Jane Eyre and Religious Abuse

I have reencountered two works of literature this week and both encounters have left me disturbed and reflective. The questions that they have raised dovetail with the issues raised by Danielle's post on visiting an old slave fort, as I wrote about the other day.

A few nights ago my wife and I watched the 2011 film version of Jane Eyre, starring Mia Wasikowska and Michael Fassbender. I do not aim to write a review of the movie here, but will say that my wife and I both found it enjoyable and well-done. I had not read the book in many years, so although I was familiar with the basic plot trajectory, many of the details had faded from my memory. I will not attempt a thorough explanation of the plot here so if you are unfamiliar with it, you may find it difficult to understand some of my comments.

As I watched, the role of religion in Jane's life struck me quite strongly. Jane is a strong-willed child, a girl who refuses to simply acquiesce to the expectations of those around her. This trait brings her much trouble. (And the feminist in me asks whether a boy demonstrating such behavior would have experienced the same response. Probably not. But we shall set aside examining the story from a specifically feminist perspective.) Sent off to a school for orphans, she enters a world that is disturbing in the manner and degree to which it seeks to crush the vitality of each girl sentenced there. This alone would be troubling, but more troubling still, this school, called the Lowood Institute, is run by a minister who believes that he operates it in a manner consistent with instilling godliness in its subjects. As such the girls there are deprived, abused and dehumanized, all while being preached to and indoctrinated with the Bible. Religion becomes a tool of oppression to Jane and the other girls of this prison.

Later, after a period of life in which she experiences happiness and love for the first time ever, Jane's world falls apart again and she flees the situation which is crumbling around her. Her flight brings her to a remote region where, facing death from exhaustion, she is taken in by another minister, Mr. St. John, and his two sisters Mary and Diana. In their home she experiences grace and kindness in the name of the Gospel. At this point my heart lifted, for I saw faith portrayed at least in some degree as it should be lived. Through their kindnesses and help Jane's well-being if not happiness is restored and she resumes life in new circumstances. However, her fortunes again change, this time for the better when she inherits a large sum of money. Because of their kindness to her Jane shares this inheritance with the St. John family, which allows Mr. St. John to fulfill his own desire of going abroad as a missionary. At this point the ugly side of religion shows itself again as he tries to persuade Jane to join him in his mission, not as a fellow laborer but as his wife. He insists that he knows what God has called her to and scorns her offer to travel and work alongside him as a sister but not as a wife.

This second abuse in the name of religion is not as severe on the surface as that given at the Lowood Institute, but it strikes me as abuse nonetheless. Although Mr. St. John is well-intentioned, by asserting his claim to know God's will for Jane and by expressing scorn for her when she offers an alternative demonstrate, he discounts her individuality, her wishes and her own relationship with God. As a man, he assumes that he knows what is best for her as a woman. As a pastor, he assumes that he has the spiritual insight and authority to tell her what she should do. But what gives him this right? And why can he not consider her viewpoint, her wishes and her desires? What he proposes strikes me as another form of imprisonment, likely far more benevolent than what she experienced at the Lowood Institute, but a form of bondage nonetheless since she would be pressed into it against her own will.

I recognize that Jane Eyre is a work of fiction and that there is far more to this story than the role that the Christian religion plays in her life. Nonetheless this particular aspect disturbs me, because it reminds me once again of how faith, religion and the Bible are too often used to abuse others rather than to liberate them and restore them to the fullness of their created humanity. Jane finds this restoration, but not specifically through the grace of Jesus Christ expressed through his children. Although Mr. St. John and his sisters do demonstrate this grace, Mr. St. John then contradicts it through asserting his own power and will over Jane.

I do not think this is what Jesus asks of us. I do not think he wants us to exert power and control over others, regardless of whether we think and believe that we are acting in their best interests. In most cases, we must earn the right to speak into the lives of others. (There may be at times a place for a prophetic word, but prophetic words in Scripture most often challenge the abuse of power, privilege and authority, which is not how we most often think of them in modern Western culture.) We should also consider carefully whether in our actions which we believe to be in the best interests of others we are truly affirming and upholding their dignity. Thankfully I think we have come a long way from the days of places such as Lowood Institution, but that doesn't mean we should not continue to examine our beliefs and our actions, lest in the effort to do good we actually do evil and destroy the image of God in another person.

I don't think Charlotte Brontë set out to write a critique of religion, but her novel certainly challenges me to think again about how I live out my faith. I would grieve to find when I stand before God that my well-intentioned actions were in fact abusive and destructive of human dignity, grieving God's heart. We can easily deceive ourselves, so we need to listen to the voices of others, both those who affirm us and those who critique us (both inside and outside the Church), seeking always to demonstrate the kindness and grace of God through our actions, rather than to exert power and domination over others in God's name.

In a future post I shall write about my other recent experience, this one with Arthur Miller's The Crucible.

The Gospel of True Colors

While driving the car the other day I heard a song on the radio that brought back fond memories: True Colors by Cyndi Lauper. I'm sure to date myself by saying that I listened to this song back in my high school days. I'm not a big fan of Cyndi Lauper in general, but this song and her hit Time After Time resonated with me then and continue to do so to this day whenever I hear them. I wonder if the song True Colors doesn't contain important echoes of the gospel.

You with the sad eyes

Don't be discouraged

Oh I realize

It's hard to take courage

In a world full of people

You can lose sight of it all

And the darkness inside you

Can make you feel so small.

But I see your true colors shining through

I see your true colors

And that's why I love you

So don't be afraid to let them show

Your true colors

True colors

Are beautiful like a rainbow.

I can hear Jesus singing this to me, or to anyone else who finds themselves lost in a sea of voices that tells them how worthless and insignificant they are. I can see Jesus speaking into a person's darkness and showing them their true worth. This is a message of redemption and hope. When Jesus draws out our true colors, we shine like rainbows.

True Colors reminds me of another song, this one a contemporary hit: Firework by Katy Perry. Caris Adel drew an intriguing parallel between this song and the beautitudes which drew my attention to it. Listening to it carefully with Adel's analogy in mind, I recognized that Firework speaks a similar message. Perry invites her listeners to let the light within them shine out and illuminate the darkness. We need not live our lives in shame, regret, humiliation and fear. The world tells us every day how worthless we are, but the message of the gospel speaks a different story.

Do you ever feel like a plastic bag,

drifting through the wind, wanting to start again?

 Do you ever feel, feel so paper thin,

Like a house of cards, one blow from caving in?

Do you ever feel already buried deep,

Six feet under screams but no one seems to hear a thing?

Do you know that there's still a chance for you,

'Cause there's a spark in you?

You just gotta ignite the light and let it shine

Just own the night like the 4th of July.

'Cause baby you're a firework

Come on, show 'em what you're worth

Even as I draw connections between these two songs and the gospel message and I can hear objections being raised. I can hear them because they come from within myself. I grew up primarily in a Presbyterian environment and therefore have a strong Calvinist background to my theology. That Calvinist background emphasizes the total depravity of humans. In the interest of affirming the majesty and sovereignty of God, Calvinism denigrates the worth of human beings. The extent to which it does so varies on the shade of Calvinism, but the underlying message that comes out often in many churches speaks of the inherent worthlessness of humans. God doesn't need us. We can do nothing apart from him. We should be thankful that God doesn't squash us like an annoying pest that one finds crawling across the living room carpet. 

I acknowledge that Calvinism contains an element of truth. But too often because of its emphasis people who are already broken, crushed and reminded regularly by the world of their worthlessness hear a similar message from within the community of Christian faith. In the interest of helping people recognize their sinfulness we actually end up breaking them down even further. Some of us (perhaps all of us) need to be broken down, but that is the work of God, not the message that needs to come first from the lips of God's followers. To a person already feeling worthless, a message that proclaims his or her absolute depravity may not offer a lot of hope.

Thankfully Calvinism is not the whole picture. The Church, especially some branches of it (I think in particular of the Orthodox churches), have historically affirmed the divine element within each of us. We are, after all, created in the image of God (and by all I mean all, not just white men or even men as a whole, or any other particular subset of humanity). Yes, we suffer the effects of turning away from God in rebellion. Yes, we cannot regain that state through our own effort. But that does not, as I now understand it theologically, mean that the divine spark within us has been fully extinguished. We are still God's children and still retain the stamp of our creator in our innermost beings. 

With that perspective, the message I draw out of True Colors and Firework does speak truth. It calls us, if I dare say it, with the voice of Jesus to embrace who we were created to be, to turn in faith and allow Jesus to ignite that divine spark within us so that we radiate with the brilliant rainbow of colors that he stirs within us. For we are valuable and precious in his sight, worth more than any of us can ever begin to imagine. What if we focused first on this message and allowed God then to work in each person's life to illuminate and cleanse those elements that need to be transformed? 

Like any analogy, this one can be overstated. I don't claim that True Colors nor Firework proclaims the fullness of the gospel message. But I do think that they both resonate with an important element of that message. Now when I hear these songs that's the message they speak to me. I do not deny that humans are sinful. That fact is painfully apparent every day. I don't claim that some humans have not reached such a point in their brokenness and fallenness that the divine element within them seems impossible to see, much less to ignite. Simply because we have the divine spark still within us doesn't mean we live or act in accordance with it. Many people, aware of their divine nature or not, choose to live in open and clear rebellion against it, doing things that harm themselves and others. This does not mean that they are without hope. If they were, Jesus would have nothing to offer them, which would mean that some people are beyond the salvation of Jesus. I don't believe that. We are all created in the image of God and retain that stamp of our creator, but we also need the healing, restoring hand of that creator to be renewed in the fullness of that image.

Wasted Treasure

Last night my wife and I watched the movie Mozart's Sister. I enjoyed the film as a work of art, although the storyline grieved me. A bit of internet research confirmed our questions about the factuality of the storyline. Despite the fictional nature of much of the plot, the underlying theme follows in line with what we know of Maria Anna Mozart, known affectionately to her family as Nannerl, and her early life. Apparently a young woman of significant talent herself, her father not only failed to fully appreciate her talent but actively thwarted and stifled it. He actively and fiercely promoted Wolfgang's development, but Nannerl's role remained purely a supporting one. As she grew older, even that role was removed from her because it was not seen as a proper one for a young woman of marriageable age.

This story, even in the broadest of outline, grieves me. The world lost the opportunity to enjoy and appreciate the talents of this remarkable young woman simply because her father and her society deemed it inappropriate for her to display and develop them. How many times has this happened throughout history? How much potential has the world lost because societies have viewed women as inferior mentally and physically or because they have deemed that the proper place for a woman was in the home as wife and mother? Surely the loss of all the talent and potential of women throughout the centuries must constitute one of the greatest failures of human history.

I'd like to say that we have thankfully progressed beyond such narrow beliefs. Unfortunately that is not the case. Certainly we have progressed in some cultures, but that progress has been relatively recent and still not fully realized. In many cultures around the world little if anything has changed in this regard. I have lived in a culture where women were still viewed as inferior. Although in that culture they were (thankfully) allowed to have an education, they were the first ones to be pulled from school if finances were short and in many cases women were discouraged from pursuing higher education because men would not want to marry a woman who was smarter than them. After all, how much education does one need to have babies and manage a home? When I hear such views expressed my anger begins to boil. How can people think this way? And how can they fail to see the enormous potential they deprive their culture of by proscribing the talents and abilities of their women?

In American culture we have made progress. Women now have access, at least theoretically, to almost all spheres of life and all roles. But we haven't reached the point where we fully release the potential of women in our society. We still undervalue women in business, sports, politics and other fields. In much of the church we continue to define a very narrow sphere in which women can express their gifts. We rob ourselves of so much by doing so! Unfortunately conservative evangelical Christians often lead the battle against full equality for women. I hear of and know families in which the daughters are raised primarily for the role of wife and mother. Yes, they are in most cases given the same or nearly the same education as any brothers they might have, but with a stated or unstated expectation that they will subordinate their skills, talents and gifts to those of their husbands or fathers. I do not disparage the roles of wife and mother. These are important—vital!--roles in society and deserve our full respect. But a woman should not be forced into those roles simply because no other options are available to her.

In the movie, Nannerl becomes close friends with the youngest daughter of the king of France, who has lived in a cloister with two of her other sisters since early in her childhood. In the film this daughter chooses to become a nun and submit her wishes and desires to the authority and leadership of the church. When she meets Nannerl for the last time, she encourages Nannerl to accept a similar sacrifice for herself in submitting her own dreams to the plans and decisions of her father. Nannerl chooses to do so, but the movie leaves us with a strong sense that she does so with great sorrow and regret. Some Christians would argue that Nannerl made the right decision, that submission to her father was the biblical choice. I would counter that as a woman come-of-age Nannerl should not have felt nor have been in a position where submission to her father was the only choice available to her. I do not agree that the Bible places an adult woman under the authority of her father or any other man. The times in which Nannerl lived offered her no realistic alternatives. I hope that our society—particularly within the church—will do otherwise and strive to liberate and encourage the talents, skills, gifts and interests of our daughters and women. I dream of a day when no Nannerl will be doomed to obscurity because she is a woman. The world cannot afford to so casually and carelessly squander such treasures.  

Half the Church

A couple years ago I read the profoundly worldview-changing book Half the Sky by Sheryl WuDunn and Nicholas D. Kristof. That book opened my eyes to the huge challenges, obstacles and burdens the women of our world face and moved me to action on their behalf. As I have written previously, I recognized that Kristof and WuDunn were right on target with their statement:

We believe that in this century the paramount moral challenge will be the struggle for gender equality in the developing world.

I also came to realize that a similar statement could be made about women within the Church. I believe that the paramount issue in this century within the Church will also be the struggle for gender equality. So when I saw Carolyn Custis James' new book Half the Church, I knew I had to read it. I had already read her book The Gospel of Ruth and was moved by her examination of that well-known story. Half the Church was just as powerful.

In Half the Church James makes a concise and powerful argument for God's global vision for women. This vision stems from the very beginning of creation, when God created men and women in the divine image.

So God created humankind in his own image,

in the image of God he created them;

male and female he created them.

James would insist that we not skip quickly over these words lest we fail to recognize the profound statement being made here. Both men and women are divine image-bearers. Women are not an afterthought. James writes:

“He gives both male and female the exact same identity – to be his image bearers. He gives both the exact same responsibilities when he entrusts all of creation to his image bearers, calling them to be fruitful and multiply and to rule and subdue the whole earth.”

From this basis James examines Scripture and builds a strong case for not only the equality of men and women, but for the fact the without both genders the Church cannot fulfill the mission of God. Women weren't created to be the “helpmeets” of men. Women were created to bear the image of God alongside men, so that together we can accomplish God's purposes. She makes the point more than once that by placing women in a subordinate position, the Church has crippled its own ability to bear the divine image. The Church is trying to carry out its mission with only half of its potential strength. By failing to appreciate and live in accord with the fundamental nature of creation – in which men and women both bear equally the divine image – the Church has sold the Gospel of Jesus Christ short.

“At the heart of this discussion is the very real question of whether the gospel's message for women is merely a kinder, gentler version of the world's message. Are we only dealing with a sliding scale, where our beliefs move women to a safer, more acceptable zone of human value, or does Jesus bulldoze that system and reconstruct in its place a radically different gospel way of valuing women?”

I find it profoundly tragic that this book needs to be written. The truth that James argues should be inherently apparent and practiced throughout God's Church. Sadly this is not the case and has not been throughout the Church's history. Although Western culture has made significant strides in affirming the value of women, much of the Western Church still lags far behind. For this reason James' book is necessary. Although she writes it for women, I think it has great value for and needs to be read by men as well. We need to have our thinking about women in the world and particularly in the Church radically transformed. James has laid out a good fundamental argument to help stimulate that transformation. I would love to see this book used in mixed small groups so that God's children, men and women together, could talk about these important issues and together initiate changes that will unleash the half of the church that currently finds themselves restricted, hindered and undervalued.

Acceptance

In his book Cross-Cultural Connections author Duane Elmer relates a statement he once heard from a Bible teacher. That man said: “What John 3:16 is to the non-Christian, Romans 15:7 is to the Christian.” Elmer has the humility to admit that despite his years of Bible school and seminary, he could not recall what Romans 15:7 says, although at the time of the incident he sort of bluffed his way through a response. Reading the story in Elmer's book, I had to admit the same.


Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God.


Simple, yet if we reflect on the implications, very profound and very challenging. In order to understand this verse, we must understand the meaning of acceptance. Elmer offers this definition:


Acceptance is the ability to communicate value, regard, worth and respect to others. It is the ability to make people feel significant, honored and esteemed.


Elmer speaks of acceptance in the context of learning to relate cross-culturally. I concur with him on this, but I would take it further. (To be fair to Elmer, he probably would as well outside of the context of a book specifically focused on cross-cultural interaction.) Paul doesn't tell us to accept only certain people. He doesn't say we should only accept those who are like us, with whom we feel comfortable. He states that we are to accept one another, without qualification. In the context of the surrounding verses and chapters in the letter to the Romans, Elmer considers that Paul argues for the Romans to demonstrate acceptance of one another as the key to overcoming cultural (and other) differences that divided their community. Acceptance means that we proactively, intentionally extend regard, worth, and respect to all people, including those whom we'd rather ignore, shun or worse.


Such acceptance can only be shown to others when we recognize and believe with all our hearts in the inherent value and dignity of each person. Elmer states it very well: “We must show acceptance toward all people, because deeply rooted in the soul of every person is dignity. God himself bestowed dignity upon every human being when he shared his image with us.” If we do not believe in the inherent dignity of each person, we will not be able to accept her or him. We will set ourselves or some other person or group up as the ideal standard by which all others must be measured. Those who fall short of that measurement we consider to be beneath us, to be unworthy, to have little or no dignity. And we treat them accordingly.


Looking around me – and more importantly looking inside myself – I see that a great lack of acceptance. I see us dividing society into groups, into those who are “in” and those who are “out,” those who are accepted and those who are rejected. The exact definition of who is in or out depends on the particular person or group drawing the boundaries. But we all draw boundaries. And Christ came to erase those boundaries. Jesus came to inaugurate a kingdom in which there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female. Does this mean that those distinctions cease to exist, that we all become one large mass, without any kind of differences? Not at all. Americans and Chinese and Germans and Indians and every other culture still has its distinctions. Men and women still differ (although as some have pointed out, not nearly as much as we often are led to believe). But these distinctions do not indicate worth, value or dignity. They do not define who is in and who is out, who is acceptable and who is unacceptable, who can fill certain roles and who cannot. 


We are called to accept one another first of all because we have all been accepted by God. In addition, we must accept one another because each one of us has inherent worth, dignity, and value because we are created in God's image. No differences we have can outweigh those two factors.


In light of this, I'm thinking about my own behaviour. I'm evaluating how I treat others and where I have drawn boundaries of inclusion and exclusion. I want to choose to extend acceptance, even to people I deeply disagree with (acceptance doesn't mean the disagreements will or even should disappear), recognizing that even those whom I am most strongly inclined to reject possess the same fundamental value and dignity that I do. As a mental exercise it's not so hard. But the application...

Where are the Girls?

Recently I have read a couple different articles on the issue of gender-selection in birth and the impact this has now and will increasingly have in the future. As Soraya Chemaly points out in this article, an estimated 160,000,000 girls and women are not alive today because they were selectively discarded by their parents before or shortly after they were born. This number may become more comprehensible when we place it in a context such as the population of the United States. Given the current population of the US, this 160 million women would represent approximately the female portion of our country. Imagine that all the men in the US had NO women around them, no potential wives, no daughters, no female friends. Imagine what would happen among the young men who wanted to marry and have children. The scenario becomes quite frightening, as Chemaly points out. My friend Steve Weller, writing about the situation in China, points in a similar way to the effects of this growing imbalance.


Interestingly, social conservatives and social progressives respond quite differently to this issue. Both acknowledge it as a problem, which is a good starting point. However, conservatives see the fundamental issue as the availability and use of abortion to eliminate the unwanted daughters. Progressives argue that abortion is not the primary issue here. The issue, as Chemaly argues, is a world in which men are valued more highly than women. As she writes:


“The immorality in question isn't the use of tools to select babies, it is in the use of misogyny to inform culture and mandate the elimination of girls in preference for boys.”


In a world where men are favored and in which therefore having a son is considered more valuable than having a daughter, families are always going to find ways to increase the number of sons in proportion to the number of daughters. In a society such as China, with its one-child policy, this will mean the elimination of the unwanted daughters through whatever means is available. In other societies it may mean that a woman must give birth more times than she desires in order to produce that elusive son.


I am not a fan of abortion. I would like to see it become unnecessary and rare because each woman and couple would be able to choose when to have children and have the means needed to provide for the children they have, boys and girls. However, I must agree with Chemaly over Chuck Colson (see Weller's blog entry) that the underlying issue here is not the availability of abortion or lack thereof. “If the discrimination did not exist, the means would not be so abused.” The underlying issue is how cultures and societies value or devalue women. If a society places equal value on girls and boys, the issue won't be whether to abort the girls or not. But, as Chemaly says:


“Cultures that have no ethical or moral problems with the wholesale elimination of females, where girls and women are not valued, make little investment in their well-being. Girls are chronically under-cared for medically, under nourished, underclothed and undereducated.” 


To focus the question solely on the availability of abortion allows social conservatives to avoid the broader issue of equality and the effects of inequality on women across the globe. They can, as Chemaly points out, decry abortion while voting against legislation that would help protect women from violence and exploitation. 


There are no easy solutions to this imbalance. But the Church, the people of God, can lead the way by actively and vocally affirming the value of women and girls equal to that of men and boys. We can stop acting in ways within the Church that effectively devalue women. We can dismantle the patriarchal culture within the Church and offer a different model, one that in keeping with the teaching and actions of Jesus affirms the value and dignity of each person without regard to her or his gender. It may not change the world overnight, but it would be a positive step in the right direction.

Responding to Micky

As I read Micky De Witt's guest post from Friday and continue to reflect on it I feel sadness and sorrow. I grieve that a woman like Micky should feel shame simply because she is a woman. I mourn that the world has sold her a lie concerning her identity and her worth.

And I feel angry. Outrage rises within me when I realize that it is not only the world that has sold her this lie, but the Church has peddled it as well. The people of God, the very people who should be affirming her worth and dignity, have far too often been the very ones limiting these, even denying them. How many women like Micky has the Church – have we – injured, wounded and excluded by policies and practices of exclusion? How is it that we have chosen to deny and denigrate the worth and value of our sisters, who are made fully in God's image? We men have clung to our position of privilege and power and in the process have hurt so many people, creating barriers and hindrances that keep them from discovering and embracing their true identities and potentialities in Jesus.

Micky, I apologize. I apologize that as a man I have benefited and participated in a system that has told you that you are worth less as a woman; that you should be ashamed of yourself, your beauty and your gifts and talents because you are not a man. I have reaped the benefits of being a man both in the world as a whole and particularly within the Church long enough, and it is time for change. I ask your forgiveness. And I ask that you as a woman and as a sister in Jesus, would allow me to walk alongside you in this journey of faith, learning from you and together with you, listening to you and conversing with you, affirming the dignity and worth that you have as a child of almighty God.

I am so glad you are overcoming shame. I rejoice that you are embracing your identity in Jesus. And I give thanks that I have the privilege of knowing you—and other beautiful women like you—who enrich my life and this world and who radiate the beauty of our creator God. This world would be a terribly dull, colorless, empty place without the richness that women like you bring to it.

I am encouraged by the growing awakening that I am becoming aware of, the awakening within God's people that affirms the value and dignity of each person and welcomes her or his contribution to the Kingdom of God, without regard to gender or education or ethnicity or any of the things that we currently allow to divide us. Don't give up the fight Micky. We're in this together and we're not alone.

Getting Beyond Shame - A Guest Post

Today we have the privilege of hearing from a new friend of mine: Micky De Witt. I want to learn to listen more to the stories of others, to begin to see the world through eyes that are different from mine. I asked Micky to share her experience and struggle with shame, something that many of us struggle with. Micky and I both welcome your comments in response to what she shares, and you can follow her blog at: www.mickydewitt.com  Thanks so much for sharing with us Micky!

The topic of shame is new to me, but the feeling of shame is something that has been with me for as long as I can remember. I just didn’t know the feeling had a name.

It happens every time I leave the house wearing a dress. It happens every time I am spoken to by a man other than my husband or father. It happens when I attempt to speak at church. It happens when I write and post about a controversial topic on my blog. It’s this feeling that asks the question, “Who do you think you are?” It reminds me that I am just a woman, uneducated, and that my mere existence can cause grown men to stumble. It tells me that wearing pretty clothes is prideful. It whispers to me that my gender has already settled the score. I will always come in second. It hushes any desire to lead because I haven’t read enough books. I lack experience, and who would want to follow me anyway?

That is shame.

Realizing this took some time. I used to just think of it as humility, submission, and simply who I was. It wasn’t until I was allowed to cross over those lines that I realized that shame was what was holding me back. Self-doubt and fear were long-time friends of mine and I still hang out with them from time to time. Sometimes, learning to say goodbye can be a process.

Coming to this realization is still very new. When you have walked one way for so long, it takes time to examine the new road and even longer to walk comfortably. I am in transition. For me personally, the beliefs I held that contributed to my shame were also the beliefs of others around me. This complicates things. It’s not my job to change people, and the last time I checked, people (including myself) don’t respond well to forceful opinions.

So what is a girl to do? I am learning to tread gently. I lean on those who encourage and walk forward with me. I write about different issues on my blog in hopes to start a conversation. And more than anything, I try to find my identity in Jesus. He is not the King of Shame, but the conqueror of it. He tells us to walk boldly, speak truthfully, and to love with abandon.

The last part is tricky. To abandon means to leave those thoughts behind… And not just the thoughts about myself but also the thoughts I have towards others. My battle with shame should not motivate me to elevate myself, but it should help me see myself and others as equals. It can be so tempting to pull out my megaphone and yell to the world that being a woman doesn’t make me any less… but you know what? It doesn’t make me any greater either. Not having a college degree doesn’t make me stupid, but I also see my need for those who are wiser.

I’d like to say that I don’t battle with shame anymore, but as I said earlier, this is very new still. I struggle with it daily. I have a hard time with making eye contact. I have a hard time with initiating conversation. The list of struggles could go on. But it helps to have a community of people around who encourage me through my weakness. Without people, I am sure that Shame would win each and every time.

So I walk. I take each step in fear and trembling and some days I make strides while on other days I run backwards. It’s a process. It’s a fight. It requires sweat and tears, but it worth it. Because through the process, I get to see more of who I was made to be. As each layer falls to the floor, more and more of the New Creation is revealed. I wouldn’t give up the fight for anything.

Economic Benefit and Worth

Last week I was watching a news program on our local public broadcasting station. They featured an article on a gathering of bird-watchers that was taking place in our city. The section focused particularly on the economic benefit that bird-watching brings to our region. This caught my attention because it represents to me a disturbing trend I see in society and in the church: the tendency to evaluate everything in terms of the economic cost and benefit.

I do not think it inherently wrong to evaluate the cost and benefit of a particular activity or course of action. Often it is quite essential that we do so. However I am disturbed when this becomes the sole or primary justification for an activity. This implies that if something will not be economically beneficial, it is not worth pursuing, as if life can be reduced simply to economics. There is nothing wrong with looking at the economic impact of bird-watching, nor with indicating that it brings economic benefit to our area. But would bird-watching be less worthwhile if it did not bring this benefit?

The producers of that news show felt that emphasizing the economic benefits of bird-watching would be the best angle for the story, although the program itself is not specifically focused on economics. This indicates that the economic angle was perceived to resonate with viewers. Were this an isolated incident I might not think much of it. But I see similar emphases in other situations. In my own organization there is a push for operating more efficiently, for generating more “bang” for the “bucks” our donors provide. Again, this is not necessarily a bad thing. It is good to use funds responsibly, especially as a non-profit organization. 

My concern remains though, that we cannot evaluate the value of an activity simply or solely in terms of its economic impact. Some activities are worthwhile regardless of their economics. Some are worthwhile even though they may have a negative economic impact. I think this problem lies partially at the root of debates about government spending. If we expect our government to operate exactly like a business, then we must evaluate whether any particular activity produces positive economic growth. But if we accept that some activities are worthwhile regardless of economic impact, then we allow the possibility that the government (or other organization or business) may engage in that activity even though it actually costs money in the end. One example that comes to my mind is public transportation. I believe that it is worthwhile for governments to support public transportation even if it is not self-sustaining or profit-generating. The reasons for this are beyond the scope of this blog post, but I maintain that they exist. Other examples could be cited.

Economics are a factor in our lives. They are not the only factor. When we make them the deciding factor, we may miss out on activities or courses of action that bring other benefits. We need a more holistic assessment of the cost and benefit of any choice, something more than simply whether it will bring economic gain.