Faith's Menopausal Moments

CAUTION: Men may find this post offensive or confusing or possibly enlightening. Consult an older woman if counsel or education is needed.

I haven't picked up a feminine pad for a long time. I am so happy to be done with that aspect of womanhood.

During perimenopause my husband bravely accompanied me to see Menopause the Musical: Celebrating Women and The Change so that he could be better prepared to survive this stage of my life. We both got more information than we wanted.

As it turned out, compared to other women who have gone through menopause, I really had an easy time with "The Change." But I did have my moments of hormonal craziness. Unfortunately it landed during a time of spiritual craziness too. Not a good combination. It created a lot of bad memories, deep hurts and an unreconciled relationship.

But recently, because I love metaphors, I was able to reconcile menopause with spirituality.

I've been reading My Bright Abyss: Meditation of a Modern Believer by Christian Wiman just released earlier this month. Wiman wrote this after being diagnosed with an incurable blood disease at age 39. Last fall he received a bone marrow transplant. (You can read a CT interview with Wiman here.)

Since I am currently doing caregiving for my sister who just went through a bone marrow transplant, I was curious about how his faith fared in this crisis. I'm not done with the book yet but I have been touched deeply by his transcendent and life-giving words even as he was "standing at a cliff." Wiman poetically makes sense of faith even while we are insensitive to its latent presence.

I love this paragraph in the first chapter:

In fact, there is no way to "return to the faith of your childhood," not really, not unless you've just woken from a decades-long and absolutely literal coma. Faith is not some half-remembered country into which you come like a long-exiled king, dispensing the old wisdom, casting out the radical, insurrectionist aspects of yourself by which you'd been betrayed. No. Life is not an error, even when it is. That is to say, whatever faith you emerge with at the end of your life is going to be not simply affected by that life but intimately dependent upon it, for faith in God is, in the deepest sense, faith in life--which means that even the staunchest life of faith is a life of great change. It follows that if you believe at fifty what you believed at fifteen, then you have not lived---or have denied the reality of your life.

I am in my fifties and I definitely do not believe now what I believed at fifteen which is about when I first responded to the gospel.

I have always loved change. And I have loved the process of growing and changing in my faith, my understanding of God, my spiritual perceptions and biblical knowledge.

What I haven't loved is the connection between pain and growing, between challenges and changes. (Insight into my weird brain: Immediately I saw the "lle" inside the word "challenge"  which, when removed, becomes "change." Then I started thinking of words that begin with those letters to further the connection. I came up with life and love emerge. I am so nerdy.)

At first I wanted to forget and move on from those painful, challenging events. But it didn't work. The more I tried to forget, the more the memories haunted me and the anger resurfaced like the bubbling of a backed-up sewer line in the basement.

Eventually I realized that forgetting was a form of denial and it was keeping me from moving on. So I quit calling them memories and referred to those experiences as stories, stories to remember, to tell and to submit to the healing presence of Christ.

My past stories have contributed to my "story in the middle" but this middle keeps changing because I haven't lived all my stories. I will keep changing as long as I continue to have faith in Christ and as Wiman points out, faith in life. I am on the other side of the middle of my years, but when it comes to faith, I am always in the middle.

Wiman used a masculine metaphor to describe what living a life of faith is not and the impossibility of going back to a childhood faith if you are really living and not in a coma. I couldn't help but think of a feminine metaphor to describe what living a life of faith is. At least in my experience as a woman.

Enter Menopause the Moment.

For me, experiencing change includes one or more of the following:

• a shift in my universe (most of them are smaller than that, but some have been pretty darn hard)
• imbalance (spiritual, not hormonal...or maybe both)
• times when I feel like I'm going crazy (or I want to believe everyone else is)
• anger (can I call them spiritual hot flashes?)
• depression (I know I'm not alone here)
• sleeplessness (I have my most significant conversations in my head at 3 a.m.)
• irritability (this is an external sign that I am wrestling with God internally)
• mental fuzziness (amazing how biblical knowledge, including a BA in Bible and an MDiv in theology escapes the synapses in my brain)

The more significant the change required, the longer the menopausal moment. The more significant the developing story, the longer it takes for me to process its place in my imaginary memoir.

But then the change happens. Sometimes it happens slowly. Sometimes it's instant. Almost always it involves an encounter with God. 

And the shift in my universe becomes a shift towards Christ. Towards repentance. Towards knowing I am beloved. Towards knowing others are beloved. Towards trust. Towards life. 

Each spiritual menopausal moment is an opportunity to move on and deeper into the life God intends for me.

Eventually the moment becomes a memory and the memory a story and the story a chapter in the memoir of my faith in God. My faith in life.

(If you think this metaphor was rather lame, wait until I write about "senior moments.")

Why Patriarchy Keeps Women From Growing Up

My Daddy and Me

There have been many moments in my life when I thought or spoke these words out loud: I don't wanna grow up! I've said that even in my fifties.

It's human nature to want periodically to shed responsibilities and lean into others to tell us what to do, make our decisions or take care of us. When I'm really old and this becomes a possible reality, I wonder if I'll feel irritated or relieved.

Sometimes I want to return to being a little girl with her Daddy by her side, oblivious to the adult world.

But then I remember my Daddy. He worked hard as a parent to ensure I would fulfill my own adult responsibilities well. He did all he could to help me grow into a strong, self sufficient woman (maybe sooner than most kids if you want to read that story).

This meant he gave me increasing freedom to make my own decisions. This meant he kept loosening the boundaries around me and encouraging me to explore new territories on my own. This meant he understood his job as a parent was to nurture my inner strength so that I would step into the world without any sense of entitlement or inferiority.

My daddy wanted children badly but he didn't want children forever. He was committed to raising me to be a fully functioning adult, confident of my abilities to maneuver through life and confident of my standing as an equal member of the human race.

No one I know would suggest remaining in parent mode well past the normal formative years. No one would think this is healthy for anyone, whether the child, the family or the community at large.

But this is essentially what patriarchy does to women in the church.

When women are denied equal authority, equal responsibility and equal voice, they are being treated like children and are denied adulthood in its fullest sense.

When leaders have important conversations and make significant decisions without full representation from over half the church, then women haven't really grown up.

When women are barred from sitting at the table of leadership, they are being barred from the table of adults.

When men restrict a woman's sphere of influence or define the Spirit's calling in her life, they presume to be her "fathers" when she should have only one, her Heavenly Father. Never once have I heard a father dedicate his daughter to future male church leaders to spiritually guide her through life.

Patriarchy perpetuates a church culture in which girls never leave the watchful eye of a father and never really become adult women with full freedom and equal value or voice under Christ's reign.

Patriarchy is a problem for women. And it's a problem for the church because in reality without the full adulthood of women and full partnership with men, the church is crippled and adolescent. 

Voices are increasing in number as they expose problems with male-dominated church leadership. As a woman, I offer my voice, small as it may be, but determined:

I refuse to remain a child in the church or be treated like one. I am an adult!

What I Wished I Learned from the Church as a Single

Valentine's Day. My husband and I were engaged on that day 34 years ago. We are celebrating with Roberta Flack and the Oregon Symphony.

But I know this particular day is rather difficult to get through for single women. Once you get past grade school and the required distribution of Valentine cards, the delivery of red roses from an admirer is a fantasy and all the commercial hoopla makes it more painful.

There has been a lot of blog chatter lately addressing the struggles of singles in the church. Or rather, the struggles of singles WITH the church. At the same time I have been having or overhearing conversations around me with single women who are raising questions or revealing the pain the church is inflicting.

My beautiful and single friend, Kaitie, invited some FB responses to an article written by Ryan McRae, a single man in his 40's who dropped the pursuit of his call to ministry because a church job was dependent on his marital status. He had these strong words:

The church tells us that being married is a spiritual barometer—and that is a total lie from the pit of hell. 

Now add the topic of sexuality into the pot and the stew really gets hot. Delving into the seven deadly sins as part of the Lenten season, last Sunday my pastor addressed the first: lust. I couldn't help but think about the added weight some churches put on single women to bear the responsibility of a man's lust.

This past week several bloggers including Sarah Bessey and Elizabeth Esther addressed the persistent double standard in the church that boys will be boys when they lose their virginity but girls are "damaged goods" when they succumb to a boy's touch. The message is clear: the Gospel does not apply to a woman's vag...I mean, virginity.

I read the blogs but did not comment. What could I say? I was married when I was supposed to in my early 20's. Now I'm middle-aged and happily married to the only husband I've ever had sex with. I stayed home to raise our children, setting aside my own desires for a career or a ministry. I have been validated and deemed worthy in the eyes of the church.

But I have also mentored many young women in my Christian lifetime. I have seen their anger and I hurt alongside them when leaders, teachers and preachers speak and act in ways that makes them feel small and invisible, even doomed to lifelong singleness or a less-than-perfect marriage because of past choices. One young single woman told me how it hurt deeply when her pastor stated in a sermon that married couples understand the Gospel more clearly. A single, never-been-married woman now in her 70's who was a Wycliffe missionary in Peru for most of her adult life shared about a male pastor who insisted God wanted him to talk about marriage at a conference despite the presence of 40 single women.

As a single I did not dream of getting married. I hardly gave it a thought. But I did like boys a lot and fell into unhealthy patterns of fantasies, manipulations and breaking hearts. It was a miracle I ever married a wonderful man at such a young age of 23. I had a shallow faith and a lot of patterns to change. My 33 years of marriage had its times of doubt, loneliness, loss of desire, temptation to cheat and spiritual pits.

There are some things I wish I had learned before I got married. There are some things I believe the church could have said and done to help better prepare me and perhaps spare me from some of those rocky places.

Let me say at this point that I also know that God in his grace carried me through those rough times, taught me what I needed to know, replaced lost dreams with new ones and transformed me, along with our marriage, into the wonderful partnership it is today. I embrace the rocky places as part of my story now. But that doesn't mean I can't share what I learned after the vows or wish the church had said to those who feel pressure to get to the altar.

Marriage and/or children do not define you. Your identity is one of being part of a transformed humanity, redeemed by Christ, adopted by the Father, and empowered and indwelt by the Spirit. You are called to pursue Christ and serve others until you meet him in heaven where your resurrected existence will know nothing of marital status.

A husband is not a savior. No human being, even your most intimate friend, can be held responsible for your spiritual life. You own your own spirituality. A healthy interdependence of any community, including a marriage, is only as strong as each member's absolute dependence on Christ alone. As I wrote in a previous blog, one must be careful in considering the analogy in Ephesians 5 to not make the correlation between the husband and Christ too closely. A husband’s love cannot accomplish for the wife what only Christ can do. A husband does not make a wife holy – only Christ does. A husband cannot cleanse her through the word – only Christ does. A husband does not present his wife to Christ as a pure and blameless bride – only Christ does. Husbands are NOT like Christ in this way and the husband is NOT responsible for the wife’s spiritual state. This is an inappropriate extrapolation from the metaphor.

Marriage is not the only place you can become holy and blameless. In 1 Corinthians 7, the Apostle Paul wholeheartedly supported those who remained single and even encouraged it for those who wanted to pursue Christ undistracted. Those who seek to understand and experience the depth of the Gospel do not have to be married in order to do so. Profound spiritual formation can take place anywhere.

Marriage is not a required qualification for your ministry resume. According to the Apostle Paul, ministry can be enhanced by remaining single, not diminished.

The heart of a church is not families but individuals who are first brothers and sisters, not husbands and wives. The current state of marriages and families requires attention in the church, but an equal if not greater emphasis should be made on the singles in our culture. The inclusion of singles into as many aspects and activities of church life as possible is the best way to communicate their value as co-laborers and members of the faith community. A church that works hard to build healthy friendships between women and men, both married and unmarried, more closely fulfills God's design that his family reflect his image in their mutuality. Genesis 1 focuses on the social interconnectedness of male and female when they are created. Genesis 2 spotlights a subset of those relationships in terms of a one-flesh union of a man and a woman. A healthy relational and spiritual community that is inclusive of singles is the best way to prepare those who may eventually get married and those who remain single do not miss out on satisfying levels of intimacy within such a community.

These are some of the things I wished I heard from the church before I got married. Maybe I would have taken it to heart and been spared some of the rocky places. Maybe not. But at least I would have started with a healthier and biblical perspective of spirituality, ministry and marriage.

So these are things I would say to any single friend.

And maybe we should prolong grade school and distribute Valentines to everyone we know and love, especially the singles.

What would you add to my list?

1000 Cranes

Something special happened yesterday.

1000 origami cranes were delivered to my sister by a high school classmate who had enlisted other graduates to contribute to the project and show their support for her battle against cancer. Accompanying the huge pile of colorful cranes with wings spread wide was a plaque with these words burned into the wood:

Senbazuru - 1000 Cranes

The ancient Japanese tradition of Senbazuru promises

that if a person folds 1000 Origami Cranes or if their

friends and family perform this labor of love on their

behalf, that person will be granted a wish.

These cranes were folded with Love and Hope for

Pat Reed Tanner

By her Dragon Brothers and Sisters

The project was deeply meaningful because of our Japanese heritage and wonderful memories of growing up on Okinawa.

What struck me about this symbolic gift was how a community can impact one individual in simple but profound ways. When a community joins hands, something powerful, even miraculous, emerges.

Encouragement. Hope. Solidarity. Healing. Courage. Strength. And most of all, LOVE.

There are many ways a community can express support. Often they are rooted in cultural traditions like a quilt created by a group of women for a wedding shower or a "barn raising" to help a family whose home was lost. For the Japanese culture, 1000 origami cranes.

Makeshift public memorials have become more popular as a way for a community to share in the grief and loss of a member.

Whatever expression is chosen by a community, it can help to infuse hope into the one who needs to know she is not alone in what she faces. But it's also redemptive for the community.

Besides a way to deal with their own grief, a community needs to see visible signs of their own compassion. It gives hope that all is not lost, that there is still good in the face of evil, that we are still capable of loving well.

One paper crane is fragile but when you see 1000 paper cranes, a miracle happens and one's own fragility is transformed into strength.

Tears for the Children

Matthew 2:18 (NIV)
“A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more.”

Innocent children. Evil intent. A gun instead of a sceptor.

Grief shared across 2000 years, one in the Afterbirth, the other in the Advent. 

Shocked. Helpless. Angry.

We weep.

The Real Elders Among Us

© 2011 Doug Wertman, Flickr | CC-BY | via Wylio

I sat with my new friend, a sweet soft-spoken woman with graying hair. We were sharing prayer requests and it didn't take long for her share her experience in the church where she and her husband had attended for years. With some hesitation and tears on the verge of spilling, she said this: "In all these years, no one has asked me where I can use my gifts."

Immediately I had a deep feeling of empathy as I remembered one of my own church experiences. For over a year I had been advocating for women but never once during that time did the elders ask me what God was calling me to or where I wanted use my gifts. I got the message.

Don't question where we put you - we are the gatekeepers of the Spirit's work among God's people.

But that's not how I read my Bible. Rather than listening to the Spirit and growing the church toward maturity, leaders can act like a dam on a river that restricts its flow. Asking and listening well to the Spirit AND the people will help to open the floodgates.

On behalf of my friend and others like me who are in this middle place
     between birth and death,
          between our stories of youth and our last chapter of life,
               between the journey of growing into our unique take on life and faith
               and the final journey to heaven:
     God is not done with us yet.

His Spirit is moving, transforming and empowering the elders among us. (Here I am referring not to church leadership but to those in the pews who are 50+.)

In fact, as I wrote in an earlier post, not affirming this hurts the church and grieves the Spirit of God "who more often than not waited until His appointed leaders were well past youth before they were called to enter into their most significant leadership and ministry roles." Remember Abraham, Sarah, Moses, Zechariah and Elizabeth, and Anna.

This is what I used to hear from the older church population when I was younger and seeking to empower others in ministry: I've done my duty in the church. It's the younger generation that needs to step up.

Looking back I wonder if the problem was not lazy elders but discouraged ones. Elders tired of being used and not known. Elders drained from working in expected roles rather than serving in their gifted roles. Elders used to duty and discipline but not freedom and joy.

Today, with the emphasis on the younger generation and the real need to disciple them well toward maturity, there is a danger of ignoring the elders into the margins, of misinterpreting the movement of the Spirit in their lives, of forgetting that dreams and visions do not die at age 50.

There is a danger that as the population of baby boomers swell within the ranks of the retired, these neglected servants and mentors shrink within the church.

We can't afford the same mistake.

It's a Small World Afterall

My toes wiggled through the damp sand as I stood at the edge of the Pacific Ocean. It was finer than the sand I had always known. At least the water was warm like what I was used to. But the landscape behind me was foreign.

It was my freshman year of college. Across the vast ocean was home where my family remained while I settled into dorm life. The adventure of leaving home and being on my own didn’t take long to evaporate into the warm salty air of San Diego.

The university was situated on cliffs overlooking the ocean. I would stand and gaze out towards the horizon overwhelmed by the vastness of the separation that was at times unbearable. I wanted to go home so badly. But each time I turned around and walked back to my new world. Eventually it became home.

The hardest thing to adjust to was the size of the United States, almost 4 million square miles. The island of Okinawa where I grew up is only 464 square miles. The more I realized how big my new home was the smaller I felt inside and the smaller I got, the more lost I became.

But the one thing that helped press back the looming lostness was my new faith in Christ. My journey of navigating this country is in some ways a metaphor of my journey into the vastness of God and his love for one small person.

Each step, each move, each tear, each embrace of whatever and whomever God put in my path has enlarged my world both inner and outer. God has grown and stretched me into the space he ordained from the beginning but waited and worked patiently to fill in my 56 years.

The last 12 years have been especially trying and stretching. They were years of regaining a passion for ministry in the church, of earning a masters in theology, and of discovering and using my gifts. But they were also years of wounding, of disappointments, of being misunderstood, of resisting efforts by others to keep me small, and of being named and shamed.

It meant I had to leave two churches that I loved dearly. But I found another church and it felt like I had finally landed on a friendly shore. I was ready to engage my new community and find my niche.

Then just as I thought I was going to fill out the rest of the space God had for me, he had something else for me to do. I found out my sister had lymphoma and she needed me to be a caregiver. God had another battle for me to fight, the beginning of which I described in my last post.

Since then the events have carried me like a whirlwind to another place. Only recently have I had the time to begin processing where I have landed.

My world has become small once again. It consists of only two places, my home in Portland and my second home in Florida. There’s no other place I’d rather be as I have walked on holy ground journeying alongside my sister and her battle against cancer.

But I am on an “island” once again. I have to say no to the yearnings I feel when I stand at the edge of this new ocean and remember the land I once inhabited. I have had to put all future plans on hold. I constantly remind myself that being inwardly large is not directly proportionate to outward achievements. I struggle to believe that my value, my identity, and my gifts are intact and that God will continue to grow me whether I’m constrained on an island or roaming a continent.

For now my world is smaller but I am choosing to believe that I am not.