Gratitudes

It's my last day in Alaska and it just hit me this morning how much I have to be grateful for.

I am so grateful for my family. They are healthy and happy and loving and supportive. When I got in on Thursday, my grandparents immediately came over for dinner. I am grateful for the time I have had with them and all the memories of spending lazy summer days at their place in Seldovia. I am grateful for my parents and especially grateful that Mom and I got to spend the weekend together.

I am grateful for Anne Lamott. She was everything I hoped she would be: funny, smart, honest, and so inspiring. It was amazing to see her speak at the writers' conference and I know everyone there was glad that she came. I am grateful for good books and book recommendations. And I am grateful for all the writers who have the courage to write in spite of all the voices telling them not to. I pray that they will continue to listen to the small voice that says they do have something valuable to contribute and they should just write anyway.

I am grateful that the handsome young men are taking care of my cats while I am away. It is great to be able to get away for a while and not have to worry about the cats or work. I am grateful that I have a job with flexibility and a boss who lets me take time off when I ask. I am also very grateful that I got paid today and I will be able to pay my roommate back for the pet deposit.

I am grateful that I got to spend time in Homer. All of the people there were so friendly. The members of Homer Friends Meeting welcomed us warmly and we loved the food at the Two Sisters Bakery.

I am grateful to be from such a beautiful place. Every time I come back to Alaska, I feel like I can breathe again. I am grateful for the mountains and the trees and for wide open spaces. Without even trying, I have seen two moose, an otter, ducks, geese, squirrels, and countless bald eagles. It is easy to believe in God in a place like this. And today I am grateful for time to run through the woods with two happy dogs.

Yukon Ho!

I am boarding a plane for my homeland tomorrow because Mom and I are spending the weekend at the Kachemak Bay Writers' Conference. I am really excited about the conference, especially because Anne Lamott is the keynote speaker (she is one of my favorite writers, as you can see from the list of books I love). It will be fun to spend time with Mom too, and Homer is a great town. I doubt I will be posting much while I am there, but I will be sure to give a full report when I get back. I feel confident that all the writing tips will result in a vastly improved blog on my return!

Thoughts on Leadings

I have been trying something new when I pray. My prayers start the same way they have in the past; I think about the problem I am facing, then I ask for help. I usually have something in mind, a sort of instruction for God. The difference now is that I try to end with "or whatever you think would be better."

When I told my Mom that I was interested in reading the Bible again and asked her to bring one with her when she came to visit, she went out and bought a new one and sent it to me. It is The Message translation, which is good for me because I read the NIV so much when I was growing up that I have a hard time even seeing the words anymore. Seeing familiar verses stated differently helps me read with new eyes. One thing that has surprised me is how short all the stories are. They loomed so large in my childhood that I have a hard time believing they are only a few pages long. It is a much faster read now than it was in fourth grade!

The first biblical character I felt like I really connected with on this read was Moses. God knows that Moses is going to need something spectacular, so he sends an angel in the form of a burning bush. But even after God explicitly tells Moses what to do, Moses tries to talk God out of it. Moses points out all of the reasons he is a poor choice: he lacks confidence, he's not a good speaker, and no one is going to listen to him. Even after Moses eventually comes around, he is not exactly saint-like. He gets impatient and angry with the Israelites and repeatedly reminds God that he is not interested in leading them.

I have never encountered God in the form of a burning bush, but I have experienced unmistakable leadings. The most forceful is like a kick to the stomach. I can't breathe and I know I will not be able to breathe again until I do whatever it is that I am led to do. With this kind of leading, the leading usually happens first and I have to figure out why afterward. Sometimes a leading is more of a growing conviction. One thing leads to the next until I know exactly what I am supposed to do. Most often, leadings are more like a whisper, a quiet sense of what I should do and a strong feeling that I need to follow and trust.

Every once in a while, I get leadings for other people. Fortunately, this does not happen very often. Usually these are more of the kick to the stomach sort of leading―otherwise I would never have the guts to approach the person and say, "I feel led to tell you . . ." When this happens, I try to say that I could be wrong. I also try to remember that like any other leading, it may not turn out the way I want it to or think it will. But usually I get some reassurance that it was the right thing to do.

One of the hardest parts for me is to not let fear interfere with leadings. It is easy to convince myself that something is not a good idea, and leadings usually take me in directions that make my life more difficult. I am afraid of a lot of things that can keep me from following leadings, including public speaking, ridicule, not having the right words, and never being good enough. But I am more afraid of what I will miss or fail to do by not being faithful.

I know that trying to discern leadings is not something I can or should do alone, so I am constantly checking in with others about my leadings. I go to people I trust, usually friends and family. They probably don't know that this is what I am doing most of the time, they just know me well and know whether something is right for me. I also ask weightier Friends for more formal counsel. I am grateful that they have been elders to me in the best sense, providing nurturing support and guidance.

In the inside cover of the Bible she gave me, Mom included a reference to Jeremiah 29:11, which in this translation says, "I know what I'm doing. I have it all planned out―plans to take care of you, not abandon you, plans to give you the future you hope for." It is scary to trust God and follow leadings without knowing where they are going. But God knows what he is doing and more importantly, he knows me. He made me, so he knows everything that I am capable of and the best ways to use my gifts. Even if I can't always see the pattern, I need to have faith that God's plans are better than my plans.

The verses that follow are a comforting reminder: "When you call on me, when you come and pray to me, I'll listen. When you come looking for me, you'll find me. Yes, when you get serious about finding me and want it more than anything else, I'll make sure you won't be disappointed." Amen.

All Moved Out

Late last night, I finally got everything moved out of my old apartment and relinquished the keys. Thank God! There is still a lot to do on this end in terms of unpacking and organizing, but at least I am only living in one place. Thank you to those who helped by lending me your car, driving, and doing heavy lifting, especially Amy, Catherine, Jill, Thomas, and Mark. And thanks to everyone supporting from a distance with prayers and calls.

On a completely different topic, I was reading Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer the other day and this quote made me wonder whether C.S. Lewis would have been happier as a Quaker: "The perfect church service would be one we were almost unaware of; our attention would have been on God."

The She-Woman Man Haters Club

When word got out that I was co-clerking the planning committee for the next Quaker Women's Theology Conference, a few women asked me whether we were going to invite men to the next one. Some were in favor, others were not. I told them no, we are not going to invite men and regardless, it is not my decision to make. Timothy's comment from a few days ago made me think about all of this again:

I regret that I don't "get" the allusion to the theme of the Quaker Women's Theology Conference.

The label "Male" disqualifies me from attending.

Although it is true that I am not the one who decides whether men are invited to the conference (that is a topic for business meeting and did not come up this time), it is also true that if it were my choice to make, I would keep it as an all women's conference. My reasons for this are personal and I would like to stress my use of "I" in this post. As always, I speak only for myself, and I would never attempt to speak for attenders of the Quaker Women's Theology Conference (past or future) as a whole.

When I was in high school, I really wanted to be an Orthodox Jew. My notions of what this involved were very romantic, based on multiple readings of The Chosen, by Chaim Potok, and a childhood of watching Yentl and Fiddler on the Roof. They certainly were not based on any of the practicing Jews I knew. I envisioned myself sitting in a crowded room, reading the Torah and Talmud all day, and arguing about Hebrew grammar with other students. I eventually realized the world I envisioned probably did not really exist, and probably would not be a very welcoming place for women even if it did.

So I did the next best thing, I went to law school. I was not at all prepared for the kind of boys club I was getting myself into. The school I went to was predominantly male, and so was the faculty (I hear this is changing). For me, the Socratic method involved a lot of male professors proving that they were the smartest person in the room by making me feel like the dumbest. I could not remember a thing after being grilled on a topic (which sometimes lasted the entire hour) and I think it is the least productive way for me to learn.

It was also the first time I had the experience of being the only woman in the room repeatedly. In my third year, I had an externship at a court comprised entirely of male judges. Once when I went to watch oral argument, I looked around the courtroom and realized that all of the judges, lawyers, and spectators were men. I wondered what I was doing there.

There was one other female student in my International Business Transactions class and when she missed a lecture, I felt a lot of pressure as the only woman in the room. One day we were discussing tariffs for different goods and the issue in one case was whether a Barbie should be taxed as a wig or a toy. The professor looked over at me and said, "Well, I don't know much about Barbies . . . ." Actually, I don't either. I grew up in a non-Barbie house. But of course I didn't say that, I just turned red and felt like I had a big "WOMAN" sign flashing over my head.

A few years ago I was watching an episode of Saturday Night Live when Weekend Update came on. It was right around when Tina Fey and Amy Poehler began co-hosting. I was suddenly completely engaged. Part of me knew that it was fake news, told for laughs, but I could not stop watching. There were two women! Talking about the news! And they sounded like me! I was disturbed by how much hearing something in a voice that sounded like mine increased my interest level.

When I went to the Quaker Women's Theology Conference, I was amazed by the women there. They were so strong and passionate and funny and inspiring. I wanted to be just like them when I grew up, even the ones who were about the same age as me. There were women who had been to seminary, who were pastors of their churches and clerks of their meetings, and who were doing important peace work around the world. It was an impressive assembly.

We shared the dining room at Menucha with other groups and one night another big group of women came in to eat. They ranged in age much like our group and some had babies with them. There was one young man in the group, looking very out of place. A friend and I asked him who they were and he said that it was a women's retreat for their church. Confused, I asked him why he was there. He responded, "Oh, I'm their pastor."

My reaction to this is one of the reasons that I feel so strongly that we need to keep the conference for women only, at least for now. The idea that women need a guy in his 20s to teach them about God is still alive and well in our culture, and I think we need to appreciate that Quaker women are equally called to ministry. I also think we need to encourage our women to speak up. A setting like the Quaker Women's Theology Conference is a place where women can feel safe and nurtured as they find their voices.

The night before we left the conference, a Friend described how early Quaker meetinghouses were divided in to men and women's meetings for business, with a wall between the two. She said that this was revolutionary because at the time women were not usually involved in any sort of business. So the women would conduct their business and the men would conduct theirs, and then the clerks of each group would meet. I love this idea.

I suppose I should be grateful to live now and have the opportunities that I have as a woman, and I am, but I also know that equal access does not guarantee equality. We can't undo centuries of repression and segregation simply by allowing women access to the same things men have; sometimes we need a chance to learn and grow on our own. I don't know whether it will be a good idea to invite men to the conference at some point in the future, but for now I believe that we still have business of our own to take care of.