See You at the Pole? [naomi]

Pole dancing? My eyes widened at an e-vite with an unexpected subject line in my inbox. Surely not. Images of girls in Princess Lea-like outfits slinking down greased poles flashed through my mind. I grimaced. Maybe it’s at some sort of aerobics gym or the YMCA or something (that would be some kind of YMCA! Hah!). Hmm… Goddess Movement Dance Studio. Wow. Bring your own high heels. WOW. Ok, umm… I’ve got some thinking to do.

I’m not the kind of edgy Christian chick who would think up trying pole dancing for my bachelorette party, and if I had, it would’ve been closer to a gag than anything else. Everyone would know that it wasn’t at all serious. But this was not my party, and these were not my friends (in fact, quite the opposite, I didn’t know a single one of them). I either had to get over my initial distrust of strangers, not to mention the potential awkwardness of the actual event, or give up an opportunity to hang out with my future sister-in-law and her Canadian buddies. I had a serious decision to make.

A note to the ladies: When you’re trying to figure this stuff out, I’m not sure that your husband would be the best person to ask, or your mother, for that matter. My husband got so giddy that I could hear him snickering and making “King of Queens”(season 8 episode 1) references for days after I told him the news. To be fair, he did snicker, but he’s not the kind of guy who objectifies women, and he did help me process a lot of the thoughts listed below.

My mind played the usual role of interviewer/interviewee. Ok, let’s figure this out. First of all, WWJD? Hah! I’m pretty sure it’d be hard to pole dance while dressed in toga-ish clothing. Hehehe. No seriously, let’s figure this out. Why does the idea of pole dancing make me so uncomfortable? Well, I automatically think of hookers and, you know, strippers, and Britney Spears. It’s all so sensual. So, what if the hookers and strippers (and ok, Britney Spears) part was taken away? Then we’re left with just the sensual part. Right. Is being sensual wrong? Hell no! I would have to never make love to my husband again for that to be true. In fact, I even know of a certain sacred Hebrew book that gets pretty steamy. Ok, so obviously there’s a big difference between what hookers do and what happens in a marriage bed, even though both are very sensual. So where does that leave us? Well, I guess that, like so many other things, it’s all in how it’s used. Sex isn’t sinful. I’m thinking that dancing around a pole isn’t inherently sinful either… unless I’m getting paid for it or if I’m thinking about some other guy while I’m doing it… again, just like sex. Right. I guess I’ll be buying some heels.

That was my basic train of thought. Even so, I was still pretty unsure of the whole thing, and it didn’t help when I learned that the lesson for the evening was going to be a chair dance. A CHAIR dance?!!! What does that even mean?!!! The biggest stretch for me was that I had absolutely no idea what was going to happen there and I didn’t even know the people with whom I was going. The thing that I had to keep reminding myself was that a) I was going for my sister-in-law, and b) I couldn’t be forced to do anything that was sinful (i.e., if that chair dance had turned into more of a lap dance, I would have been packing my heels). Would I be uncomfortable? Undoubtedly. Would I be looked down upon by some people if they ever knew? Most likely. I have to admit, though, it was all worth it to be able to text my friend, “Sorry, I can’t hang out tonight, I’m going pole dancing”. Someday I’ll just drop it in conversation, “The other day, when I was pole dancing…” and see what happens. There’s a part of me that does love being edgy.

There are certain things that automatically get equated with sin: yoga becomes New Age religion; incense becomes bad spirits; drinking becomes being a drunkard; and smoking becomes destroying your body (oddly enough, overeating doesn’t have the same negative vibe, though perhaps weight gain might equal lack of self discipline). I wonder if one person had a hard time with drinking and so it became sin for everyone else too? Honestly, I don’t know who drew those lines or why they were drawn in those places, especially since some of those “good” lines seem pretty harebrained if you think about them (try: “only Christians should be your close friends”, or, “Christian women should only ever wear one-piece swimsuits AND a cover up to the beach”). I know one person who bowed out of the pole dancing. I don’t hold it against her (I wonder if she holds it against me?); I probably would have too if I were a younger single woman. But the point is that she thought about it long and hard before she said “no”. She takes risks, but this is not one of them; it wasn’t time. I think that’s brilliant: know who you are and know why you’re doing or not doing something, but don’t just base it out of what you’ve grown up hearing, and certainly don’t base it out of a fear of looking (gasp) bad.

I went that night and actually had a really good time. I took the risk and it paid off. Did I almost fall right over in my heels? Oh yeah, at least twice. All in all, it was surprisingly relaxing and, honestly, a very insightful experience as far as moving my body in a way that only a woman can. It really was pretty cool to see one of the women there who might be considered overweight by some standards be really comfortable in her own skin and get into the dancing. My husband is happy, not because he has even seen any of the “moves” that I learned that night without both of us busting up laughing, but because I was willing to try a slice of life that was commonly forbidden because of the color, and nothing else.

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Figure and Form [jana]

figure and form
definition, imposition
negative space
relative grace

delicate line
crumbled edge
liquid element

reflection, perception
perspective, invective

the discipline of hand, eye
mind and train of thought
falls next to the discipline of fasting
refusing to be controlled,
patrolled by flesh
cravings
habits

refusing the gnawing of me
dwelling in meaning to be

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My Brother's Blood [jenna]

The other night I saw a holocaust movie called Everything is Illuminated. It made me cry. Holocaust movies will do that to a person.

The horrors done to the Jews—and whoever helped them—and whoever got in the Nazis’ way at all—outstrips the power of imagination. To read Corrie ten Boom, visit a museum, hear a Jew or someone else close to the situation speak, or hear any description of something that went on during those terrible years is to be moved with grief and a sort of repentance, even if it happened before your birth, as it did before mine.

I wonder what it would have been like to be a German German—as opposed to a German Jew—during that terrible time. Surely not all of them were in favor of Hitler’s ideas; surely, those who dissented did not all hide Jews in their homes; surely, they did not all speak publicly against Hitler and his guns. What would have been the responsibility of someone living out her life in a German town, someone who didn’t know any Jews, who had no real voice with the government?

Was it easy to ignore the situation? Was day-to-day life reasonably secure? Were all average people unwilling to speak the least word against the Nazis, for fear of retribution?

What does it mean, now, to live in a country where it’s legal to take a life merely because it is unwanted, or because its mother was impregnated in circumstances of trauma?

It’s easier to ignore this situation than that of Jews versus Nazis because it’s so hidden. Because the little ones have the same story, all of them, and without the character development that can be drawn up for a remembrance montage on television; their fear is sudden, silent, and then over. It’s easier to ignore this situation because so much of the psychological damage is hidden in the hearts of mothers tormented and burdened by their sense of guilt.

But it is easier to understand, and harder to condemn someone like Pope Pius XII (especially when we look at actual history, and not at the nonsense now often thought of as fact), when we look at what it means to be for the right to life, against abortion in this day.

Our decision of when it’s morally okay to abort a human baby is completely arbitrary; as I’ve heard several people say lately, the unborn can be disposed of silently within yards of a place where round-the-clock personnel and the very best technology are used to save lives at the same stage of development.

In Hitler’s time, speaking or acting against the regime could get a person killed. Nowadays, it just gets you marginalized. You have no voice; you’re labeled as an extremist.

It’s easy enough to marginalize those who criticize abortion as comparable to Nazism; the cold Nazi mentality seems so unlike the presumed compassion of abortion-rights advocacy. But if we actually believe that the unborn are human and alive, regardless of whether we believe in immortal souls, is the comparison really so extreme?

“I want the children”, said Mother Teresa so memorably some years back. She was not the only one who would have cared for the little ones. I will take that ‘unwanted’ baby—I and the thousands and thousands of other women throughout the world who long for motherhood. I will take it regardless of race, gender, or handicap. No child is ever truly unwanted; they’re just arriving at difficult times, and in our country at least, there is help for almost any situation nearly everywhere.

What, then, is my responsibility, living in this land of holocaust? The duty will be different for each person. What is that duty for me?

“God doesn't value people and things like we do. Jonah loved a shade tree more than an entire city of sinful people. We love our dogs more than a terrorist. We love our cars more than a beggar on the side of the road. And sometimes, we love our money more than a child growing in a desperate teenager's womb.

But God isn't like us… His love for us is greater than His love for a plant, an animal, or any other created thing. And the book of Jonah tells us that He loves even the most sinful people and seeks to bring them into His merciful arms. And it's a love that seeks to touch all of his created children: that desperate teenager, the baby growing in her womb, even tyrants and terrorists."
—Dennis DiMauro, Lutherans for Life representative to the National Pro-life Religious Council

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Night Voices [rachel]

For a long time they made me angry. For weeks, every night after midnight and before 3am I’d hear them. Their sharp tones would startle me from sleep. Bewildered, a hint of fear rising inside, I’d listen, straining to make out each syllable. Understanding the content made me nervous, pressing my head to my pillow, pulling the covers up around my neck. There was no way I could ignore the screaming, threatening, pleading. Is this real? Is it a dream? Should I call the cops, lift up the blinds, make sure no one has a gun?

People tell me it can all be explained by the bar down the street, its patrons overflowing onto the sidewalks, striding or sidling down the block and perhaps taking refuge on the benches out front, just beneath my window. I’m not so sure they’re right. Whatever the case, the cries are sharp, the pain is real, and the arguments are heated.

Maybe I’m not attentive enough, but the passersby during the day seem more controlled, cold, stone-faced. They turn away, scowl, or say an abrupt hi. But they’re not sobbing, screaming, moaning in desperate tones.

When I first moved to Lebanon I laughed when one of my housemates suggested I didn’t need to drive to a park to take a walk. “Take a walk in this city, on these streets? No way! Something might happen to me. I might be mugged or kidnapped or murdered!” I was in the midst of change—stepping out of my attempt at a pristine and church-appropriate life and stepping into the pain and turmoil of circumstances so that I could actually experience healing. I needed to learn to honestly believe Isaiah 61:1. God came to “heal the brokenhearted”. I had spent so much of my life desperately trying not to be broken hearted. For the first three months after the move, I saw no connection between the healing work God was starting in my life and the city in which I was living. If anything, it seemed to me that Lebanon was a limitation, a dark spot in the midst of an otherwise hopeful experience. For most of my life I lived in a village, a town one street wide and four blocks long. More animals inhabited the backyards than people did the houses. The biggest conflicts were over noisy dogs, new trees for the street, and the possibility of bingo in the Mennonite fire hall. Lebanon was just plain intimidating.

That perception has been confirmed repeatedly by the reactions of people who discover that I a newly a Lebanon resident: “Oh.” “So sorry.” “Don’t forget to lock your doors.” In a game of association, the word Lebanon might conjure up adjectives such as angry, dirty, scary, run-down, hazardous, poor, ugly, mean. The stereotypes aren’t necessarily wrong. Plenty of grumpy looking people tramp the streets, signs announcing “condemned” adorn many a front door, I see more trash in the Quittie Creek each day, and I can’t number the fires that have claimed both property and life over just the past three months. Lebanon with its hardened exterior looks hopeless to many and has appeared so to me for as long as I can remember.

Then one night something shifted. That week I had once again, somewhat reluctantly, been pondering the benefit of feeling life’s pain. I have often struggled with the role that lament plays in the life of the follower of Jesus, long associating lament with doubt, rejection of God, unhealthy questioning. But I’m learning that God is not so religious. He meets us in our struggle. Where there is lament and longing, hope speaks and Jesus heals.

On this particular night, I laid down in my bed around midnight. The cold air of October crept through the just-open window enough to make me pull the covers up around my chin. As I settled in, I heard the first of the voices, this time a wailing complaint, the sound of a woman distraught, a barely consoling voice coming in response from an unseen companion. A shout a few minutes later. Something strange happened inside of me. I wasn’t afraid. I didn’t snuggle further down under my quilt. I didn’t wish the voices would stop. I found myself quizzically but earnestly thanking God for the sounds of my city, my home. I suddenly realized that Lebanon, though hardened by day under the gaze of judging and skeptical eyes, unveils its brokenness at night in the darkness where no one can see, when the hurting people think no one can hear. They shout their weakness and cry their vulnerability.

Lebanon is a broken city. The cement walls around the Quittie Creek reveal that nature is broken. The long-neglected houses show that home is broken. The sorrowful looking children demonstrate that family is broken. The drug deals are evidence that health, mental and physical, is broken. The weeping and screaming out my window tells me hearts are broken. And these same voices say something more: There’s hope for Lebanon.

I still don’t know quite what to do when I hear the night voices. Maybe one of these midnights I will betray their secrecy, their cover of darkness. I will lift the blinds and see the faces that bear the marks of pain. They might be the hardened faces I barely glance at during the day. And just maybe one of these nights I’ll open the window and call out ever so softly, “I hear your pain, Lebanon. I’m not afraid of you anymore. I know that like me, you are broken and God has come to heal us both”.

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If I Had to Wait until You Had One Minute Left to Live… [jake]

You are my Eden, where I once did dwell
But God is now the angel guarding, with a sword of flame
I have been banished from my home, now sent through hell
And I am longing to return to my Eden again
I am now labeled as a wanderer
Like a murderer I own the mark of Cain
I feel I have a home no longer
Missing my old Eden, where I have left you slain
And now it seems I find you as a beach
Stretching like dreams, vast beyond my reach
I try to hold you in my hand
But you sift through my fingers just as the sand
And no matter how many jars I fill to the brim
In attempt to be with you again
I could not possibly carry them all…

…It seems I’ve been given a sieve
That you spill right through
So much so that what I want to retrieve
I instead must leave with you
Because I try to hold you in my hand
As you sift through my fingers for you are sand
I cannot understand or explain
What has been planned
Or show you where it is that you stand
In this land of life yet-undiscovered
But my soul perpetually hovers
In search, like a lost lover, for my blocked beloved
So listen closely for the sound of this
Soldier scouting out unrecovered ground
That he still sees as home…

…So as Moses to his promised land
To which he led his people through wilderness
All those years I will wait and stand
Outside the gate
Waiting for God and fate
To satiate my desire to step in
I no longer want to roam
But to return again
I want to enter into my home
To reclaim my beloved, my Eden
I will, my love
I will see you again

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