Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Relocating.
I'm moving over to Wordpress! Check out http://sarahshowell.wordpress.com for future posting. I'll maintain this site as an archive of old blog posts.
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
What I'm Reading #34: Unbroken (Laura Hillenbrand)
Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption, by Laura HillenbrandI have to start with a confession: I do not know how to blog about Unbroken. It's an intense book, and I've had an emotionally intense month. What's more, I'm on the planning team for an upcoming Veterans' Day event, so questions of combat, trauma, etc. are already in my brain.
But here I go. If you choose to read on, please give me grace.
Unbroken tells the story of Louis Zamperini, an Olympic runner who became a bombadier in WWII and ended up as a POW in Japan. What he went through in captivity could not be more accurately described than "hell." A better title for this book would have been Broken. It is absolutely an inspiring survival story, but the depth of physical and emotional scars that Zamperini brings back from the war cannot be glossed over. Of course, the story of the war hero turned struggling veteran turned Christian finding redemption is an incredible narrative of pain, restoration and forgiveness. Zamperini's story is one that needs to be told. But there were some things about the book that concerned me.
Parts of this book felt like war pornography. (That's something I would not recommend Googling.) I blogged about disaster pornography in the wake of the earthquake in Haiti and tsunami in Japan this past spring after a devastating but vital lecture in my ethics class on poverty pornography left me cautious and sensitive to such things. The details of Zamperini's torture in POW camps is exhaustive and grisly. At some point, I realized that listening to this book was taking an emotional toll on me. I'm not saying that such stories shouldn't be told—far from it. But I wondered what the purpose of some of Hillenbrand's writing in those sections was, because there were parts that felt sadistic, not just in the content but in the telling.
This New York Times review of the book pointed out something I couldn't articulate until I read the article, something that helped me understand why I was feeling that way: we don't get very far into Zamperini's head. Our hero remains largely a stranger to the reader emotionally. And so, the jarring descriptions of abuse in POW camps begin to feel like the reader is being dragged through a horrific but depersonalized gauntlet of dehumanizing abuse. Moreover, Zamperini himself is the depersonalized hero who can do no wrong, and even when he comes home and begins to suffer from PTSD and flashbacks, it's like watching a stranger. Hillenbrand, and therefore the reader, remains a spectator, and that vantage point begins to feel problematic at a certain point. Some of the story becomes like a horrible train wreck from which you cannot look away and of which no sense or meaning is ever made.
Secondly—and I am deeply hesitant to go here and would urge any WWII vets to either stop reading or please forgive me—I was troubled by how one particular Japanese captor, Watanabi, nicknamed "the bird," was portrayed. This man committed atrocities beyond imagining that damaged his prisoners both physically and emotionally, many of them permanently. I would not have asked Zamperini to tell his story any differently, but even when toward the end of the book he writes a letter to the bird expressing forgiveness, Hillenbrand (again, as with Zamperini) does little to personalize Watanabi. The part that grated on my nerves the most was when the narrator described how decades after the war, Watanabi spoke of the horrors of war and how he himself was a victim of it. This was an experience I got from the audiobook, but the tone of voice that the narrator used in the sections where Watanabi was explaining himself was one of profound patronization. It was clear that the narrator thought Watanabi was full of it.
And maybe he was; Watanabi was undeniably cruel and certainly insane. Maybe he deserved to be mocked in his admittedly feeble and self-defensive attempts at confession. But the thing is that although it sounds to me like Watanabi was dangerous, he was right about war being an engine of horror in which people of any background can get caught up far more easily than we'd like to admit. I am thinking about all of this with Lawrence Brewer in the back of my mind. I don't blame anyone for being more willing to identify with Zamperini than with Watanabi, but does that act of distancing ourselves from human evil amount to us denying our own capacity for darkness?
I realize that part of my struggle is that in preparing for After the Yellow Ribbon (the conference going on this weekend), we're talking a lot about moral injury, particularly with combatants. Just tonight, I was with some of the other organizers, including a student veteran, watching an interview with this veteran that aired on the local news tonight. In his interview, he said that too often veterans are portrayed as either heroes or monsters, but neither is fair or right; heroes can do no wrong and therefore are misunderstood when they try to grapple with the moral implications of war, and monsters are incapable of redemption. What Unbroken did was to make Zamperini a hero and Watanabi a monster, thereby preventing either from being fully human for the readers.
And with that, I'll awkwardly back away from this book and hope that I haven't offended anyone too badly. (Not that I'm opposed to offending people. Because I'm not. But I'm more sensitive to veterans' issues now than I have been in the past, and I hope people will read this as a criticism of the book and of how we narrate war in this country, not as a slam on POWs or veterans or anyone, really.)
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
Who Are These, Robed in White?
This was revised from a sermon I preached in class on October 31, 2011 (All Hallows' Eve). My text was Revelation 7:9-17.
__________
"You take the blue pill—the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill—you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes."
This quote comes at a decisive moment in the movie The Matrix. The main character, Neo, has just been told that his whole life is a lie. Machines have taken over the world and enslaved humanity, farming their bodies for energy and projecting false images and experiences into their brains. Neo has been ripped out of the Matrix and given a choice: he can take the blue pill and go back into the comfortable but false world of the Matrix; or he can take the red pill, permanently exit the delusion and suffer the consequences of knowing the truth.
Spoiler alert: he takes the red pill.
"Who are these, robed in white, and where have they come from?" "These are they who have come out of the great ordeal." These are the martyrs. They have suffered for the faith. They have taken the red pill. They have gone down the rabbit-hole—and they have come out of it.
"Who are these, robed in white?" "These are they who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb."
I wonder what their robes looked like before they washed them in the blood that cleanses and does not stain. What kind of stories would their robes have told? Imagine a child explaining the origin of stains on her favorite pair of jeans: this grass stain is from when I caught a fly ball to win the game; that grease spot is from the pizza we had at my last birthday party; that patch covers up the hole I tore climbing a tree. Now imagine the martyrs examining their dirty robes: this blood stain is from when I turned the other cheek; these two spots where dirt is ground into the fabric—those are from kneeling in prayer; the front of my robe is damp from tears shed for my brothers and sisters who suffered with me.
"Who are these, robed in white?" These are they who have washed their robes, but not before telling their story through the stains.
Today, suffering and death is shut away in hospitals and hidden from view. So it's no wonder the church doesn't always know how to deal with it. Too often we actually see religion as an escape from suffering. My father went to see the film The Passion of the Christ when it first came out, and as he left the theater, he saw a woman sobbing. She had just seen the movie as well. Curious, he asked her what had moved her so deeply. Through tears, she said, "Jesus suffered so I don't have to."
Jesus suffered so I don't have to. Friends, this is not the gospel. Jesus did not come to give us the blue pill. Yes, Jesus has released us from slavery to sin and death, and yes, there is comfort in the presence of the Holy Spirit. But that comfort comes in the midst of suffering, not instead of it; in Revelation, the elder declares that "God will wipe away every tear from their eyes," but not that God will prevent those tears from coming.
"Who are these, robed in white?" These are they who weep even as they stand around the throne. Revelation says, "God will wipe away every tear from their eyes," in the future tense. They weep because this image of the people around the throne is not yet reality. And in many places, comfort does not come. Sometimes, suffering goes on senselessly.
Let me be clear: suffering itself is not redemptive. The only human suffering that was ever redemptive was that of Christ on the cross. Although in the crucifixion and resurrection Christ defeated sin and death, we are still waiting for the final consummation of that victory. "Who are these, robed in white?" These are the martyrs who weep.
Throughout the Bible, it is clear that proclamation and persecution are intertwined. We see this in the Old Testament prophets, in John the Baptist, in Jesus himself and in the disciples' and the early church's participation in his ministry. In fact, Christians' willingness to suffer for the gospel has often been a catalyst for evangelism. Martin Mittelstadt says, "The greatest defense of the gospel...is that it is worth dying for."
"Who are these, robed in white?" These are they who have shown in their lives that the gospel is worth dying for. Of course, how many of us are ever going to be in a situation where we are asked to die for our beliefs? Certainly Christians around the world die every day for the faith, but few of us will ever have to make such a choice. But even if none of us in this room are bound for martyrdom or physical suffering, we can still choose to take the red pill. The blue pill offers us false comfort by allowing us to deny the reality of suffering. The red pill calls us down the rabbit-hole.
And what will we find there? Perhaps we will be forced to face our sin. Perhaps we will encounter the depths of injustice and oppression. Perhaps we will see in that darkness our deepest fears and wounds.
"Who are these, robed in white?" "These are they who have come out of the great ordeal." They have taken the red pill. They have gone down the rabbit-hole, and Jesus has met them there. He has been their light in the darkness.
Tonight, Duke Chapel will host perhaps the coolest worship service they have all year. At 10:30 p.m., people will gather on the steps of the chapel and light candles around a fire. They'll join in a greeting and an opening prayer, then process into the chapel. As they come down the aisle, they will be enveloped by the sounds of chanting. The choir will be up in the triforium, the narrow passage below the tall stained-glass windows. More candles will eerily light their robed figures as they chant, Requiem aeternam—"rest in peace." The service will include prayer, hymns, Scripture readings, stories of the saints and martyrs, and the celebration of the Eucharist. The church will feel fuller than it looks as the readers invoke the memories of the saints. The candles will send light and shadow dancing across faces and hymnals, only just holding back the darkness.
Hope doesn't always look like the blazing sunlight of a cloudless day. Often, it looks more like a candle flickering defiantly in the darkness. South African pastor Peter Storey says this: "A candle is a protest at midnight. It says to the darkness, 'I beg to differ.'" "Who are these, robed in white?" These are they whom Jesus has met in the rabbit-hole, to whose darkness Jesus has said, "I beg to differ." They have gone into the great ordeal, and they have come out of it because Christ has lit their way.
A little over a month ago, my sister's boyfriend had a bad reaction to some pain medication. This caused him to black out and lose oxygen for a period of time. As a result, he suffered extensive heart, kidney and brain damage. At first, it looked like he wouldn't survive the weekend. Then it appeared he might live for a long time in a coma.
Today, Shane is walking, talking, making jokes and remembering people. He is in rehab and his brain is still healing, but his progress is beyond what any of the doctors thought possible. Shane is a walking, talking miracle.
As I've gone through the emotional rollercoaster of Shane's hospitalization at a distance, I've been asking myself what hope means in the midst of suffering. Interestingly enough, it was Shane himself who gave me an answer.
Shane still gets a little confused about where he is sometimes. One evening recently—and I did get permission to tell this story—my sister Grace was visiting, and Shane got up and announced that they were going golfing. Grace patiently reminded him that it was dark outside. He retorted, "I know, I'm waiting for it to clear up." Puzzled, Grace said, "Shane, it's not like clouds; darkness doesn't just clear up." Shane looked at her and said, matter-of-factly:
"Don't you know about morning?"
__________
"You take the blue pill—the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill—you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes."
This quote comes at a decisive moment in the movie The Matrix. The main character, Neo, has just been told that his whole life is a lie. Machines have taken over the world and enslaved humanity, farming their bodies for energy and projecting false images and experiences into their brains. Neo has been ripped out of the Matrix and given a choice: he can take the blue pill and go back into the comfortable but false world of the Matrix; or he can take the red pill, permanently exit the delusion and suffer the consequences of knowing the truth.
Spoiler alert: he takes the red pill.
"Who are these, robed in white, and where have they come from?" "These are they who have come out of the great ordeal." These are the martyrs. They have suffered for the faith. They have taken the red pill. They have gone down the rabbit-hole—and they have come out of it.
"Who are these, robed in white?" "These are they who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb."
I wonder what their robes looked like before they washed them in the blood that cleanses and does not stain. What kind of stories would their robes have told? Imagine a child explaining the origin of stains on her favorite pair of jeans: this grass stain is from when I caught a fly ball to win the game; that grease spot is from the pizza we had at my last birthday party; that patch covers up the hole I tore climbing a tree. Now imagine the martyrs examining their dirty robes: this blood stain is from when I turned the other cheek; these two spots where dirt is ground into the fabric—those are from kneeling in prayer; the front of my robe is damp from tears shed for my brothers and sisters who suffered with me.
"Who are these, robed in white?" These are they who have washed their robes, but not before telling their story through the stains.
Today, suffering and death is shut away in hospitals and hidden from view. So it's no wonder the church doesn't always know how to deal with it. Too often we actually see religion as an escape from suffering. My father went to see the film The Passion of the Christ when it first came out, and as he left the theater, he saw a woman sobbing. She had just seen the movie as well. Curious, he asked her what had moved her so deeply. Through tears, she said, "Jesus suffered so I don't have to."
Jesus suffered so I don't have to. Friends, this is not the gospel. Jesus did not come to give us the blue pill. Yes, Jesus has released us from slavery to sin and death, and yes, there is comfort in the presence of the Holy Spirit. But that comfort comes in the midst of suffering, not instead of it; in Revelation, the elder declares that "God will wipe away every tear from their eyes," but not that God will prevent those tears from coming.
"Who are these, robed in white?" These are they who weep even as they stand around the throne. Revelation says, "God will wipe away every tear from their eyes," in the future tense. They weep because this image of the people around the throne is not yet reality. And in many places, comfort does not come. Sometimes, suffering goes on senselessly.
Let me be clear: suffering itself is not redemptive. The only human suffering that was ever redemptive was that of Christ on the cross. Although in the crucifixion and resurrection Christ defeated sin and death, we are still waiting for the final consummation of that victory. "Who are these, robed in white?" These are the martyrs who weep.
Throughout the Bible, it is clear that proclamation and persecution are intertwined. We see this in the Old Testament prophets, in John the Baptist, in Jesus himself and in the disciples' and the early church's participation in his ministry. In fact, Christians' willingness to suffer for the gospel has often been a catalyst for evangelism. Martin Mittelstadt says, "The greatest defense of the gospel...is that it is worth dying for."
"Who are these, robed in white?" These are they who have shown in their lives that the gospel is worth dying for. Of course, how many of us are ever going to be in a situation where we are asked to die for our beliefs? Certainly Christians around the world die every day for the faith, but few of us will ever have to make such a choice. But even if none of us in this room are bound for martyrdom or physical suffering, we can still choose to take the red pill. The blue pill offers us false comfort by allowing us to deny the reality of suffering. The red pill calls us down the rabbit-hole.
And what will we find there? Perhaps we will be forced to face our sin. Perhaps we will encounter the depths of injustice and oppression. Perhaps we will see in that darkness our deepest fears and wounds.
"Who are these, robed in white?" "These are they who have come out of the great ordeal." They have taken the red pill. They have gone down the rabbit-hole, and Jesus has met them there. He has been their light in the darkness.
Tonight, Duke Chapel will host perhaps the coolest worship service they have all year. At 10:30 p.m., people will gather on the steps of the chapel and light candles around a fire. They'll join in a greeting and an opening prayer, then process into the chapel. As they come down the aisle, they will be enveloped by the sounds of chanting. The choir will be up in the triforium, the narrow passage below the tall stained-glass windows. More candles will eerily light their robed figures as they chant, Requiem aeternam—"rest in peace." The service will include prayer, hymns, Scripture readings, stories of the saints and martyrs, and the celebration of the Eucharist. The church will feel fuller than it looks as the readers invoke the memories of the saints. The candles will send light and shadow dancing across faces and hymnals, only just holding back the darkness.
Hope doesn't always look like the blazing sunlight of a cloudless day. Often, it looks more like a candle flickering defiantly in the darkness. South African pastor Peter Storey says this: "A candle is a protest at midnight. It says to the darkness, 'I beg to differ.'" "Who are these, robed in white?" These are they whom Jesus has met in the rabbit-hole, to whose darkness Jesus has said, "I beg to differ." They have gone into the great ordeal, and they have come out of it because Christ has lit their way.
A little over a month ago, my sister's boyfriend had a bad reaction to some pain medication. This caused him to black out and lose oxygen for a period of time. As a result, he suffered extensive heart, kidney and brain damage. At first, it looked like he wouldn't survive the weekend. Then it appeared he might live for a long time in a coma.
Today, Shane is walking, talking, making jokes and remembering people. He is in rehab and his brain is still healing, but his progress is beyond what any of the doctors thought possible. Shane is a walking, talking miracle.
As I've gone through the emotional rollercoaster of Shane's hospitalization at a distance, I've been asking myself what hope means in the midst of suffering. Interestingly enough, it was Shane himself who gave me an answer.
Shane still gets a little confused about where he is sometimes. One evening recently—and I did get permission to tell this story—my sister Grace was visiting, and Shane got up and announced that they were going golfing. Grace patiently reminded him that it was dark outside. He retorted, "I know, I'm waiting for it to clear up." Puzzled, Grace said, "Shane, it's not like clouds; darkness doesn't just clear up." Shane looked at her and said, matter-of-factly:
"Don't you know about morning?"
Sunday, October 30, 2011
One Is a Whole Number
My friends and I have been picking on Mark Driscoll a lot lately; he's been a favorite straw man for group attacks on muscular Christianity. It probably isn't fair. But I can't not pick up some of the things he drops on the internet.
I'll leave the "Baptism shirts for those who want to get dunked today" tweet that was being discussed among my classmates today and skip to this gem:
"@PastorMark: Single people need to stop making a list of what they want in a spouse & start making a list of what they want to be for a spouse."
Part of why I picked this one to blog about is that it's not inherently evil. You should be asking, not what your spouse can do for you, but what you can do for your spouse (end Kennedy accent). Of course, a part of me is already worried at this stage because of what I've seen of Driscoll's gender theology, which would most likely require that my list include things like "bring the boys snacks while they watch the World Series."
But the subtler issue is one that I'm seeing more and more of in the church. Note that Driscoll's comment is not aimed at people who already have spouses and could stand to think of their partner more; this is geared toward single people, the assumption being that everyone who does not yet have a spouse ought to be working toward finding one.
Singleness is a valid relationship status, and not just temporarily. What so many people in the church forget is that Jesus was single. You could probably argue that singleness has a better case for being instituted by Christ than marriage. And, as one of my middle school youth leaders used to tell me, "One is a whole number!"
The church needs to work on its theology of singleness. Really, we need to work on our theology of sexuality in general, because I think a big part of what makes the church uncomfortable with singleness is that we aren't sure how to talk about sexuality around that. The church is threatened by young single people's sexuality and tries to rush them into the box of marriage where anything goes (I have a lot more to say about that, particularly the "anything goes" bit).
Here's the thing: I shouldn't be asking about what I want in a spouse or what I want to be for a spouse. I should be asking how I can love God better.
Trump card.
I'll leave the "Baptism shirts for those who want to get dunked today" tweet that was being discussed among my classmates today and skip to this gem:
"@PastorMark: Single people need to stop making a list of what they want in a spouse & start making a list of what they want to be for a spouse."
Part of why I picked this one to blog about is that it's not inherently evil. You should be asking, not what your spouse can do for you, but what you can do for your spouse (end Kennedy accent). Of course, a part of me is already worried at this stage because of what I've seen of Driscoll's gender theology, which would most likely require that my list include things like "bring the boys snacks while they watch the World Series."
But the subtler issue is one that I'm seeing more and more of in the church. Note that Driscoll's comment is not aimed at people who already have spouses and could stand to think of their partner more; this is geared toward single people, the assumption being that everyone who does not yet have a spouse ought to be working toward finding one.
Singleness is a valid relationship status, and not just temporarily. What so many people in the church forget is that Jesus was single. You could probably argue that singleness has a better case for being instituted by Christ than marriage. And, as one of my middle school youth leaders used to tell me, "One is a whole number!"
The church needs to work on its theology of singleness. Really, we need to work on our theology of sexuality in general, because I think a big part of what makes the church uncomfortable with singleness is that we aren't sure how to talk about sexuality around that. The church is threatened by young single people's sexuality and tries to rush them into the box of marriage where anything goes (I have a lot more to say about that, particularly the "anything goes" bit).
Here's the thing: I shouldn't be asking about what I want in a spouse or what I want to be for a spouse. I should be asking how I can love God better.
Trump card.
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Remember Life Is Still Beautiful Outside This Soul Crushing Place
Yesterday, a new photography exhibit sponsored by New Creation Arts went up in the halls of Duke Divinity School. It features beautiful photography by my friend and classmate Tyler Mahoney, and the show bears an odd and somewhat controversial title: "Remember Life Is Still Beautiful Outside This Soul Crushing Place." It is trumpeted from a deep green banner that hangs alongside the photos.Why the joyful images alongside a potentially aggressive title? Here's Tyler's explanation, which I lifted from his Facebook profile:
The exhibit is "trying to bring awareness to the continuing problem of low student morale, lack of community, and graduate student isolation. It centers around the themes of creation, friendship, and romance as a continued reminder that until we the students, stand up, and make this seminary look like the Kingdom of Heaven—life is still beautiful outside the halls of Duke."
Yes—even an institution dedicated to learning and growth in the beliefs and practices of the church can be an oppressive, "soul crushing" environment.
How can this be? Well, if you line up the syllabi of any student's
courses in a given semester, that ought to give you a clue. Duke has a reputation for strong academics for a reason; the work here is challenging, as it should be. We are preparing students for a variety of forms of ministry in a world that is less and less centered on the church.However, 3rd year C. J. Stachurski preached a sermon yesterday that captured the struggle many students face: in the midst of studying God and talking about God, we sometimes forget how much we love God. We allow stress and busy-ness to swallow us up and blind us to the beauty of the world around us. Tyler's show is an attempt to remind us that joy, beauty and life are real and don't have to wait until after graduation.
So, as you're rushing to class in the next few weeks, take a moment to enjoy the photos on the walls and allow the colors, the landscapes, the faces and the brightness to strengthen you to go to a lecture, not anxious about grades but seeking to love God and your neighbor better.
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Hoodies and Cargo Shorts, or, Performing Gender Incorrectly
I was watching TV online earlier and just happened to look up during this Tide commercial, which immediately set me fuming. It's only about half a minute long, give it a viewing:
Since I haven't actually done much in the way of gender studies, this is all going to be personal/anecdotal in nature. Please observe tiny Sarah playing with a dinosaur (never a Barbie)...
...and then, 10-year-old Sarah, who closely resembled Simon from 7th Heaven. (And yes, this preacher's kid totally watched that show.)
There was about a decade of my life where I refused to wear dresses. I kept my hair as short as my parents allowed, wore boys' clothes, played sports and spent a lot of time in the woods. I didn't know that I wasn't performing my gender "correctly"; I just knew I was having more fun than the girls who were worried about getting their dresses dirty.
Although my parents (thankfully) drew the line when I begged to get a buzz cut, I don't have memories of them trying to correct my gender performance at all. Dad played basketball and softball with me, and Mom allowed me to stick with sports bras at first when that awkward life phase came around. They bought me dress pants instead of skirts to wear to church and let me go to all-boys' birthday parties. Come to think of it, I've never asked if my tomboyishness ever concerned them, but it was just a part of who I was until about middle school (AKA the worst three years of just about everyone's life). Thanks, Mom and Dad, for loving tomboy Sarah!
Now, I realize that the folks who made this commercial probably weren't trying to make some major statement about gender, and one friend pointed out that they were probably making fun of the mom. Besides, I realize that at least some of that kind of anxiety on the part of parents has to do with concern for their kid's well being. Was I teased for dressing and acting like a boy (whatever that means)? Absolutely. I've never thought about it much, but I still have residual insecurities from high school and even before that might have been lessened had I socialized myself more femininely from an earlier age—but then again, maybe not. Maybe it simply would have introduced those insecurities sooner.
I've never been a parent, and anyway this isn't a parenting advice column. But I find traditional gender roles problematic in many ways, and we as a society and as a church need to recognize how deeply entrenched these assumptions are and how they can be destructive. If the church only had women like the mom in that commercial, I would scream. (I want women like that mom in the church. I just also want women like the little girl in the church.) I've seen churches and youth groups especially that sometimes reinforce these expectations in such a way as to become exclusive; some of my more difficult memories from high school have to do with feeling like I wasn't pretty enough by the standards of the girls with whom I went to school and church. Having been a youth pastor briefly, I've talked with other youth leaders about how even compliments on one teenager's hair or clothes can create an unsafe space for others if we aren't careful.
If your daughter prefers Legos over Barbies, buy her Legos! We need more women in math/science/engineering anyway. (Not me.) And if your son insists on wearing a tutu everywhere he goes, let him. Heck, Jesus wore a dress.
For the record, although I perform my gender more "correctly" now, I am currently wearing a pair of men's sweatpants that I bought myself, and they are SO comfortable.
Since I haven't actually done much in the way of gender studies, this is all going to be personal/anecdotal in nature. Please observe tiny Sarah playing with a dinosaur (never a Barbie)...
...and then, 10-year-old Sarah, who closely resembled Simon from 7th Heaven. (And yes, this preacher's kid totally watched that show.)There was about a decade of my life where I refused to wear dresses. I kept my hair as short as my parents allowed, wore boys' clothes, played sports and spent a lot of time in the woods. I didn't know that I wasn't performing my gender "correctly"; I just knew I was having more fun than the girls who were worried about getting their dresses dirty.
Although my parents (thankfully) drew the line when I begged to get a buzz cut, I don't have memories of them trying to correct my gender performance at all. Dad played basketball and softball with me, and Mom allowed me to stick with sports bras at first when that awkward life phase came around. They bought me dress pants instead of skirts to wear to church and let me go to all-boys' birthday parties. Come to think of it, I've never asked if my tomboyishness ever concerned them, but it was just a part of who I was until about middle school (AKA the worst three years of just about everyone's life). Thanks, Mom and Dad, for loving tomboy Sarah!
Now, I realize that the folks who made this commercial probably weren't trying to make some major statement about gender, and one friend pointed out that they were probably making fun of the mom. Besides, I realize that at least some of that kind of anxiety on the part of parents has to do with concern for their kid's well being. Was I teased for dressing and acting like a boy (whatever that means)? Absolutely. I've never thought about it much, but I still have residual insecurities from high school and even before that might have been lessened had I socialized myself more femininely from an earlier age—but then again, maybe not. Maybe it simply would have introduced those insecurities sooner.
I've never been a parent, and anyway this isn't a parenting advice column. But I find traditional gender roles problematic in many ways, and we as a society and as a church need to recognize how deeply entrenched these assumptions are and how they can be destructive. If the church only had women like the mom in that commercial, I would scream. (I want women like that mom in the church. I just also want women like the little girl in the church.) I've seen churches and youth groups especially that sometimes reinforce these expectations in such a way as to become exclusive; some of my more difficult memories from high school have to do with feeling like I wasn't pretty enough by the standards of the girls with whom I went to school and church. Having been a youth pastor briefly, I've talked with other youth leaders about how even compliments on one teenager's hair or clothes can create an unsafe space for others if we aren't careful.
If your daughter prefers Legos over Barbies, buy her Legos! We need more women in math/science/engineering anyway. (Not me.) And if your son insists on wearing a tutu everywhere he goes, let him. Heck, Jesus wore a dress.
For the record, although I perform my gender more "correctly" now, I am currently wearing a pair of men's sweatpants that I bought myself, and they are SO comfortable.
Red Pill Christians
"You take the blue pill - the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill - you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes."
This quote from Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) comes at a decisive moment in the movie The Matrix. Neo (Keanu Reeves) has just been told that he has been living in a fantasy, a digital world created by machines who have taken over and enslaved humanity, farming their bodies for energy while filling their brains with made-up images and experiences. Now, Neo has a choice: go back into the comfortable but false world of the Matrix or permanently exit the delusion and suffer the consequences of knowing the truth.
Spoiler alert: he takes the red pill.
My ethics professor and sister in Christ, Amy Laura Hall, has used this image to talk about a kind of Christianity that refuses to use religion as an opiate. My friend and classmate Lindsey refers to herself as a "red pill Christian." Red pill Christians know just how bad things can get both in the world and in the church. They've taken off the rose-colored glasses.
Here's the thing: although the first instinct after taking the red pill, so to speak, may be to reject the institutional church, my calling seems to be to a difficult tension. I consider myself a red pill Christian, but I still feel called to serve within and through the church. If you're anti-institutional, I sympathize and probably agree with you on a lot of your concerns about organized religion, but I am still committed to the institution because, frankly, it's all we've got.
The church has done a lot of awful things over the centuries and continues to fail to represent Christ to the world, and admitting this is part of being a red pill Christian; but there are still times and places in the life of the church in which God's love shines through in a way that it simply cannot elsewhere. I do not believe that the church is the hope of the world, because only Christ is that; but as broken as the church is, she is still the body of Christ.
What might it look like to be a red pill church? It does not mean to abandon hope; if you think about it, the kinds of people and groups who most faithfully embody Christian hope are those who truly understand just how bad things can get. It means to see how deep the rabbit-hole goes and emerge on the other side determined to be faithful even in the face of what we've seen, because God is there even in the darkness of the rabbit-hole.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Relocating.
I'm moving over to Wordpress! Check out http://sarahshowell.wordpress.com for future posting. I'll maintain this site as an archive of old blog posts.
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
What I'm Reading #34: Unbroken (Laura Hillenbrand)
Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption, by Laura Hillenbrand
I have to start with a confession: I do not know how to blog about Unbroken. It's an intense book, and I've had an emotionally intense month. What's more, I'm on the planning team for an upcoming Veterans' Day event, so questions of combat, trauma, etc. are already in my brain.
But here I go. If you choose to read on, please give me grace.
Unbroken tells the story of Louis Zamperini, an Olympic runner who became a bombadier in WWII and ended up as a POW in Japan. What he went through in captivity could not be more accurately described than "hell." A better title for this book would have been Broken. It is absolutely an inspiring survival story, but the depth of physical and emotional scars that Zamperini brings back from the war cannot be glossed over. Of course, the story of the war hero turned struggling veteran turned Christian finding redemption is an incredible narrative of pain, restoration and forgiveness. Zamperini's story is one that needs to be told. But there were some things about the book that concerned me.
Parts of this book felt like war pornography. (That's something I would not recommend Googling.) I blogged about disaster pornography in the wake of the earthquake in Haiti and tsunami in Japan this past spring after a devastating but vital lecture in my ethics class on poverty pornography left me cautious and sensitive to such things. The details of Zamperini's torture in POW camps is exhaustive and grisly. At some point, I realized that listening to this book was taking an emotional toll on me. I'm not saying that such stories shouldn't be told—far from it. But I wondered what the purpose of some of Hillenbrand's writing in those sections was, because there were parts that felt sadistic, not just in the content but in the telling.
This New York Times review of the book pointed out something I couldn't articulate until I read the article, something that helped me understand why I was feeling that way: we don't get very far into Zamperini's head. Our hero remains largely a stranger to the reader emotionally. And so, the jarring descriptions of abuse in POW camps begin to feel like the reader is being dragged through a horrific but depersonalized gauntlet of dehumanizing abuse. Moreover, Zamperini himself is the depersonalized hero who can do no wrong, and even when he comes home and begins to suffer from PTSD and flashbacks, it's like watching a stranger. Hillenbrand, and therefore the reader, remains a spectator, and that vantage point begins to feel problematic at a certain point. Some of the story becomes like a horrible train wreck from which you cannot look away and of which no sense or meaning is ever made.
Secondly—and I am deeply hesitant to go here and would urge any WWII vets to either stop reading or please forgive me—I was troubled by how one particular Japanese captor, Watanabi, nicknamed "the bird," was portrayed. This man committed atrocities beyond imagining that damaged his prisoners both physically and emotionally, many of them permanently. I would not have asked Zamperini to tell his story any differently, but even when toward the end of the book he writes a letter to the bird expressing forgiveness, Hillenbrand (again, as with Zamperini) does little to personalize Watanabi. The part that grated on my nerves the most was when the narrator described how decades after the war, Watanabi spoke of the horrors of war and how he himself was a victim of it. This was an experience I got from the audiobook, but the tone of voice that the narrator used in the sections where Watanabi was explaining himself was one of profound patronization. It was clear that the narrator thought Watanabi was full of it.
And maybe he was; Watanabi was undeniably cruel and certainly insane. Maybe he deserved to be mocked in his admittedly feeble and self-defensive attempts at confession. But the thing is that although it sounds to me like Watanabi was dangerous, he was right about war being an engine of horror in which people of any background can get caught up far more easily than we'd like to admit. I am thinking about all of this with Lawrence Brewer in the back of my mind. I don't blame anyone for being more willing to identify with Zamperini than with Watanabi, but does that act of distancing ourselves from human evil amount to us denying our own capacity for darkness?
I realize that part of my struggle is that in preparing for After the Yellow Ribbon (the conference going on this weekend), we're talking a lot about moral injury, particularly with combatants. Just tonight, I was with some of the other organizers, including a student veteran, watching an interview with this veteran that aired on the local news tonight. In his interview, he said that too often veterans are portrayed as either heroes or monsters, but neither is fair or right; heroes can do no wrong and therefore are misunderstood when they try to grapple with the moral implications of war, and monsters are incapable of redemption. What Unbroken did was to make Zamperini a hero and Watanabi a monster, thereby preventing either from being fully human for the readers.
And with that, I'll awkwardly back away from this book and hope that I haven't offended anyone too badly. (Not that I'm opposed to offending people. Because I'm not. But I'm more sensitive to veterans' issues now than I have been in the past, and I hope people will read this as a criticism of the book and of how we narrate war in this country, not as a slam on POWs or veterans or anyone, really.)
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
Who Are These, Robed in White?
This was revised from a sermon I preached in class on October 31, 2011 (All Hallows' Eve). My text was Revelation 7:9-17.
__________
"You take the blue pill—the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill—you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes."
This quote comes at a decisive moment in the movie The Matrix. The main character, Neo, has just been told that his whole life is a lie. Machines have taken over the world and enslaved humanity, farming their bodies for energy and projecting false images and experiences into their brains. Neo has been ripped out of the Matrix and given a choice: he can take the blue pill and go back into the comfortable but false world of the Matrix; or he can take the red pill, permanently exit the delusion and suffer the consequences of knowing the truth.
Spoiler alert: he takes the red pill.
"Who are these, robed in white, and where have they come from?" "These are they who have come out of the great ordeal." These are the martyrs. They have suffered for the faith. They have taken the red pill. They have gone down the rabbit-hole—and they have come out of it.
"Who are these, robed in white?" "These are they who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb."
I wonder what their robes looked like before they washed them in the blood that cleanses and does not stain. What kind of stories would their robes have told? Imagine a child explaining the origin of stains on her favorite pair of jeans: this grass stain is from when I caught a fly ball to win the game; that grease spot is from the pizza we had at my last birthday party; that patch covers up the hole I tore climbing a tree. Now imagine the martyrs examining their dirty robes: this blood stain is from when I turned the other cheek; these two spots where dirt is ground into the fabric—those are from kneeling in prayer; the front of my robe is damp from tears shed for my brothers and sisters who suffered with me.
"Who are these, robed in white?" These are they who have washed their robes, but not before telling their story through the stains.
Today, suffering and death is shut away in hospitals and hidden from view. So it's no wonder the church doesn't always know how to deal with it. Too often we actually see religion as an escape from suffering. My father went to see the film The Passion of the Christ when it first came out, and as he left the theater, he saw a woman sobbing. She had just seen the movie as well. Curious, he asked her what had moved her so deeply. Through tears, she said, "Jesus suffered so I don't have to."
Jesus suffered so I don't have to. Friends, this is not the gospel. Jesus did not come to give us the blue pill. Yes, Jesus has released us from slavery to sin and death, and yes, there is comfort in the presence of the Holy Spirit. But that comfort comes in the midst of suffering, not instead of it; in Revelation, the elder declares that "God will wipe away every tear from their eyes," but not that God will prevent those tears from coming.
"Who are these, robed in white?" These are they who weep even as they stand around the throne. Revelation says, "God will wipe away every tear from their eyes," in the future tense. They weep because this image of the people around the throne is not yet reality. And in many places, comfort does not come. Sometimes, suffering goes on senselessly.
Let me be clear: suffering itself is not redemptive. The only human suffering that was ever redemptive was that of Christ on the cross. Although in the crucifixion and resurrection Christ defeated sin and death, we are still waiting for the final consummation of that victory. "Who are these, robed in white?" These are the martyrs who weep.
Throughout the Bible, it is clear that proclamation and persecution are intertwined. We see this in the Old Testament prophets, in John the Baptist, in Jesus himself and in the disciples' and the early church's participation in his ministry. In fact, Christians' willingness to suffer for the gospel has often been a catalyst for evangelism. Martin Mittelstadt says, "The greatest defense of the gospel...is that it is worth dying for."
"Who are these, robed in white?" These are they who have shown in their lives that the gospel is worth dying for. Of course, how many of us are ever going to be in a situation where we are asked to die for our beliefs? Certainly Christians around the world die every day for the faith, but few of us will ever have to make such a choice. But even if none of us in this room are bound for martyrdom or physical suffering, we can still choose to take the red pill. The blue pill offers us false comfort by allowing us to deny the reality of suffering. The red pill calls us down the rabbit-hole.
And what will we find there? Perhaps we will be forced to face our sin. Perhaps we will encounter the depths of injustice and oppression. Perhaps we will see in that darkness our deepest fears and wounds.
"Who are these, robed in white?" "These are they who have come out of the great ordeal." They have taken the red pill. They have gone down the rabbit-hole, and Jesus has met them there. He has been their light in the darkness.
Tonight, Duke Chapel will host perhaps the coolest worship service they have all year. At 10:30 p.m., people will gather on the steps of the chapel and light candles around a fire. They'll join in a greeting and an opening prayer, then process into the chapel. As they come down the aisle, they will be enveloped by the sounds of chanting. The choir will be up in the triforium, the narrow passage below the tall stained-glass windows. More candles will eerily light their robed figures as they chant, Requiem aeternam—"rest in peace." The service will include prayer, hymns, Scripture readings, stories of the saints and martyrs, and the celebration of the Eucharist. The church will feel fuller than it looks as the readers invoke the memories of the saints. The candles will send light and shadow dancing across faces and hymnals, only just holding back the darkness.
Hope doesn't always look like the blazing sunlight of a cloudless day. Often, it looks more like a candle flickering defiantly in the darkness. South African pastor Peter Storey says this: "A candle is a protest at midnight. It says to the darkness, 'I beg to differ.'" "Who are these, robed in white?" These are they whom Jesus has met in the rabbit-hole, to whose darkness Jesus has said, "I beg to differ." They have gone into the great ordeal, and they have come out of it because Christ has lit their way.
A little over a month ago, my sister's boyfriend had a bad reaction to some pain medication. This caused him to black out and lose oxygen for a period of time. As a result, he suffered extensive heart, kidney and brain damage. At first, it looked like he wouldn't survive the weekend. Then it appeared he might live for a long time in a coma.
Today, Shane is walking, talking, making jokes and remembering people. He is in rehab and his brain is still healing, but his progress is beyond what any of the doctors thought possible. Shane is a walking, talking miracle.
As I've gone through the emotional rollercoaster of Shane's hospitalization at a distance, I've been asking myself what hope means in the midst of suffering. Interestingly enough, it was Shane himself who gave me an answer.
Shane still gets a little confused about where he is sometimes. One evening recently—and I did get permission to tell this story—my sister Grace was visiting, and Shane got up and announced that they were going golfing. Grace patiently reminded him that it was dark outside. He retorted, "I know, I'm waiting for it to clear up." Puzzled, Grace said, "Shane, it's not like clouds; darkness doesn't just clear up." Shane looked at her and said, matter-of-factly:
"Don't you know about morning?"
Sunday, October 30, 2011
One Is a Whole Number
My friends and I have been picking on Mark Driscoll a lot lately; he's been a favorite straw man for group attacks on muscular Christianity. It probably isn't fair. But I can't not pick up some of the things he drops on the internet.
I'll leave the "Baptism shirts for those who want to get dunked today" tweet that was being discussed among my classmates today and skip to this gem:
"@PastorMark: Single people need to stop making a list of what they want in a spouse & start making a list of what they want to be for a spouse."
Part of why I picked this one to blog about is that it's not inherently evil. You should be asking, not what your spouse can do for you, but what you can do for your spouse (end Kennedy accent). Of course, a part of me is already worried at this stage because of what I've seen of Driscoll's gender theology, which would most likely require that my list include things like "bring the boys snacks while they watch the World Series."
But the subtler issue is one that I'm seeing more and more of in the church. Note that Driscoll's comment is not aimed at people who already have spouses and could stand to think of their partner more; this is geared toward single people, the assumption being that everyone who does not yet have a spouse ought to be working toward finding one.
Singleness is a valid relationship status, and not just temporarily. What so many people in the church forget is that Jesus was single. You could probably argue that singleness has a better case for being instituted by Christ than marriage. And, as one of my middle school youth leaders used to tell me, "One is a whole number!"
The church needs to work on its theology of singleness. Really, we need to work on our theology of sexuality in general, because I think a big part of what makes the church uncomfortable with singleness is that we aren't sure how to talk about sexuality around that. The church is threatened by young single people's sexuality and tries to rush them into the box of marriage where anything goes (I have a lot more to say about that, particularly the "anything goes" bit).
Here's the thing: I shouldn't be asking about what I want in a spouse or what I want to be for a spouse. I should be asking how I can love God better.
Trump card.
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Remember Life Is Still Beautiful Outside This Soul Crushing Place
Yesterday, a new photography exhibit sponsored by New Creation Arts went up in the halls of Duke Divinity School. It features beautiful photography by my friend and classmate Tyler Mahoney, and the show bears an odd and somewhat controversial title: "Remember Life Is Still Beautiful Outside This Soul Crushing Place." It is trumpeted from a deep green banner that hangs alongside the photos.
Why the joyful images alongside a potentially aggressive title? Here's Tyler's explanation, which I lifted from his Facebook profile:
The exhibit is "trying to bring awareness to the continuing problem of low student morale, lack of community, and graduate student isolation. It centers around the themes of creation, friendship, and romance as a continued reminder that until we the students, stand up, and make this seminary look like the Kingdom of Heaven—life is still beautiful outside the halls of Duke."
Yes—even an institution dedicated to learning and growth in the beliefs and practices of the church can be an oppressive, "soul crushing" environment.
How can this be? Well, if you line up the syllabi of any student's courses in a given semester, that ought to give you a clue. Duke has a reputation for strong academics for a reason; the work here is challenging, as it should be. We are preparing students for a variety of forms of ministry in a world that is less and less centered on the church.
However, 3rd year C. J. Stachurski preached a sermon yesterday that captured the struggle many students face: in the midst of studying God and talking about God, we sometimes forget how much we love God. We allow stress and busy-ness to swallow us up and blind us to the beauty of the world around us. Tyler's show is an attempt to remind us that joy, beauty and life are real and don't have to wait until after graduation.So, as you're rushing to class in the next few weeks, take a moment to enjoy the photos on the walls and allow the colors, the landscapes, the faces and the brightness to strengthen you to go to a lecture, not anxious about grades but seeking to love God and your neighbor better.
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Hoodies and Cargo Shorts, or, Performing Gender Incorrectly
I was watching TV online earlier and just happened to look up during this Tide commercial, which immediately set me fuming. It's only about half a minute long, give it a viewing:
Since I haven't actually done much in the way of gender studies, this is all going to be personal/anecdotal in nature. Please observe tiny Sarah playing with a dinosaur (never a Barbie)...
...and then, 10-year-old Sarah, who closely resembled Simon from 7th Heaven. (And yes, this preacher's kid totally watched that show.)There was about a decade of my life where I refused to wear dresses. I kept my hair as short as my parents allowed, wore boys' clothes, played sports and spent a lot of time in the woods. I didn't know that I wasn't performing my gender "correctly"; I just knew I was having more fun than the girls who were worried about getting their dresses dirty.
Although my parents (thankfully) drew the line when I begged to get a buzz cut, I don't have memories of them trying to correct my gender performance at all. Dad played basketball and softball with me, and Mom allowed me to stick with sports bras at first when that awkward life phase came around. They bought me dress pants instead of skirts to wear to church and let me go to all-boys' birthday parties. Come to think of it, I've never asked if my tomboyishness ever concerned them, but it was just a part of who I was until about middle school (AKA the worst three years of just about everyone's life). Thanks, Mom and Dad, for loving tomboy Sarah!
Now, I realize that the folks who made this commercial probably weren't trying to make some major statement about gender, and one friend pointed out that they were probably making fun of the mom. Besides, I realize that at least some of that kind of anxiety on the part of parents has to do with concern for their kid's well being. Was I teased for dressing and acting like a boy (whatever that means)? Absolutely. I've never thought about it much, but I still have residual insecurities from high school and even before that might have been lessened had I socialized myself more femininely from an earlier age—but then again, maybe not. Maybe it simply would have introduced those insecurities sooner.
I've never been a parent, and anyway this isn't a parenting advice column. But I find traditional gender roles problematic in many ways, and we as a society and as a church need to recognize how deeply entrenched these assumptions are and how they can be destructive. If the church only had women like the mom in that commercial, I would scream. (I want women like that mom in the church. I just also want women like the little girl in the church.) I've seen churches and youth groups especially that sometimes reinforce these expectations in such a way as to become exclusive; some of my more difficult memories from high school have to do with feeling like I wasn't pretty enough by the standards of the girls with whom I went to school and church. Having been a youth pastor briefly, I've talked with other youth leaders about how even compliments on one teenager's hair or clothes can create an unsafe space for others if we aren't careful.
If your daughter prefers Legos over Barbies, buy her Legos! We need more women in math/science/engineering anyway. (Not me.) And if your son insists on wearing a tutu everywhere he goes, let him. Heck, Jesus wore a dress.
For the record, although I perform my gender more "correctly" now, I am currently wearing a pair of men's sweatpants that I bought myself, and they are SO comfortable.
Red Pill Christians
"You take the blue pill - the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill - you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes."
This quote from Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) comes at a decisive moment in the movie The Matrix. Neo (Keanu Reeves) has just been told that he has been living in a fantasy, a digital world created by machines who have taken over and enslaved humanity, farming their bodies for energy while filling their brains with made-up images and experiences. Now, Neo has a choice: go back into the comfortable but false world of the Matrix or permanently exit the delusion and suffer the consequences of knowing the truth.
Spoiler alert: he takes the red pill.
My ethics professor and sister in Christ, Amy Laura Hall, has used this image to talk about a kind of Christianity that refuses to use religion as an opiate. My friend and classmate Lindsey refers to herself as a "red pill Christian." Red pill Christians know just how bad things can get both in the world and in the church. They've taken off the rose-colored glasses.
Here's the thing: although the first instinct after taking the red pill, so to speak, may be to reject the institutional church, my calling seems to be to a difficult tension. I consider myself a red pill Christian, but I still feel called to serve within and through the church. If you're anti-institutional, I sympathize and probably agree with you on a lot of your concerns about organized religion, but I am still committed to the institution because, frankly, it's all we've got.
The church has done a lot of awful things over the centuries and continues to fail to represent Christ to the world, and admitting this is part of being a red pill Christian; but there are still times and places in the life of the church in which God's love shines through in a way that it simply cannot elsewhere. I do not believe that the church is the hope of the world, because only Christ is that; but as broken as the church is, she is still the body of Christ.
What might it look like to be a red pill church? It does not mean to abandon hope; if you think about it, the kinds of people and groups who most faithfully embody Christian hope are those who truly understand just how bad things can get. It means to see how deep the rabbit-hole goes and emerge on the other side determined to be faithful even in the face of what we've seen, because God is there even in the darkness of the rabbit-hole.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
