Privilege and Relationship

There has been much written about privilege on the internet this week if you read Christian blogs. As I understand it the triggering event was an emergent leader, Phyllis Tickle, making statements as a part of a closing remarks at a conference that were viewed by some as anti-feminist. (If you want to read a few blogs that stood out to me there are these by Julie Clawson, Suzannah Paul, Rachel Held Evans, and Kathy Escobar.) So here I am, as a Christian, a woman, reading about privilege and living as a part of the church.  I try to follow Jesus and sometimes even remember to pray that I don't suck at it, and am thankful these conversations are happening.

The discussion of privilege is one the church needs to have. We need to keep on having it. We shouldn't stop having it. We have come a way, but we still have a long way still to go in terms of equality. Not only for women, but for children, for the elderly, for single parents, for those who have mental illness, for people of different races and cultures, for people who live in different counties that we may never meet, for people of different economic standing than our own, for people of different sexual orientations, for people of different faiths, for people who have been abused, for people who have physical disabilities, for those I am overlooking including on this list due to my own privilege and bias. I still have a long way to go.

Oh glory would be the day when as a church that the church would be a consistent leader in recognizing our own privilege and working to end dehumanization in the world. Instead of the more common dragging our feet that we do treat people equally or even worse, arguing that we don't have to treat people equally. Glory would be the day that the church would instead be a leader in seeking forgiveness and reconciliation for the past and current wrongs. I pray that day comes.

Because as a Christian I follow a God who came to live with us. Who associated with everyone he wasn't supposed to associate with. Who taught women (unheard of), touched the untouchable (dangerous for personal and community health), redefined who one's neighbour is (politically destabilizing) and then told his followers to go out and love them too. Then he pushes further by saying anyone can love their friend, but if you know me and my grace I'm calling you to love not only your friend but your enemy too. He loved people in such a radical way that the privileged people who upheld the status quo in his culture wanted him killed. I pray these truths never grow stale.

Now theology is important because it frames how people live out their faith, it shapes how we do this thing Christians call the gospel. Jesus talked about theology, if you describe talking about theology as mostly telling stories. Personally, I don't have many theological answers these days besides love God and love my neighbour. But I do know this. Jesus is a God of presence, of relationship. He lived among us in part to show this, to show us that relationship matters. To show us that presence is a gift in and of itself. To show us that serving with thought and respect is mutually beneficial.

Jesus doesn't call us to these things for some way of earning anything, no everything he has given us is free, there is nothing there for us to earn. What I would love is for the church as a whole to see is that this calling us out into loving relationship with others is a part of the gift Jesus is holding out to us, ready to bless if we will only take it.

Jesus shows us that there is beauty waiting for us in going beyond our comfort zone and entering into relationship by loving others who have differences from ourselves, loving those who are marginalized, whose needs are different from our own, who perhaps are even our enemy. The kingdom is there, waiting for us to partake in and it is wide open with room for everyone. No cover charge. It is a place where forgiveness flows, hearts are opened and souls are healed.

Here's how I know: it's what I get from Jesus.

So I've started to follow him into relationships with people different from myself. (Of course it turns out - surprise! that we have similarities too.) Being in relationship makes it harder to hold on to my prejudices. It becomes harder to look past how a group of people you aren't a part of is marginalized, ignored, forgotten. It can illuminate how I am contributing to their dehumanization. It can lead to understanding that cannot be achieved through argument or debate.

Through relationship with people, my own sin is exposed and it's hard to avoid conviction. I have to lean into God for forgiveness and grace. I have to pray that I want to work with God to bring about the beauty of the all-encompassing kingdom, while living in the tension that I still often choose my own selfish desires. Although I wouldn't have guessed it to be so, this too is a gift.

So I imagine and hope and pray that one day we will not think if we are man or woman or anything else, but simply judge how we are treating others as a follower of Jesus. (It seems this is an area of slow growth for Christ's bride as Paul wrote something along these lines many, many years ago now.)

Imagine if this ragamuffin bunch of sinner/ saints who make up the church and love Jesus, imagine if we keep asking ourselves, do we really know people who are different from ourselves? Do we regularly go to a group where we are the minority and approach being a part of it with humility? Are we out there in relationship with the people the establishment says aren't worth bothering with? The people who it would be easy to avoid sharing life with? The people who we don't understand? Are we loving them like they are beloved by God? Are we choosing to partake in this gift of relationship?

What if we asked ourselves, do we know them well enough and have we listened long enough that we understand their perspective? Do we care enough that we would stand up for their issues, things that don't affect us but are important to them? Do we feel enough connection to use our resources to meet their needs?

Do we love enough that we would bend down and write a message that brings forth peace and forgiveness in the dirt if they were surrounded by an angry mob welding rocks? Do we love enough that we would carry their cross? Lay down our life? Not for our issues but for theirs?

(Because no, not me either, not that last part, or for very many people outside the walls of my own home, not all the way. It's hard for me yet to see that part as gift, not sacrifice, but my heart tells me it is, if I would be brave enough to face it.)

But Jesus did. He thinks humans are worth it. He is present and in relationship with us because that's how he loves. And somehow, by the grace of God, through the sacrifice of Jesus and by joining in the dance of the holy spirit, we can join in bringing a bit more of that wholeness down to earth. Let it be so.

Growth as a mother

Growth as a mother. It's there all the time, this growth, this change, this evolution that motherhood works on my soul. I see it. I see it when first time mom's desperate for sleep reach out on facebook or twitter and all I can say is 'Yes, you are tired, so tired. I know. It's hard, I know. But I promise this too shall pass.' And I do know. My first baby never slept, or more correctly he never stayed asleep, he just never did. And I worried about it all the time. ALL THE TIME! Of course I did, I was tired and was told many times that unless I did something, things would never change. (Never change! Oh the melodrama of it all!) He's seven now and he sleeps great (and has for many, many years). So I don't worry anymore, when someone is up at night or has a string of bad dreams or trouble falling asleep. I know one day they will sleep again. And there it is right in front of me on this small little matter - the growth. Are you a mama or a daddy? If so, there it is for you too, look for it, you're growing, right in front of you. This parenting gig it shapes us, it molds us, it grows us. If we let it, I'm convinced it is one of the easiest ways to serve and love others and let those little scales of selfishness fall, one at a time. Parenting can help us burst into full bloom one day, even if right now we only see our little green buds starting to peek out among a whole bunch of winter bare branches.

Two nights ago my husband discovered watching home videos with the kids. (Why we haven't done this before I'm not sure.) I came home and my two year old said 'I saw me born in swimming pool mama, I saw you holding me in da kitchen.' And thus they were hooked.

I promised them more tonight and it was Liam's turn, my firstborn. I am there in very early labour sitting at the island in our Saskatchewan house, a whole lifetime and three houses ago, after my water had broken. Aaron and I are excited. There is hospital footage of early arrival, I'm still upbeat, then fast forward many, many hours and a swollen, tear-faced me trying to get some sleep post epidural. Then boom, I'm holding Liam all happy and we have a room full of family. They have driven from another province (and several different cities) once they heard I was at the hospital to get there, spent a night at our (empty) house and come the following evening to wait at the hospital for this new babe to be born.

It's the beautiful hour right after he has been born and his bottomless navy blue eyes that remind me of twilight are wide open and instead of holding him skin to skin, and staring in his beautiful face, or nursing him, I am busy with a room full of company. I don't think of asking anyone to leave or of holding him closer, I'm so overwhelmed by labour and relieved it is over. Then next scene is several more hours later and he is getting his first bath before we are moved to our room as per hospital policy. I'm sitting in a wheelchair in the empty nursery while Liam screams his head off, arms in the full startle position shaking the whole time, while a nurse and Aaron try to gently bathe him, too woozy myself to stand.

(This picture makes me feel so sad.)

My kids are mortified. 'Why he crying mama?' Haven (two years old) repeatedly asks in a panicked voice. Raine who is five asks where I am (holding the camera) and why aren't I stopping them. Liam says 'Being born in a hospital is harder because they are rougher.' I can hardly watch. I want to reach out through that screen and back in time and pick up my baby and say, no bath thank you, just take us to our room so we can snuggle.

But I can't. I didn't have it then, this compassion, this level of wanting wellbeing for babies and now other humans in general. It was being a mother that did it. Thank goodness it is slowly stripping my selfishness and starting to layer on the caring when someone is crying, the tenderness, the gentleness. The desire for wellbeing.

My kids are obviously worried (frankly my two year old is distressed) and sad about this frantic newborn and want to know 'Why is no one helping?' So I gather them on my lap and hold them close. I tell them. I tell them that no one told me that new babies aren't supposed to cry. No one told me that new babies like to be held on their mama or daddies chests. No one told me that babies like it best quiet after they are born. No one told me I didn't have to do what the nurses said. I tell Liam I am sorry and I wish I would have known. But you do know. So you don't have to give your new babies baths. You can hold them close and quiet. You do know different.

And there it is - the green peeking through. Because just seven years ago I didn't know. But they do, their little two and five and seven year old souls. Even though I just told them out loud with words, they already knew because this is how we try to love them.

The next scene shows Liam all swaddled, but he is snuggled in with Aaron. All the family has left and driven back to their own province and their own cities and we are blissfully alone. Finally I am holding Liam just in a diaper, on my chest covered by a blanket, all snuggled in bed. Still no one told me, but it just felt right. Raine says 'That's what babies like mama.' Yes darling, that is what babies like.

Living and breathing right in front of me is the growth.