Why Stories Matter

Dec 16, 2016 | Sacred Stories, Spirituality, Writing

We live in a world of stories. Childhood fairytales shape our dreams and hopes. Family legends, imparted over kitchen table conversation, at reunions, and during road-trips, build our memory and craft our beliefs. Historical narratives inform our understanding of culture, politics, our larger world. Film, music, literature, and poetry mysteriously and continuously
speak to our deepest heart – communicating truths we implicitly know and others we long to grasp. And then there is the media…

Stories serve the way in which we are able to make sense of our world, our relationships, our behaviors, everything. They are how we speak of our circumstances, our deepest emotions, and our biggest questions; how we create and apply meaning. And they connect us to one another, bridging differences in language and perspective, time and place, past and future.

Most of us acknowledge that it’s less about a particular story and more about story, itself. It is the device, the vehicle, the means through which we express, listen, and even participate in our own life and others’. We admit (and even enjoy) that most stories, when told over and over again, not only shift and morph over time, but take on a life of their own.

The fish gets a little bigger, the storm gets a little wilder, the love gets a little stronger, our bravery or disappointment gets a little exaggerated in the telling over time. There is creative tension in story. When we hear it, when we read it, when we speak it, when we write it, we filter words through our own experiences and our need for meaning. We shape the tale to reinforce our understanding of how life is. ~ Christina Baldwin

This is what we love about them. This is why we tell them. This is why we live our lives within them. This is the power of story.

But when it comes to the stories in Scripture, something implicitly and explicitly changes.

Our claws come out and our defenses go up. Or maybe we just shut down. Though told for thousands of years, these particular tales have taken on a life that is not their own. Instead, they have been claimed and co-opted, parsed and paraphrased, interpreted and indoctrinated. Now, seen as either sacrosanct and inviolable or completely irrelevant, it’s no wonder we struggle to hear or tell these powerful narratives in beautiful, meaningful, and truth-filled ways.

Frankly, it is this very tension that keeps me connected to them, working with them, and yes, telling them. Believe me, I feel the pull every single day: the embedded and assumed doctrine that permeates their pages and the deep, rich, yet-to-be-mined wisdom within; the patriarchal God I seek to escape and the shockingly kind, compassionate, and feminine one who pursues me. Further, I am not willing to let our collective seen and felt tension, our theological arguments, our political agendas, our denominational differences, or even our general ambivalence allow us to drift and fall apart when I know that stories (even these stories) are what bring and hold us together. More than all else, I cannot bear to let the stories I love, stories of women, drift and fall away. To even contemplate such a possibility completely breaks my heart.

Whatever is unnamed, undepicted in images, whatever is omitted from biography, censored in collections of letters, whatever is misnamed as something else, made difficult-to-come-by, whatever is buried in the memory by the collapse of meaning under an inadequate or lying language — this will become, not merely unspoken, but unspeakable. ~ Adrienne Rich

It matters, perhaps more than most else in my life, that these sacred stories not become unspeakable; rather, that they rise up in power and strength, relevance and meaning. And I don’t know how to make that happen without just continuing to tell them – one at a time, even to one person at a time.

Are there days in which I long to abandon the lot of them and talk about something else?

Absolutely. Are there other days in which I wish I long to stand atop a mountain and command entire swaths of civilization to listen to me? Most definitely. Are there more days in which I long to sit in even the smallest, most intimate of gatherings, hands clasped around warm mugs of coffee, and tell you tales of amazing women? All the time.

Here’s why: underneath all the doctrine and dogma are women whose stories have changed me women’s stories; stories and women who change me still.

Nearly every day, whether in the most mundane or significant of circumstances, I think of one or another of them. They come into my mind and heart. And I imagine, consider, and wholeheartedly accept every ounce of wisdom they offer, every word they speak, every strain of strength and solace they sing into me. They are that present, that real, that relevant, that powerful.

A Reflection on 12

Dec 7, 2016 | Sacred Stories, Spirituality, Writing

  • 12 represents the completed cycle of experience.
  • 12 is the symbol of cosmic order.
  • There are 12 months in a year.
  • Time is measured in two groups of 12 hours.
  • There are 12 signs in the zodiac.
  • There are 12 days of Christmas.
  • On the 12th day of Christmas my true love gave to me – 12 drummers drumming.
  • Apollo 12 was the first moon walk.
  • A total of 12 people have walked on the moon.
  • There are 12 names for the sun in Sanskrit.
  • In the color wheel there are 12 basic hues.
  • There are 12 steps in recovery programs.
  • There are usually 12 people on a jury.
  • The 12th man in football refers to the role of the fans.
  • There were 12 principle gods in Greek mythology who resided on Mount Olympus.
  • King Arthur’s Roundtable had 12 knights.
  • The Beatles released 12 studio albums.
  • There are 12 half notes in each octave.
  • In numerology, the number 12 is a higher octave of the number 3 and represents careful planning and orderly growth leading to spiritual development.
  • My birth number is 12 before it is reduced to 3.
  • I was born on the day before the 12th month began.
  • I was 12 years old when a self-image formed that has stayed with and haunted me my entire life.
  • Just under 12 years passed between my sister’s birth and when I left home.
  • 12 years passed between leaving home and getting married.
  • 12 years passed between getting married and graduating from seminary.
  • 12 years passed between graduating from seminary and today.
  • 12 years ago, my daughters were just 6 and 8.
  • By this time next year, I will have been blogging for 12 years.
  • Two years from now, I will have been divorced for 12 years.
  • There were 12 tribes in Israel.
  • The first recorded words of Jesus were when he was 12 years old.
  • Jesus had 12 disciples.
  • Mary Magdalene is mentioned 12 times in the Bible.
  • Revelation 12 tells one of my favorite stories – about a woman clothed with the sun, the moon at her feet, and a crown of 12 stars round her head.
  • There is another favorite story of mine that tells of the Hemorrhaging Woman who bled for 12 years.
  • There are 12 letters in the word “hemorrhaging.”

I can tell her story in 12 sentences.

  1. 12 years of bleeding meant 12 years of isolation, pain, and grief.
  2. She had tried every medicine, method, and mantra – all to no avail.
  3. Still and always she held on to hope.
  4. When she heard about the man with the 12 disciples – a healer and miracle-worker – she was determined to put herself in his path.
  5. “Surely, if I can but touch the hem of his garment, I will be healed.”
  6. So she did.
  7. And she was.
  8. He said, “Who touched me?”
  9. His 12 disciples were incredulous as they looked at the pressing crowd and said, “What do you mean who touched you?”
  10. The woman finally stepped forward and said, “I did.”
  11. He responded: “Your faith has healed you.”
  12. Then he continued on his way – soon after to heal a 12-year-old girl.

I can finish this piece in just 12 more sentences. I promise.

  1. “Your faith has healed you,” he said.
  2. It was not the Divine, the miracle-worker, the man that made the difference.
  3. It was her.
  4. She made the healing happen.
  5. That feels hugely important to name and remember.
  6. My word for this year is “healing.”
  7. It is now the 12th month.
  8. Maybe there is still time.
  9. And maybe neither time nor healing is the point.
  10. Maybe it’s about still and always holding on to hope.
  11. Maybe it’s about faith – not in a miracle, a miracle worker, or even a man, but in myself.
  12. May it be so.

This woman’s story, the Woman of Revelation 12, even Mary Magdalene (mentioned 12 times), are but three of those I work with to create SacredReadings.

On the Phone vs. In a Pew

Nov 6, 2016 | Spirituality

I had a conversation yesterday with a friend. She’s married. I’m not anymore. She lives in the South. I definitely do not. She has a fulltime job outside her home. Mine keeps me here, in yoga pants most days and perched at my desk in my dining room. She attends church. I do not.

Despite our differences, it’s this last point that is our greatest place of connection. I, for all intents and purposes, left the church when I left my marriage to the pastor. She still attends, but wishes either that she didn’t have to or that she could find some resonance and affinity within. And for reasons that I completely understand, she still attends, she stays, she tolerates, and often – silently and in isolation – she rages. I listen. I nod. I get it.

I wonder if her situation is unique. But before the question even completely forms in my mind, I already know the answer. She is not. She is just like me. I was her – in a pew every Sunday; longing to hear something, anything different and knowing that I wouldn’t; caught between my desire for community, a safe and nurturing space for my daughters, the lack-of tension my absence would create in my marriage and my ambivalence, oft’ disdain, and endless frustration over what I witnessed, what I heard, what I felt – or didn’t.

There’s no one solution to this bind for her or for me, no all-inclusive answer that mitigates loss on the one hand and offers respite on the other.

There was a day when people attended church and (mostly) agreed with what they heard. They nodded in affirmation. They spoke or interned an “amen” when the message or the music resonated. They embraced friends – aware that they were among their own. And they left the confines of that sacred space feeling stronger, uplifted, encouraged – shoulders squared to the week ahead and grateful for a place and time in which they felt at home.

I suppose I am somewhat jaded, but I no longer believe that church is where I will experience this. Not because the people within are incapable of such, but because the system of beliefs to which I must accede in order to fit in is too incongruous for my soul to survive.

…church has become a spiritual, even a theological struggle for me. I have found it increasingly difficult to sing hymns that celebrate a hierarchical heavenly realm, to recite creeds that feel disconnected from life, to pray liturgies that emphasize salvation through blood, to listen to sermons that preach an exclusive way to God, to participate in sacraments that exclude others, and to find myself confined to a hard pew in a building with no windows to the world outside. ~ Diana Butler Bass, Grounded

And yet, miraculously and gratefully, my soul does survive – and thrive – completely outside of this system (something I disbelieved while still within). I am supported and strengthened by relationship with people who are nothing like me, who do not know the stories of which I speak, who wonder who I am talking about (and why) when I mention the Syrophoenician or the Shunnamite, and who love me still.

Then every once in a while, like this morning, I have a conversation with a woman who gets my every story (including the Syrophoenician and the Shunnamite); we are separated by miles and even similarity, but no less desirous of friendship, kinship, and talk of sacred stuff.

I hang up and my soul breathes in a whispered “amen;” I utter an unspoken prayer of gratitude and give a wink-and-a-nod to something that feels akin to grace…maybe even God.

It is heartbreaking to be alone in one’s beliefs or lack thereof, even more so to be surrounded by people who believe (or don’t) far differently than oneself and feel unseen, unheard, unnoticed, unappreciated, un-understood. I am so profoundly aware-and-thankful that this is not my story today. And I hold such a place of tenderness and affinity for those who remain – for a myriad of legitimate reasons – in a story that is even remotely less-than the one they long for. Religious. Relational. In any form.

May we be ones who honestly name heartbreak – first and foremost our own; then on behalf of others. May we be holders and creators of safety and the sacred (even if “only” on the phone). May we be ones who bravely leave spaces that are not safe, do not heal, do not encourage and uplift. If we cannot, at least not yet or not now, may we be ones who boldly bear and bridge the gap, the ravine, the in-between. And may all of us – no matter our location, our circumstances, our beliefs, or the state of our souls, be ones who both receive and offer what is hungered for most, needed most, all that really matters: love and love and love.

It’s all going to end badly

Jun 20, 2016 | Sacred Stories, Spirituality, Women's Voice & Power, Women's Wisdom

A few weeks ago, while talking to my therapist, I mentioned my ongoing and haunting hunch that the archetype of the Prophet is mine to live into and fulfill: one who says what must be said, who speaks the truth, who proclaims what others don’t or won’t. (I’ve written before about how I actually think this archetype is
true for all women.) Here’s what he said to me:

“It’s all going to end badly!”

“And what do you-of-all-people know about the stories of the prophets, Ronna?!? Right! They get dragged through excrement and tortured with hot coals and lay naked in the streets and sometimes are even killed! So, if that’s a given, then you may as well say what the hell you have to say, because there’s no happy ending! Get on with it!”

(I love this guy!)

This may sound depressing to you – and I’ll admit, on my worst days, it sounds that way to me, too. But it also offers me profound freedom! If it’s all going to end badly anyway, then it really doesn’t matter. If all my labor and effort and toiling and work will, ultimately, be misunderstood and potentially even maligned, then why not go for it?!?

I suppose I can try to forego this ending, circumvent it somehow – or at least attempt such. I can morph myself into something or someone other than who I am in order to be more acceptable, tame, and market-savvy. I can blog and write and speak about things far less divisive and derisive. I can leave spirituality totally off the table. I can eliminate the word “God” from my vocabulary.

Yep. I could do all of this (and so could you: just change the words so they apply), but then I wouldn’t be doing what I do (nor would you). And that seems even more problematic than a less-than stellar ending.

Still too depressing? OK. Here’s some redemption.

As my therapist and I continued to talk he said,

“Seriously, Ronna. Are there any stories of prophets that don’t end badly? I don’t actually know…but you do. Tell me, p-l-e-a-s-e, if there is any other outcome!”

And here is what I said: “Actually, there is one story of a prophet that doesn’t end badly. And interestingly, it’s the story of a woman.” As soon as I spoke those words, the two of us stared at each other and then both, in our own ways, said, “Well, OK then!” and laughed.

Since that conversation I’ve done a bit of homework. There are actually 10 women in the Bible who are named as prophets and nothing bad happens to any of them! So, new approach:

It’s NOT going to end badly!

This creates just as much freedom as its negative counterpart! If no matter what I say or do – in speaking the truth and telling the truth and being committed to the truth – it is not going to result in a horrific or brutal end, then I may as well say and do what I’m here to say and do (and you, as well)!

Here’s the bottom line:

It really doesn’t matter how things are going to end – whether badly or well. What matters is that I stay the course, stay committed to that which I believe (in), stay focused on that know-that-I-know-that-I-know voice within, stay on track, and just stay, period. (You, too.)

And all the while holding this as truth: …whether by conscious choice or circumstantial demand, women inherently and instinctively are prophets. We inherently and instinctively see and know truth – deep in our bones. We don’t want to incur the risk of speaking truth and we must. We don’t want to bear the cost or harm of saying what others don’t want to hear and we can’t not. We’re caught between the proverbial rock and hard place.

Clearly, we are prophets. And we are in good company. 

The ending doesn’t matter one bit. The story we’re telling and living does.

May it be so.

A story for Mother’s Day

May 8, 2016 | Hope & Encouragement, Mothers and Daughters, Spirituality

Mother’s Day used to be the hardest day of the year for me – when lost in the throes of infertility. That is no longer the case. But I never want to forget. I never want to not acknowledge just how difficult today is for those without children, for those who have lost children, for those who have chosen to not have them, for those who have lost mothers (living or dead), sisters, friends, for so many women…and men. So today, this – in the hopes that it will encourage your heart, strengthen your faith, summon forth grace, and remind you that hope, yes always hope, endures.

A story in 3 parts:

The Ending:
One day, out of the blue, unexpected, unanticipated, unbelievable, I was pregnant. And again, 15 months later. Emma Joy is now 16, Abby 17. They are miracles. It is a miracle that I am a mother.

The Beginning:
I was 31 years old when I got married. Behind the power curve (in my insular opinion) where such a significant life-marker was concerned. Children were up next (and fast) on my make-up-for-lost-time agenda. There would be no leisurely year of nuptial bliss before we began the process of trying to get pregnant. The clock was ticking. There was no time to waste – or for which to wait. I was in hot pursuit.

The Middle:
After a year of trying with no success, the fertility consultations and moderate treatments began. By year two, we’d moved to more intensive, invasive testing. And with still no success or answers that satisfied, in-vitro was the next recommended attempt. Once. Twice.

Nothing.

And then I couldn’t bear any more. I was tired of waiting. I was tired of trying. I was tired of hoping. So I stopped. No more treatment. No more planning. Little-to-no conversation. Time for life to move on. It did, of course. And it didn’t.

In the nearly-three years that followed, no matter how I tried to ignore my longings, those emotions would not be aborted. No matter how I tried to put on a spiritual happy face and quote Romans 8:28 (And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love God…), I raged inside. No matter how I tried to tell myself that God had other plans for me, that my life would have other “births,” that my world would be rich in unimaginable ways, I was miserable.

But not for lack of trying to summon up any other emotion, any other perspective, any other experience. I tried to pray. I tried to be patient. I tried to let go. I tried to trust. I tried to have faith, thinking that would make sense of things, but every effort was impotent and infertile.

Oh, how I wish I could say that my (im)patient waiting, hoping, and tenacious trust resulted in a profoundly dynamic spiritual life; a seismic and never-to-be-questioned-again faith.

Even more, how I wish that I could say to others who struggle with such intolerable
heartache that “just having faith” will, indeed and ultimately, engender and enable a hope in God that comforts and sustains.

I cannot. I will not.

I grew up believing that faith was something I needed to (and could, with enough work) attain. It was a developed skill, a worthy goal, a near-requirement for the believer in God. I also grew up believing in some kind of Divine barter system: if only I could have what I wanted, what I desired, what I fervently prayed for, then I would have faith. I ask. God comes through. My faith exponentially grows.

I am still growing, but here is what I believe now:

Faith is not ours to work toward, aspire to, or command at will. It will not appear at our beck-and-call.

Faith grows in chasms of doubt. It is nurtured in the darkness of pain. It slowly, silently, almost imperceptibly multiplies in long, wide, and deep spaces of waiting, of questioning, of aching, of asking.

Faith is not a sense-making activity, quality, or attribute. It is a crazy, defiant, and nearly certifiable choice – made an infinite number of times within one day, one life, one heart. It does not come in miracles and breakthroughs, but in the pregnant spaces of life that are more-often filled with desolation than hope. Still, an occasional tinge of awareness that something is growing and will be birthed, but a complete and helpless inability to will it to arrive any sooner. It is a mysterious, un-navigable, impossible-to(pre)determine journey.

Faith is much like pregnancy: experience more than event. And faith is much like infertility: despairing, but waiting-trusting-hoping anyway.

Faith is living one day after the next. One foot in front of the other. One wish-and-a-prayer that is too-often dashed, but whispered yet again. One broken heart that somehow mends and loves again. One longing for success that decries a dwindling bank account. One more blog post when creativity wanes. One more load of laundry. One more commute. One more prayer. One more push.

Faith is not the ending of the story, nor is it the beginning. It is the way in which we be; the way in which we live in the middle.

Naturally, the gift of my two daughters – then and now – nearly takes my breath away.

Naturally, I am deeply grateful to the Divine for their presence in my life. But I have learned that the faith that spikes in such places rarely sticks. The faith that stays – and sustains – is that which is nurtured in the well-worn path of worry, the sleepless nights, the inconsolable heartache, the insatiable desires. In between the lines. In the middle.

I am aware that my story could have gone so differently. But my faith was not what made the difference. It was grace. And that would have been true no matter what…

Happy Mother’s Day to each of you: daughters, sisters, aunts, mothers-or-not, friends, women, men. May faith be yours. May grace overwhelm. And may hope, yes always hope, endure.

A POSTSCRIPT: I would not be writing any of this, thinking any of these thoughts, believing (and sometimes doubting) any of this were it not for my mom and her faith. Thanks, Mom. I love you. Happy Mother’s Day.

[Portions of this post first appeared in January of 2013.]

Why didn’t you just say so?

May 2, 2016 | Sacred Stories, Spirituality, Women's Voice & Power, Women's Wisdom

I’ve been binge-watching The Newsroom for the past week. This morning I woke up far too early for a weekend-day. Debating about whether or not to just go ahead and get up, I remembered I had gone to sleep last night with only 10 minutes remaining in the last episode of Season 2. I reached for my iPad, propped it up on a pillow and finished. I won’t give away what happened, but in the midst, the main character told a story to the woman he loves (but can’t admit). Here’s the gist of it:

Once upon a time there was a little boy who couldn’t stop shredding paper. His parents were highly concerned so they took him to doctor after doctor trying to determine what was wrong. Sadly, nothing worked. Finally, they found a world-renowned specialist on such things, paid an astronomical sum, and took their son to him as a last hope. The doctor listened then turned to the boy and said, “You know, if you’d stop shredding paper your parents would stop dragging you to doctors.” And the boy responded, “Why didn’t you just say so?”

After I wiped the tears from my eyes (there were a few more scenes which would explain my emotional reaction), I got out of bed, brewed my tea, and sat myself down to write this post – determined to “just say so.”

*******

Once upon a time there were two midwives who worked for a king. In an attempt to control the population of his slaves (who he feared would one day become his enemies), he told the midwives to kill every boy-child they birthed. They didn’t like this idea and so, chose to do nothing of the kind. Not soon after, the king called them on the carpet, demanding to know why they had not obeyed him. They said, “The Hebrew women are much too strong and fast! They have the child before we can even get  here!” The ancient text tells us they did this because they respected and honored the  Hebrew God (of whom they would have
known little-to-nothing) more than they feared the king. And because of this, that same God blessed them with children of their own.

I can see a gazillion take-away’s from this story, but here are just four…for now:

Do what you can’t not do – even before you feel ready. You are.

Neither the voices within, nor those of “power” without have the final say. You do.

Trust that life is yours to bring forth on your own and others’ behalf, no matter the risk. It is.

Stand alongside other women – always and in all things. It matters.

*******

I spend countless hours swirling in the midst of these stories, wondering how to tell them, wondering why/if they matter, being deluged by a million fears that my readers won’t “get” their significance, their beauty, their relevance, their wisdom. And because my heart cannot let that happen, I keep swirling (or shredding paper, as the case may be), not actually telling them or letting them speak for themselves, not just speaking for myself. So today, thanks to Jeff Daniels, I thought I’d just say so.

We need these stories. We need these women. Why? Because we need muses, mentors, companions, and yes, midwives who call us forth and birth us into the lives that are ours to claim, to live, to love.

This is what these stories do. This is what these women do – over and over and over again. The more value and worth we give to any woman’s story (I just happen to know, love, and have a bit of expertise on these), the more value and worth we give to our own.

And that, it seems to me, is worth any effort, any risk, decrying any voices within or without.

The midwives, and countless others, continue to stand alongside me. I (and they) will do the same for you.

I thought I’d just say so.