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Thu 04/10/2008
Making Hay While the Sun Shines
Topic: coping
"We better make hay while the sun shines," my mother often said as she scurried around in my childhood, trying to accomplish what she had planned for the day. "Making hay" is on my mind a lot this week in the wake of the release of a new book, by Dr. Susan Shaw, Director of Women's Studies at Oregon State University. The book tells the collective journey of a "short list" of women--150 of us were included as informants with Southern Baptist roots. Shaw shows how we have each struggled to find autonomy while hammering out ways to best cope with the challenges and demands that the denomination has implanted and sometimes continues to evoke in the lives of women. It feels odd, in a way, for me to be included in a book entitled God Speaks to Us Too: Southern Baptist Women on Church, Home, & Society. Especially since Ron and I left the SBC eighteen years ago! Yet, I'm so pleased that my voice has found a new way to resonate in this, the largest Protestant denomination in the country. "Your leaving will be a burnt offering," my physician friend Madelaine Beerens said to me in 1987, in the heat of the case that had already caused us so much suffering, as the likelihood dawned on us that we would feel forced to resign from the largest evangelical mission board in the world, because we refused to quietly allow a sexual predator's behavior to be swept under the rug as the Board sought to find ways to suppress the story and to orchestrate organizational damage control. I like what Susan Shaw chose to say about my 1982 predictions that what was being labelled as a fight about "inerrancy of the Scriptures" was not a fight about "inerrancy" at all, but about the "women's issue." Of course, at the time of that realization, I had no idea that my own life would soon change dramatically because of an issue that is so vital to women's issues, as well as children's--the issue of abuse. Nor did I know that what started out as being limited to the issues of collusion with sexual abuse, especially as it plays out in the faith community, would grow to include domestic violence. What I wish the author had found room to include is a statement about my work since 1993, when How Little We Knew was published. I'm also very sorry that there is no mention of the two adolescent victims in our case, for they were my greatest concern back at the time of our resignation in 1988. Of course, as a writer who has attempted to tell bits and pieces of many others' stories, I realize just how difficult it is to weave individual storeis together to make a powerful collective story. Shaw has done well in capturing the powerful collective story, even as she has done honor to those of us on her "short list" of autonomous women with SBC roots. For more on the book, and to have a look at the first review, go to http://www.amazon.com/God-Speaks-Us-Too-Southern/dp/081312476X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1207656792&sr=1-1
Posted by Dee Ann Miller
at 12:01 AM CDT
Updated: Thu 04/10/2008 7:38 AM CDT
Wed 04/09/2008
The Good Rush of Activism
Topic: Aliens
While activists often feel like aliens, and sometimes are treated like aliens, in the way others question why we do what we do. Recently, I found http://protest.net/activists_handbook/ It's a site that provides a handbook for activists. I encourage you to visit it, to devour it's many messages. Here's one of them: "When people tell me that I'm crazy to work for others, I remind them that not all gain can be stored in a bank. I tell them that I can't live in this country with a clear conscience unless I'm working to make it better. I tell them that people I know are directly affected and I want this world to be better for both them and for my fellow humans. I tell them that the feeling I get as I realize that I'm changing things is a rush. "Take a few minutes and think about what you care about, and why you do. Do so on the way to work, during commercials while watching TV, right now or any time you have a minute or two. It'll help you be more sure of yourself, and when you're approached with 'why do you do that?' you'll be able to answer. "
Posted by Dee Ann Miller
at 12:01 AM CDT
Updated: Sat 04/05/2008 7:53 AM CDT
Tue 04/08/2008
"Knowing" the Future
Topic: coping
On a soy commercial this morning, I caught a jewel of a thought. One that I never want to forget: "The only way to know what the future holds is to live through it." Deep inside of me is a sense of hope that something good will come out of the rubble that we often see in this life. I hope for things I literally cannot even visualize. Sometimes a very elusive future, believing that somehow it may be better than I can imagine. Looking ahead is what keeps me focused on taking care of myself. When I focus on the past, I find myself looking for the many good things that have happened, sometimes simply because they've happened. At other times, because of the rather unconventional decisions I have made along the way. Many of you have contributed so much to past outcomes that have been better than I ever dreamed. I move forward, embracing life and the struggles of it, because I believe in the future.
Posted by Dee Ann Miller
at 12:01 AM CDT
Updated: Tue 04/08/2008 7:17 AM CDT
Mon 04/07/2008
The Role of Anxiety
Topic: Making Changes
Functional anxiety is wonderful. Necessary, too, unless we plan to be turtles feeding on the grass around us. Foster it. Embrace it. Feed it. Dysfunctional anxiety makes us gripe and yell about things without addressing the root causes. It lets off steam, but often alienates everyone around us. It ignores the fact that some things can't change today or even in our lifetime. By contrast, functional anxiety finds a good plan for accomplishing what can be accomplished. It does not move without some sense of a plan and purpose. That purpose may be to bring about a calmness with ourselves. Or it may be to make massive changes, one person at a time. Seldom are massive changes made otherwise. Especially with the participation of the institutional church, with it's tendency for loving the status quo. And especially with social issues.
Posted by Dee Ann Miller
at 12:01 AM CDT
Updated: Thu 04/03/2008 12:22 PM CDT
Sun 04/06/2008
A Failure to Evolve
Topic: Power
Rev. Michael Dowd, a UCC minister who is author of a new book "Thank God for Evolution," has much to say on the evolving that all of us do as individuals, as well as the evolving of civilizations, and the concept of cosmic evolution as it all relates to both science and religion. It's a delightful text that is challenging my own development of critical thinking on several levels. On p. 148 of the book, he talks about the problems of what he calls "sex scandals." Some of what he is referring to could be called just that. Other incidents would be more accurately termed professional sexual abuse. He attributes the problems to the tendency of peopole in power to live in a regressed state that is fostered by the "Lizard Legacy." "So long as religious and political leaders continue to ignore our evolutionary heritage, and thus do not put in place structures of internal and external support that can withstand the high dosages of testosterone that high status and power necessarily confer, then there will be no hope for a less calamitous future." While the insight offered by this statement can be useful, I want to make it clear that we dare not boil the problems down to single explanations when problems are as complex as the ones that concern us. Still, the "Lizard Legacy" could be used to spark some good conversation, especially with those who need a place to start a discussion. It leaves me wondering: What could we call the legacy that explains collusion?
Posted by Dee Ann Miller
at 12:01 AM CDT
Fri 04/04/2008
A Tip for Wise Activists
Topic: Making Changes
While being aware of the strategies of fearful people, be careful about jumping at every opportunity you see. You may soon burn out early or find yourself too exhausted or anxious to be effective. Be careful of those who label you uncaring because you choose your activities wisely. Nobody can be all things to all people, even in a group of activisits working for the same causes.
Posted by Dee Ann Miller
at 12:01 AM CDT
Thu 04/03/2008
More Tactics
Topic: Making Changes
Further tactics to curtail any hope for progressive change are these: 1. Dull the senses of everyone, especially the thinking people. Be sure to start with the young. You'll want to dilute mental challenges so much that the motivation and energy to engage in critical thinking is eroded. 2. Play on the emotion while you distort truths by focusing on irrelevant facts. 3. Punish and isolate independent thinkers of all ages at every opportunity.
Posted by Dee Ann Miller
at 12:01 AM CDT
Updated: Tue 04/01/2008 9:00 PM CDT
Wed 04/02/2008
Strategy for Maintaining the Status Quo
Topic: Making Changes
If you feel the need to discourage anyone engaging in a call for radical social change, all you have to do is call them "immoral." Be sure, if you live in the Western world, to add "undemocratic" and "unchristian."
Posted by Dee Ann Miller
at 12:01 AM CDT
Updated: Tue 04/01/2008 8:59 PM CDT
Tue 04/01/2008
Delightful Revelations
Topic: spirituality
As I did community development and health education work with a slow-moving African government steeped in narcissism, I had no idea how much I was sharpening my pencil, getting ready to use what I'd learned intuitively in order to plant seeds of change into the hearts of women, and a few men, on two fronts: 1. Change in the individual heart so that it is not dependent on any institution for it's own spiritual development (though sometimes good change certainly does happen within the institutional life) 2. Change in how leaders of the institutional church think and respond to issues of violence In governments everywhere, change occurs when people start to think differently in our ever-changing world. About a lot of things. We are moved by trends. Or we find ways to create new trends. Always doing both, no matter how reluctant we may be to think for ourselves. Change comes through unrest. Change often is seen as a spiritual exercise, not just a social one. If we are going to see change in the Middle East, I am convinced it won't come with military action. The most effective way of producing it is to invest heavily (though modestly compared to our military spending) in airway capability, providing radios in every corner to every average citizen, so that we can comfort them and inspire them and let them know how many people even in their own small worlds are in hiding, feeling isolated and totally unaware of the power they have growing within themselves. It is in the young people that we have the greatest hope of change, and the majority are NOT the suicide bombers, I'd venture to say. Whenever we exercise our power to speak of ideas that are not conventional, whether we are infiltrating the Middle East or infiltrating reformists in our own society or in the institutional church--no matter what the issue, but especially in issues involving gender oppression or the oppression of children--we give a gift and provide an opportunity. We plant a seed, in other words. A seed that may grow someday. That's how real change happens, and it's as important as any massive exercise of traditional power. It defies all convention wisdom, as we see how blessed are the meek. And how many mountains have been moved as new alliances are merged because of the faithful. Sometimes seen as society's mavericks or wierdos.
Posted by Dee Ann Miller
at 12:01 AM CDT
Updated: Tue 04/01/2008 7:37 AM CDT
Sun 03/30/2008
The Joy of a Broken Heart
Topic: coping
Palmer challenges us to allow our hearts to be broken. That's what I would call "embracing the journey," which is the theme of the retreat I'm leading May 2-4. Rather than shying away from circumstances that would break our hearts, we can welcome the opportunity to stand in the tragic gap, speaking or just waiting, allowing ourselves to do the deepest soul work, as we wait for the awakening of institutions--our families, as well as churches, schools, health care providers. We need not fear having a broken heart, and our broken hearts need not be irreparably broken into a million pieces. We can turn our broken hearts into hearts that are more open to the world's hurts. Like many of you, we can turn our sorrows into the greatest joys as we are willing to take in what we need to learn and experience. Many times in my own life, my heart has been broken. Each time I allow this, rather than fight it, I find the greatest joy rising from what within me has died. What a paradox!
Posted by Dee Ann Miller
at 12:01 AM CDT
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