Oh ya, I can say this here now!

I used to shy away from writing things on this blog about women in ministry.  That was when I worked at a church that professed views on women different from my own.  I do not work there anymore.  This blog may move into some of those previously off-limit places, especially with the things I'll be thinking about this fall and winter. 

This semester at Regent I am taking two courses.  One is Greek (I am most excited about all the words and all the meanings of all the words) and the other is Women's Issues on Faith and Development.  In the Women's class we began by reading the book Women in the Church: A Biblical Theology of Women in Ministry by Stanley J. Grenz and Denise Muir Kjesbo.

This book and I have been friends for a few years.  When I first picked it up, I was the needy friend who followed it around a lot and hung out in its pages so desperate for the arguments it examines and the egalitarian conclusions it makes.  This time through the book I found myself to be less needy, and more sure (but not sure in an "I knew I was right!" way . . . more of an "Ahhhh there is something more settled in me now" way).

There is a satisfying chapter on "Women in Creation" and the words that capture my imagination are these:

The debate over Genesis 2 verses 18 and 20 hinges on the meaning of the phrase 'ezer kenegdo (helper fit).  Egalitarians not only dispute the complementarian claim that helper means "subordinate," but they also claim that Hebrew designation clearly indicates the equality of the sexes.  Alvera Mickelsen, for example, notes that in the Bible the word 'ezer (translated "helper") is never used of a subordinate.  Of its twenty appearances in the Old Testament (in addition to the Genesis reference), seventeen are references to God as our helper.  (The other three refer to a military ally.)  Rather than indicated that God is secondary or subordinate to us, speaking of God as our helper acknowledges that he is our strength or power.  Similarly, the Hebrew word kenegdo indicates equality.  On the basis of an examination of all the Old Testament uses of these words, Semitic language specialist David Freedman concludes, "When God creates Eve from Adam's rib, His intent is that she will be - unlike the animals - 'a power (or strength) equal to him.'"

The last bit of the section that follows this quotation notes that "the creation of woman 'for man' or as his 'helper' means that she rescues him from his solitude."

She


rescues


him.

I know this as I read and reread these words:  I live out this strength as a woman.

Women, we are that woman.

William Blake, The Angel of the Divine Presence Bringing Eve to Adam
c. 1803
Watercolour, pen, and black ink over graphite on paper

"Nobody's Crying"

No matter where I am when I hear this Patty Griffin song - most recently working on a research paper at my creaky kitchen table with my music on shuffle and the sunset occupying my peripheral vision - there are words in the later part of this song that cause a bodily reply.

May you dream you are dreaming in a warm soft bed
May the voices inside you that fill you with dread
Make the sound of thousands of angels instead
Tonight where you might be laying your head

This verse of blessing calls on me to hope for those who have not been particularly good to me. In some instances, I may even call these people "my enemies." Though they aren't necessarily sword-swinging enemies, they have slashed at some vulnerable places and left me to do some bandaging.

As the music shifts towards this benediction, I find myself closing my eyes, picturing those little shits who did some damage, and holding my hands out for mercy: for them and for me. I know that behind these flashes-of-faces in my imagination there are sad reasons for the sad things people do to other people. Sadly.

Patty sings of the wishing and the working out of forgiveness; I so often need other people's words and wishes in matters of remission.

Patty Griffin and Doug Lancio at Edmonton Folk Festival.


Patty Griffin, Emmylou Harris, Buddy Miller, Shawn Colvin at Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle. Song: No Bad News.