I went to a Power Lunch today

Aug 2, 2007 | Women's Voice & Power

I went to a Power Lunch today.

I know what you’re thinking: “Really, Ronna?! Are you now going to buffet luncheons and handing out your card, trying to drum up business?” No. Not that I shouldn’t be. There can be much value in that activity when done strategically and in the right groupings.

This was something far different. I sat in the Board Room on the 76th floor of the Columbia Tower in downtown Seattle. As you might imagine, the view was spectacular. If the unencumbered vista of the Puget Sound and the Cascade mountains weren’t enough, the Blue Angels were rehearsing around us for an upcoming performance. What a venue! And no buffet! We were served (as it should be, frankly…).

But that’s only the start of things!

I sat at the end of a long table surrounded by 12 amazing, powerful women. (Get it?! “Power” lunch?) We spent over 90 minutes together laughing, asking hard questions, reflecting, dreaming, inviting ourselves and one another into the most delicious, tantalizing taste of fuller, more abundant life.

I found myself caught up by the beauty of the view and the beauty of the stories by which I was surrounded. I found myself so curious about the lives, hearts, and dreams of these women. I found myself wishing for more and more contexts in which these kind of conversations with these kind of women could ensue!

Before I knew it, our time ended, I descended 76 floors to the street level, and went back to work, but not without taking something with me: a deepened sense of how beautiful women truly are, how much they can and do bear, how powerful they truly are, and how deeply they dream on their own behalf and on behalf of others.

My Power Lunch was hosted by an amazing entrepreneurial organization called Working with Power. Not surprisingly, it was founded by two incedible women who truly believe that we can live, work, and love in ways that enable, enhance, and empower our innate giftings as women; not having to function counter-intuitively, but naturally, spontaneously, freely, powerfully – and easily!!!

It doesn’t take long when in their presence to know that they’ve tapped into something. They themselves are powerful, beautiful, stunning women. But what I found most powerful, beautiful, and stunning was that they deeply wanted that for each of us! What a gift. What a blessing. What a lunch!

I’d encourage you to find a way to have a Power Lunch of your own – even if it’s by yourself. Find some way to recognize, acknowledge, and celebrate that you are powerful, beautiful, and stunning.

What might happen if you and all women actually believed this about themselves? What, indeed?

What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life? The world would split open.” (Muriel Rukeyser)

I’m deeply sated – and already hungry for the next course!!!

Choose Life

Feb 22, 2007 | Hope & Encouragement, My sort-of Sermons, Spirituality, Women's Wisdom

I spent a couple of lovely hours with a young woman this morning who asked me what I thought about spiritual oppression.

“Do you think that the deep insecurity I feel, the fear of saying what I most know to be true, the anxiety over how others will perceive or understand me could be spiritual oppression?”

This is a paraphrase of her story, her words, her experience, but it captures what I hardly believe to be unique to her. 

What does it mean for us to truly believe – and act upon – what we feel and hear deep within ourselves? What do we do when we can anticipate – far ahead of time – how others will respond to our “truth” or our actions? How do we quiet the voices that tell us it is better to remain silent, behind the scenes, hidden, adaptive? And how do we honor the deeper voice that tells us we are beautiful, strong, wise, gifted, powerful, worth hearing? Not easy questions. And they are familiar questions that are imbedded deep within our souls – particularly as women. 

My spiritual director has often said to me, “Ronna, what God offers and invites is always life. Do the questions (and their answers) with which you struggle bring you life or death? If the latter, they are not of God. Choose life!” 

As I listened to this woman this morning I wondered what her life would bring: what realms of ministry, relationship, struggle and hope will she step into? What will her questions invite both in her own choices, as well as in the lives of others? How will she totally change her world – and the world around her – by choosing life, over and over again, no matter the cost? I believe that this is what God wants of and for each of us: changing our own world and the world around us by choosing life – no matter the cost. Splitting the world open… 

“What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life? The world would split open.” Muriel Rukeyser 

Women Together: the best kind of danger

Sep 27, 2006 | Hope & Encouragement, My sort-of Sermons, Women's Voice & Power, Women's Wisdom

I just returned from three glorious days on the waterfront in Gig Harbor, WA. If that wasn’t good enough, I was in the company of 15 amazing women – half of whom flew in from all over the U.S. and the other half of whom are located here in the Pacific Northwest.

Sally Morgenthaler was with us as the “host” of what she calls Conversations. Together we reveled in each other’s company and the beauty of not only the location, but the faces, hearts, stories, and lives of those by whom we were surrounded.

I’m exhausted tonight, but I am also overwhelmed by the beautifully dangerous power present when women are together.

That danger is not to be feared, but embraced, welcomed, and aggressively ushered into many places that are deeply in need of the power women have to offer. It is not a command-and-control kind of power, but power that is deeply connective, deeply intuitive, deeply generative, deeply creative, and deeply committed.

16 powerful, dangerous, beautiful women in one place for 3 days are now disbursed into their larger communities. They came strong, broken, tender, wounded, growing, struggling, rejoicing. They left more powerful, more dangerous, and more beautiful – with even more to offer, more tears to shed, more voices to raise, more eyes to open, more lives to change, more worlds to alter, heal, and lead.

I am not the same woman I was on Monday morning. Their voices have shaped and changed me. I am now more powerful, more dangerous, more beautiful, and more heartbroken, more committed, more compelled, more prepared, more tender, more strong. And I am not alone.

I am surrounded – in heart – by 15 amazing companions; women who have and will continue to labor on behalf of one
another and all that we are yet to birth. I’m grateful to every one of them. I’m hopeful for many more such conversations. And I love that danger abounds in their beauty and strength – and in my own!