go through it all again--just one more time." (p 21)

Some women might applaud this. But, as a woman who has and still feels this aching void for a baby, I can testify that this is also another form of lust, not necessarily sex-lust, but baby-lust. A grasping demand to have something (even a very good thing like a baby) that God has not provided. This does not mean that I am, automatically against in vitro. I have dear friends who used this method and I believe for God-honoring reasons.

However, I believe this baby-lust is part of the reason the Gosselin family suffers today. For other reasons see "The Gospel and the Gosselins." While I commend them for choosing to keep their 6 fertilized zygotes, I do not think Kate's motivation for children was pure from lust

I am a woman who has experienced the finger-tingling amazement at life fluttering in my womb without the joy of holding that baby in my arms. And as a woman who longs for that again, I can also say that it is still possible to bow my head to God's ability to give me what I need when I need it. To live in deep dependence on God to show me what being a woman means with this man, with all my red-blooded desires intact, but steered to love well and fully.

My love for Dale, my desire for him, my delight in making love to him are not grounded in my hopes to get a baby. And love, for the husband in your life, for the friends God has given, for the tasks and people God has directed toward you, beats lust every time.

Depending on the response, I'll be writing another post on this subject.

Making Spiritual Small Talk

All religions offer a way to redeem and rebuild humanity. I had lunch last week with a Muslim woman in Malibu who has found that the practices of Islam offer her a place to "fit", a spiritual home to feather. When I asked her about particular questions, the kind that keep philosopher types up late at night, she dismissed my questions. She didn't want to talk about the problem of pain, instead she said, "I just try to remember God in every moment of my day."

Her words surprised me as something few Christians find themselves trying to do. I'm reading a wonderful simple devotional called Letters by a Modern Mystic by the missionary to the Moros (a Filipino Muslim people group) Frank C. Laubach and his modernization of the ancient practicing of the presence of God (a la Brother Lawrence) has led me to want to do the same thing. I do, by the way, HIGHLY recommend Laubach's short book. It's a jewel, perfect for slipping into your purse and whipping out during long lines at the grocery store. He has helped me want to bring Jesus into every moment of my day. Laubach puts it like this,

What right have I or any other person to change the name of these people from Muslim to Christian, unless I lead them to a life fuller of God than they have now? My job here is not to go to the town plaza and make proselytes, it is to live wrapped in God, trembling to His thoughts, burning with His passion. And, my loved one, that is the best gift you can give to your own town (p 13).

I shared my new practice of inviting Jesus into every moment with my Muslim friend and she didn't bat an eyelash. According to her, we are all inviting God (by whatever name) into our spiritual lives. This is, in her mind, the measure of a spiritual person, their relationship with God.

So I ask you to weigh in on how you would define a spiritual person. I find that in defining "spirituality" I want to include things like the fruits of the Spirit (Gal 5:22-23), the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit, the power of Jesus over this broken, ugly world. Everyone can talk about God in their lives, but how many have the power to break old habits, experience shalom-like peace, know the long path of long-suffering? I cannot find these in my own life apart from Jesus.

How would you define spirituality? How do you think others define spirituality?

As Dale and I work on our first book together, Coffee Shop Conversations: Making the Most of Spiritual Small Talk, we've been thinking about different ways to talk about the God we love and how he became flesh and dwelt among us. We realize that most people enjoy talking about their spiritual journey, if you can ask the conversational questions and if you do most of the listening.

Last week I was making a necklace with a young woman in a local jewelry shop. We began a conversation that started when she asked if I knew about an old TV show and when I said I didn't I explained,

"I was raised in a very conservative Christian home, no TV," I said.

"Wait, you didn't even have a TV? Did you have a telephone?" she asked.

"Of course!"

"We didn't even have a telephone, we were out in the sticks. I got left out of so many things." We commiserated, but also shared about how much we valued the push to be more imaginative with our playtime. We talked about her family, why her mom pushed the family to go to church right after her little sister was born.

"Why then?" I asked.

"Now I realized it was because their marriage was hurting, I think she wanted us to have, you know, a moral foundation." She said. I took mental notes of how this is what most people believe God and the church offer--lots of moralistic rules.

"Were you glad for that?" I asked.

"Yeah, I mean it kept me from being as bad as I could of been." We started talking more deeply about what she did and what she could have done, the conversation becoming more personal, details that are part of her personal story. As I kept asking questions, she openly told me about how once the pastor's son was forbidden from dating her because she wasn't good enough for him.

I raised my eyebrows.

"I couldn't believe it!" She said,"I sat listening to this guy every week in church and I thought, what a creep. Such a hypocrite! So since then I've pretty much kissed the church goodbye."

"I know what you mean," I said, "Don't get me wrong, I love God and I just can't get enough of Jesus, he's wonderful, but I'm very angry with how people use God to abuse other people. There's a name for that," I told her. "It's called spiritual abuse. My husband has endured more spiritual abuse at the hands of people claiming to speak for God than anyone I know. But, he still loves Jesus. It's really amazing to me."

She was listening closely. She shared more about the little darts thrown at her by religions people. I said, "That kind of stuff leaves a mark, doesn't it?!"

Our conversation moved to her sister, her current life, our necklace projects. It was on the tip of my tongue to ask her how she has reconnected with God, but I would have had to force an awkward moment to make it happen. I look forward to asking her, next time I visit.

If you've had any spiritual conversations in the last few months, I'd love to hear about new ways you've shared how Jesus is good news. I maintain that he offers the world the most powerful solution to every evil dart from the enemy of our souls. But how we communicate that is as varied as we are.

Let's hear some conversational tips!

Off-roading and Quilts

Last week I went on vacation with Dale. We set off toward Moab, Utah for some outdoor adventure. My mom and dad joined us for our 2nd annual Moab reunion. While the guys did some all day Jeep trips, my mom and I pushed our limits rock-rappelling, rafting the Colorado River and then we joined up with my dad and my husband to Jeep around the ruddy cliffs. Later I even tried some rock climbing.

Moab leaves you feeling much stronger, braver and dustier than when you arrived.

After our adventuring with my parents, Dale and I reunited with a group of Rubicon Jeep owners (all members of the incredibly time-consuming, incredibly helpful Rubicon Owner's Forum 0f which my husband is a part). We took on trails, learned more about dusty sandstorms and team work in the few hours we had together than you can ever learn from reading a book.

In the slower moments (aka scouting out how to work over the next obstacles) I read So You Don't Want to Go to Church Anymore a thought provoking easy read that a friend had urged me to check out (Now I want to pass that word along to you--it is excellent!).

One of my favorite things about Moab is seeing friends each year in the same place, around the same campsite, doing the same trails together once again. This picture of the Jeep tilting is from the trail "Cliff Hanger" and don't worry he didn't tip over.

This year one of my highlights was reuniting with a woman named Dee and her husband, Bob. She and I first met 2 years ago when we were on the same off-roading trail, our husbands driving their khaki Jeeps, us alternatively reading and cheering them on. Dee initially impressed me with her hunger for reading and her curly auburn hair, so of course we hit it off. I imagine Dee is probably my mother's age (I haven't asked her), but that didn't create a gap between us. She's a ravenous creative, making more gourmet meals and quilts (finishing them by hand) for fun and then just giving them away. A truly inspiring sort of person.

After first meeting them in 2007, we learned that Bob and Dee could be called spiritual seekers. Bob had a background in the Jehovah Witnesses. But, after our 2007 Moab trip Dee and Bob met Jesus. This is another amazing story. Short version is another couple in the Rubicon group introduced them and they liked him so they invited him into their lives.

So when we re-united in 2008, Dee pulled me aside, told me she had guessed there was something deeper in me when we first met, told me about her love for Jesus and then asked me to sign a copy of Ruby Slippers she had brought along. I was both honored and slightly amazed at her enthusiasm to read a book written by a young girl on womanhood. Her eagerness was a huge compliment.

Another year passed and I didn't hear from Dee, as is usual for us Jeep enthusiasts between trips.

So last week I looked for her in Moab morning Jeep meetings (this is when all the Jeep drivers meet and discuss which trails they're going to hit). She found me in the crowd of Jeepers, gave me a big hug and told me she had something to give me. I followed her to her camp site and she pulled out a large white trash bag. What on earth? I thought.

I opened it up and found a kaleidoscope of reds and whites. Dee announced, "It's your Ruby Slippers Quilt." I could not believe her handiwork, the lovely design. It's just beautiful. I gave her a hug and then began poring over the details.

Home again, I've found a spot for my Ruby Slippers quilt, right dab smack in the middle of our bed, to remind me that no matter how small sales numbers look, there is a woman named Dee who was touched by my work enough to create this for me with her unique gifts.

Intelligender?

A good friend of mine alerted me to a new website: Intelligender where you can purchase the test to determine the sex of your baby as early as 10 weeks.

Besides the Downey Bottle Blue and Pepto-Bismol Pink of their color scheme, I found the site interesting, even if they used "gender" a bit sloppily. Gender in the academy refers to the non-biological, usually socialized aspect of boy/girl differences. Sex, in the academy, refers to the biological differences. So technically it's "Intellisex" but I wouldn't market that either.

Why would parents want to know their child's gender at 10 weeks? How much of an edge does this early knowledge provide? Most parents discover their baby's sex around 20-28 weeks. So one big benefit is 10 more weeks to create your baby's gender specific wardrobe and nursery. But at what cost?

I'd like to know what you think about a site and test like this. What benefits does it provide that I'm not seeing? Any concerns about their marketing pitch?

The Quiet Work of Mothers I Know

Last weekend, on Palm Sunday, I was in the Dallas area speaking for the Salvation Army's Youth Council, a state-wide youth retreat. Afterward, I visited with a long time friend of mine.

Erin and I reminisced about our childhood, the ease and convenience of Sunday school girl friends, how easy it was to get together every Sunday after church. We laughed over her son's antics and growing vocabulary and shared amazement at his young brilliance. For instance, he will point out something he likes, then wrap his chubby arms around his torso and hug himself and say "Hug!" to express his approval and delight in what he has just pointed out.

Erin and I talked about the difficulty and joy of growing up, taking responsibilities of cultivating young lives, young families, young non-profits.

Erin lives far from her family, her husband is currently working 70+ hours a week so childcare primarily falls into her lap. She shared with me how M.O.P.S. provides an oasis for her to get free childcare, community with other mothers and good teaching each week.

I watched her take time to let her son turn on and off and on and off and on and off a light because he loves lights magic power and she loves him. Not because she was particularly thrilled with another interruption or with the endless light flickering session. Here's a picture of us in her son's nursery. Erin had just finished changing his diaper.

When I took time to browse her library, I heard her talking through a book with her son. He is 1 1/2 and my friend is already commenting how she wonders if she'll have what it takes to keep teaching him.

To me, she's working wonders already in the 15 hours each day she pours herself into her son. Erin is pregnant with her second and she told me she's quite interested in how she'll do this with two. I have no doubts of her competency, her ability to be attentive and to love her children well.

Erin's work takes place without signage, no bill-board or website, no promotional page of quotes of people who've been grateful for her work. No one flies her out to do her work, instead Erin stays in one place, in one home, working deftly, magnificently behind the closed doors of her house. There is no audience, no honorarium she hopes to receive other than her son's chuckle and another eager series of lights going on and off and on and off. And perhaps a hug and kiss.

Erin's work is quiet work. It is work that goes largely unseen, except perhaps on Mothers Day or when her husband comes home after his 16 hour days. And yet, Erin does not buy into the idea that mothering is the only work that is valuable in her life. When her son naps or on her weekends, Erin runs an online company designed to assist other people who suffer from Crohns Disease. She whips up new recipes and posts commentary about how her doctor's morbid diagnosis became something she thwarted with a careful and healthy diet. For more see her site "No More Crohns".

In her resilience and no nonsense approach to living fully, using all she has to offer in her mothering and her business, Erin reminds me of another mother I know. Caryn Dahlstrand Rivandeniera who has written a book I've been longing to tell you about.

It's called Mama's Got a Fake I.D.: How to Reveal the Real You Behind all that Mom (Waterbook, Spring 2009). Now I know I've written some controversial posts about motherhood in the past, about how I do not believe God has sanctioned Stay at Home Motherhood (SAHM) any more than he has sanctioned Work Outside of the Home Motherhood (WOHM).

As a followup to those discussions, I want to point out Caryn, someone I recognize as superior in knowledge about moms, someone who agrees with me in part, but not in whole.

Let me share a few quotes I love and let those mothers in my audience decide if this book would be worth squeezing into their schedule:

First, her book is dedicated to her three children "To Henrik, Greta, and Fredrik. Mama loves you like absolute crazy" I loved that!

Second, she claims to be a traditional at-home mom, "In many ways I'm a traditional at-home mom: I'm there when the kids wake up, take naps, eat lunch, watch cartoons, drink their chocolate milk. I carpool; I cook dinner; I play games on the floor; I bake like a champ. " But . . .

"those things don't give others the complete picture of who God made me to be. Same thing with every other mom. God gives important gifts to women that have nothing to do with conceiving, birthing (or adopting) and nurturing children. We have God-given talents, passions, and interests that a mom badge just doesn't bring to the fore."

She goes on to talk about how church is very lonely for some moms, quoting testimonies from women who've written into the Christianity Today's blog called Women in Leadership, a blog Caryn serves as managing editor.

One woman writes, "In many churches they still try to push the June Cleaver prototype on women as the "biblical" model." When a sample group of mothers was asked to name the setting in which they struggle most to be known and to fit in as their real selves, the number one answer was "with other moms." Church was a close second. See Caryn's chapter 5, "How Moms are Left Homeless in God's House." Now clearly this isn't the experience of all mothers, it is certainly not the experience of my friend, Erin, who finds her M.O.P.S. group a wonderful source of hope. But Erin also had stories of other mommy groups that felt fake, frustrating and very high performance.

Caryn's book serves as a good reminder that some women want to be known beyond their mom label. But many churches tell women that they are mothers first, barely whispering that they are made in God's image in other ways as well. If a woman bucks this they can easily be named selfish, career-demanding, poorly suited for mothering adequately (as I have been told). But Caryn points out, "Is it selfish to want to be known more fully? I think something else is at work, and it is this: Christian women often earn an A-plus in self-condemnation while completely missing the class on honesty and transparency."

Then she gives this zinger: "God created us to bear his image in all of life, not just in one area." She marks out the ways God reveals himself to us, so many, complicated, zany, dramatic, vibrant, loud and quiet ways. God makes himself known. We, Caryn argues, need to make ourselve known, too.

"I love being a mom, but I hate being ID'd as one . . . when being a mom looms so large that it obscures everything else God made me to be, other people are not seeing the real me . . ."

Then she comments on the selfishness accusation:

"We also need to clear away any nagging feelings that our concern with our identities is somehow selfish and lacking in godliness. This isn't true . . . Scripture shows us that getting to know ourselves and making ourselves known has its foundation in God's self-revelation."

He's a one of a kind God and he made us one of a kind people. I've written elsewhere about how hard female friendships are for women. Perhaps this is due in part to the diffuculty women have in discovering themselves. As Caryn puts it, "Any authentic relationships is based, in part, on a clear understanding of a person's true identity."

With that Caryn launches into discovering the you that God created you to be with chapters like "Being a Mom Makes you Much MORE" and Seven Tips for Discovering the Real You. In reading I found a story that reminded me very much of my own story of losing our first child in an early miscarriage (p. 14).

It was the first time I read of someone else calling me a mother. When I called Caryn and asked if this story was based on mine, she said, "Oh that's totally you, I remember thinking how you have a mother's heart when I read your blog posts on your experience. You were so fierce in the ways you wanted to protect your child. That's the heart of a mother, Jonalyn." It affirmed something in me that I've longed to hear.

She goes on to explain "How Moms Keep Losing Their I.D.'s (and why we need them back!)" including "How Designer Women Got a Generic Label", "Why God Cares About Who You Are" with a tremendously transparent story of how she was rebuked for sharing her passion for helping women understand their identities with this response,

"Remember, Caryn, God gave you these kids for a reason. You've got to stop worrying about you. You can do that later. You need to worry about them now."

Caryn points out, accurately to my mind, that so many Christian women cannot understand how a mother could love her children like crazy and still want to do more than devote herself to them 24/7. How much freedom are we allowing in the church for alternative models? As Caryn puts it "in our zeal to honor moms, we tend to dishonor women." She challenges us to refuse to sneer at moms who do things differently than we do for "if we sneer at moms who don't fit our view of what a mom is or does, we sneer at Jesus."

One of the most valuable sections of Caryn's book are her Seven Secrets to Finding Your Real I.D. with tips like "Getting over the Guilt" and a guide to "Interview Yourself" with pages of open ended questions to discover who you really are and why "find your identity in Christ" can be both helpful and non-helpful. Throughout, Caryn relies on Scripture to make her case. One of my favorite moments was when she cited Matt 5:13-16 from The Message, "You're here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world. God is not a secret to be kept . . . By opening up to others, you'll prompt people to open up with God." She gives mothers ways to tell others about who they are. She recommends when pepole ask moms about what they do that they respond, "I'm a mom and ______ (gardener, antiwar activist, lawyer, writer, preschool volunteer, runner, etc)." This reminds the non-moms of the world that being a mom doesn't preclude you from having other gifts and interests.

Some tips I took away from Caryn's book are her humor, she is so accessible with her fun stories of the joy and frustration of being a mom. I also loved her tips about how to approach moms. She said that there was a time when moms were considered INTERESTING in their own right, such as the Proverbs 31 woman who didn't try to hide her accomplishments, even from her own kids. She recommend asking mothers, "Tell me about yourself" rather than "Tell me about your kids." She asks moms to ask themselves, "What makes me feel like I'm firing on all cylinders?" and feel free to answer that with something other than motherhood. Caryn is an fantastic blogger (The Mommy Revolution), author, editor and a woman I count a dear friend. She's also a terrific mom.

And this leads me back to my friend Erin. I love watching Erin mother her son, it brings out a tenderness and attentiveness in her I haven't seen. She formed a young person who is a laugh out loud fun person to be with (as you can see us clowning around in the pic). But Erin's motherhood adds to the unique person I already love, the zany, movie-making, dramatic, witty, enterpreneurial, persistent loyal treasure I value for so many reasons.

Here's to the quiet work of moms I know both with their children and in the unique ways God has gifted them. Thanks for being a mom and a _______.

Thank you for showing the world more of what God is like!

Book Review: Find Your Way Home

There are few short devotional books I like, even fewer that don't tweak my theologian side as being too wimpy for anyone who wants to think deeply about God. But a few weeks back I was sent a book to review and I'm happy to say that though it is short (you can read it in 1 hour) and devotional it is not theologically wimpy.

In December of 2007 I wrote a blog, "The Human Side of Prostitution: Five for Sorrow, Ten for Joy" reviewing a novel based on a real group of women, "The Sisters of Bethany", a unique Dominican Third Order of the Congregation of Saint Mary Magdalen. These were some wicked unique nuns, women who were previous felons, prostitutes, drug-addicts now committed to Jesus and transforming themselves and their culture. Reviewing Five for Sorrow, Ten for Joy was such a pleasure, because I knew behind the fictional story's inspiration were real women living out lives of redemption after imprisonment. But this was all long ago, an order founded in the 1860's in France.

Well, through this new devotional book, Find Your Way Home I have found a modern day group order of women, here in the United States who are very similar to these Sisters of Bethany. Founded in 1997 in Nashville, TN, Magdalene helps women who have come out of lives of prostitution and drug addiction. The women of Magdalene have come out of correctional facilities or the streets, they have survived lives of abuse, prostitution and are experiencing a no cost, safe, disciplined, and compassionate community in which to recover and rebuild their lives.

Magdalene is a two-year residential community founded not just to help culture but to create culture itself. Their story and rule for living is simply written out in Find Your Way Home: Words from the Street, Wisdom from the Heart. This short book was written by the Women of Magdalene with Reverend Becca Stevens, Magdalene's Founding Director in short chapters listing out their 24 Rules for living in community.

As I read through the 24 Rules, inspired by Benedictine values, that govern the women of Magdalene's lives I was reminded of several things.

Ready to Change Themselves and You

First, these are women who have taken the bold step of changing from abused and abusers to daughters of God. Their journey begins and ends with God. They firmly believe that love heals.

When Dale and I were in Seattle last month we visited a homeless shelter that helps men get off the streets. The founding director taught us something significant. He said he often hears men say, "I want to get off the streets." The director, a previous addict himself, will offer commiseration (it IS cold on the streets, isn't it?), he has learned that these words do not mean change is forthcoming. It's only when he hears them say, "I want to change my life," that his ears perk up.

Find Your Way Home holds many first person stories, staccato paragraphs of women who were ready to change their life. I read from their words about the cycle of poverty, how difficult it is for the homeless to forgive others and themselves. One woman admits to being invited to Magdalene multiple times, attracted because women from this groups were giving her bags of toiletries and snacks, treating her, a stranger, with love. "The problem was, I couldn't stay clean. It would take me almost another year to give up the drugs, but I am so thankful God didn't give up on me." This going-the-long-distance love is something most church-attenders and small groups would benefit from experiencing, even if just through reading this short book.

The women's honesty would blow open most nice Bible studies. Let me give you one glimpse in a woman of Magdalene's own words, "I know the sweetness of grief and the feeling of tears against my skin. I also know that I will still sacrifice just about anything to be accepted by a man. But knowing that my body and spirit are connected at least give me permission to treat my body and every other body in the world as a great gift from God."

Embedded Bible Verses

Second, while I found consistent Christian ideas peppered throughout the 24 Rules, I did not find any Bible-quoting nor any mention of Jesus. As an apologist for Jesus I thought this worthy of mention. I began taking note of specific Biblical ideas, delighted to find so many God-honoring, true ideas woven into the Rules for life and stories from women. This was the Bible made flesh in a community of women in Nashville, Tennesee.

Here are a few Bible ideas I found.

• "I have forgiven the man who abused me when I was a child. I can pray for him and hope for wholeness" an incarnation of Jesus' command to love your enemies and pray from them.
  
• "We are God's children in flesh and spirit" reminiscent of John 1:12-13
• "We give drink to the thirsty, food to the hungry, comfort to the sorrowful, clothing to the naked, and companionship to the imprisoned and dying. We wash one another's feet" all commands of Jesus.
  
• "In loving our neighbors we are meeting God" a version of Matthew 22:39 "love your neighbor as yourself" that feels slightly Hinduistic to me as we are not actually God, but we bear his image.
  
• "I knew that God had new plans for me" echoing Jeremiah 29:11
  
• "On my best days I know even this broken mess of a body is a temple of spirit" a version of I Corinthians 3:16 and 6:19 that says our bodies are a temple of the Holy Spirit.
  
• My favorite was "we know we are our sister's keepers" a reversal of Cain's avoidance, "Am I my brother's keeper?" in Genesis 4:9.
  

This spiritual sensitivity with hidden Biblical truths can be a useful guide to helping any person coming out of addiction. It outlines the importance of a Higher Power and prepares them to meet Jesus. Sharing spiritual truths without Jesus can, however, be a dead-end since Jesus' power is necessary to heal us, fully. I can see Find Your Way Home being a good start to spiritual conversations with a friend, especially if she is already concerned with social justice for women. It would be a great way to introduce someone to the Biblical ideas that have power to change real lives today. Just keep an eye out for the Biblical nuggets inside.

Setting up a Rule for Living

Third, this book would be a helpful guide for anyone attempting to set up a series of rules for guiding victims of addiction into healthy life. Inspired by the Benedictine rule, the women have developed guidelines for living with proven working power as they are the guide for everyday interaction and deep-seated community among the Women of Magdalene. Some of the 24 Rules particularly welcome to me like, "Unite Your Sexuality and Spirituality" a much-needed Jewish truth that we are made to be embodied souls, "Consider the Thistle", and "Walk Behind." The personal stories of women from Magdalene are proof that women are finding change, as one woman wrote, "It is not a problem to be lost. It is only a problem if you think it is impossible to find your way home."

Overall, Find Your Way Home made me very glad. Here is a group of women finding hope to leave addiction and find a home, a community, worthy work and meaning in their lives. If you're interested in helping the Women of Magdalene open more homes, you can buy this book as all the proceeds go to Magdalene, or you can visit their ingenious Thistle Farms, a non-profit company where women of Magdalene make all-natural body-healing products. I mean if you've every bought Bath and Body Works, you have to check them out. I've just put in my first order.

Next time I travel to Tennessee, I want to visit Thistle Farm named for that often overlooked flower that blooms where most would die.

Lynching Today

Please be forewarned, this is a heavy one.

Last night I attended a Theater Dance Production where I saw much talent and a lot of skin.

Some dances were sensual, some merely sexual. One in particular stood out to me where a posse of women (teens?) danced around one man to the music of Timbaland and Ludacris. I believe the songs were "Bounce" and "The Potion". At one part the women enacted a violent sexual act with the music sounding much like a woman gasping for breath as she was being choked again and again and again.

After the number I leaned over to my friend, Emily and told her I had three major issues with the whole thing.

1. Most of the moves were not interesting. I mean if you want to watch women and men bumpin' and grindin' just go to any club. The ones I've been to in my teen years gave me enough pelvic thrusting to leave me rather bored with the unoriginalness of it all. Isn't dancing an art? Shouldn't it be creative beyond club moves?
   
2. It was sexier than sex, which means it's not real enough to be rooted in the ways of romance between a real man and woman, which means it's a farce, a deception, a lie. And I have a problem with anything that smacks of lies because it finds it's source in the Enemy of our Souls, the Father of all Lies. The reveling in this kind of dance is the kind of thinking that destroys marriages, prevents intimacy, keeps women invulnerable and men silent and stony. There's no life here.
3. Women were re-enacting abuse with the man on the stage. They were charading being backhanded, sucked dry, flayed, suffocated, slapped and abused. If the dance was meant to show the pain of evil, it might have been redemptive because it accurately portrayed a reality in this world: woman are abused. But there was no mourning going on, more of a promotion of this kind of sexual/violent encounter. It looked almost cool. Every woman or teen in the production was dressed in a gangsta outfit, baggy pants, one leg up to below the knee, plenty of midriff, sidewayz baseball caps, that sneering, I don't give a @%$*! attitude. They all looked tough, as if they still had control of their body and their heart, even while the guy slapped them around. There was a bit of glory in the manhandling of their bodies, and an attempt to sexify the physical abuse. I cannot enjoy seeing my gender abused and I cannot call that sexy.
   

So I went home last night rather discouraged that women would want to dance like that.

Today dawned rather solemnly as Dale and I had plans to attend a funeral of a young friend of ours, a twenty year old from our town named Stephen Thomas.

But everyone called him Chongo. Addicted, heartbroken, stony and guarded, Chongo was a guy we ran into regularly around town when we were out past 10 pm. I always felt sort of awkward around him, like he was too cool for me and that whatever I said was not clear enough or interesting enough. I didn't know how best to love him.

We knew those who were mentoring him. We knew he had recently accepted Jesus. We also knew that sneer that often met us when we said hello. He was downright unkind and rude to Dale several times. And I'm fairly sure the reason he talked with me is because he found me mildly attractive.

Chongo overdosed last Saturday. His life snuffed out. His apprenticeship for electrician work, his recently gained GED, his sense of humor, even his sneer that masked his pain are gone from this earth. His funeral did not comfort me. The evangelistic message fell flat on my ears, except in one point.

Buck Chavarria, a jewel in our town, was one of the mentors in his life. He and his fantastically matter of fact wife, Tara, are good friends of ours. Together they run Christ for Life Sk8 Church, a local ministry that works with the kids most of us have given up on. He and Tara serve the kids on drugs, the high school drop outs, the runaways, the vagabonds, the true ragamuffins of our society. They feed them dinner every week, hang out with them at the skate park and help them know what love looks like.

Buck shared at Chongo's funeral one line that has stuck with me this evening. Facing a crowd that spilled out into the foyer, Buck, his black hair greased back in his faintly punk/rockabilly style explained the ways things were, "Chongo didn't know he was loved by you. He had a hard time believing people would love him. I think we all have a hard time believing all the people who love us."

Those words echoed in my soul as I thought through my day. I had spent the last few hours picking up hot Starbucks coffee, coordinating soda and water bottles and driving them to the reception for after wards. I had lugged crates of coffee up stairs through doors, sweating with the effort. All the while I was thinking, what if I had spent this much effort trying to love Chongo when he was alive?

I know I listened to him and complimented him and tried to draw him out. But he was so closed, in so much deep pain. I remember a time when Dale and I were speaking for Sk8 church when Chongo was asking us questions. He was, for a moment, really relating to what we were saying. He asked us something and we tried to take him a step deeper, but he couldn't follow us. I was frustrated with how he gave up. I was frustrated that we couldn't explain the concept of Jesus and his love better. And since that day I would feel a sense of inadequacy around Chongo, hoping I could share anything, even listen, in a way that showed him I cared.

At the church I looked out on the audience of people who all claimed to love Chongo. I mean, that's why we were here, right? Why didn't Chongo feel loved? Why did he seek refuge in substances to alter his reality? Why couldn't he break out of his addictions? Why couldn't he take our love?

I felt the immense wound of this world so intensely.

If you could have met Chongo, you'd see a lack of willpower, a sense of frivolity and meaninglessness. But this was a mask. Every now and then you'd see the pain in his eyes. On the table at the church were many of Chongo's childhood pictures. In a picture taken when he couldn't have been more than 2, I saw something in his eyes. His eyes were dewy, I imagine he had been teary right before being plopped down for the photo shoot. But the expression in those eyes, open, wide open, they radiated such a heart wrenching sensitivity, one that, as I looked at pictures of him growing up, dulled into a sneer, a protective, hardened, even dazed look. The hope and sensitive spirit in him had been dying before he did.

Buck shared about Chongo's kind side during the service. But it was a side Dale and I rarely got to see. As fellow friends, perhaps some who had hosted the party where Chongo had OD'ed filed out of the sanctuary, I was overwhelmed with their grief and hopelessness.

I came home, put on some soft music, lit as many candles as I could find and grabbed the biography of Rosa Parks I've been pouring through. I read two pages before I came upon a horrible lynching story of a young man, Emmett Till, when he was fourteen years old. His body was found in the Tallahachie River, his eye gouged out, his skull crushed, a bullet in his brain and a 75 pound cotton gin barb-wired to his neck. The lynchers were found not guilty.

I put the book down and marched over to my computer and began to write this.

Times have changed since then. In 1954, some white men were the perpetrators against some black men. Today, we don't have to read about horrendous lynchings, but we are still hateful, cruel to some of the people closest to us. I don't know the particulars in Chongo's case, but I have read enough and spent enough time online chatting with teens during Soulation Ask LIVE and after speaking events to know that teens are being destroyed from the inside out. Smoking, using, cutting are only symptoms of their soul's pain.

Often this is due to parents who will not face the truth, who live as people of the lie, who would rather sweep the painful picture of gouged eyes under the rug. It hurts too much to know what painful things we do to one another--often so unintentionally.

Soul pain is the most insidious method the evil one uses, for we cannot immediately see it, tend it, heal it, unless we study each other's eyes. And even then, we know how to mask our pain.

Today we hear about young men and women destroying their souls. Their spirits so abused by others (mothers, fathers, siblings, friends, themselves) that they have no will to feel or live or know.

Today, teens are lynching themselves; the signs are rampant. They starve themselves, they cut themselves, they fall into abusive relationships where they have no will to break away, they grow passive in school, their eyes no longer carry any sparkle or sensitivity to give me hope, the women glory in their lithe, supple bodies, magnifying their sexual powers far too soon, captured by their own powers of captivation.

And these children and young adults are the walking dead among us. And they are very, very hard to love. Their lives are snuffed out as they continue, numbly, to exist. Mostly their choices are meaningless and their lives feel controlled by someone else. Most of the teen addicts are living in ways against their will, for their wills have been rendered useless against the power of the evil one. He bends his will to make the image bearers of God grow passive, listless and powerless to find the good stream of living water.

At the moment, I cannot bring myself to think of solutions, I can only meditate on Buck's words that we are loved. We are loved, though few of us know it.