when Jesus speaks our name

Jesus and Mary Magdalene in the garden, that Sunday morning. I’ve been reading and re-reading this passage for years, wondering and pondering and haunted by the vulnerability and intimacy it captures. Can you imagine being Mary, weeping outside the empty tomb? How grief wracks you and you need something to hold onto. These women, broken and impatient throughout the anguished hours of their Sabbath rest, longing to go find their Lord’s body and pay their last reverence, cling to what they had left of this carpenter from Nazareth whose life had changed everything. What were they supposed to believe when his death, again, upended the world?

I imagine being Mary, longing to just cling to his body and anoint him with my tears, and then he is gone. Again. And there is not even his body to hold, not even this final way to show my love. And I can feel the choking grief, the desperation.

How the darkness must have weighed. I wonder if she could hear her demons howling, rising up to choke her again. I wonder if she was terribly afraid that all the light, all the healing in her life would be gone with Jesus? They have taken away my Lord, and I don’t know where they have put him.

Her healer and teacher that she had followed, her Lord, stolen away, and now she didn’t even have his body, the proof that he had been real and that light and love were possible, that the last few years of healing in her life had actually happened.

And then she sees Jesus and doesn’t recognize him, just again begging to find his body, willing to go anywhere to find him, when he’s standing victorious and humble before her.

And then the moment that makes me reel.

Mary! Jesus said.

What holy intimacy is this when he speaks her name?

We are told that we love him because he first loved us, but I think also we know him, because he first knew us.

Mary does not recognize Jesus until he recognizes her, calls her by name, and she knows it’s him, her Jesus, because no other voice could say her name like that.

She knew his voice. The voice that knew the names of her demons, and the face of her fear. She had been a woman acquainted with death, with a life that yawned black like the tomb, with darkness and demons inside.

Mary, called Magdalene, out of whom he had cast seven demons. Seven, the Biblical number of completion. Her life had been completely consumed by darkness before Jesus, and then there was his voice, cutting through her prison cell existence and bringing light. The voice that with the Father had swirled the constellations into being, breaking into her life, calling her to freedom.

I don’t know her demons, but I know mine. Self hate, shame. Whatever her demons were, Jesus named them, faced them fully, went into the darkest corners of her soul and cast them out. He brought light into her shame and broke every chain.

She recognized him, because no one else could know her like that, through and through to the hidden broken places no one else could go, and no one else could love her like that.  Through and through.

Fully known and fully loved, isn’t that the cry of our human hearts? To have all our darkness seen and to be loved anyway?

And it was that impossible miracle that was in the voice of Jesus that morning, standing by an empty tomb. Full knowledge and full love, as he said Mary.

It was that love that conquered hell and death, in his voice as he spoke her name.

And she cries Rabboni, teacher. And I can picture her, falling to his feet and clinging to him as she’d longed to, but not to his empty body, but to the resurrected man: victory over darkness in miraculous human flesh.

Don’t cling to me, Jesus says, but tell my brothers that I am going to my Father and your Father, my God and your God. And she goes out, because what other response is there to a love like this than to proclaim it loudly to the word? This love that speaks into every crevice of our cracked and bleeding souls.

Come and see.

joy is repetitive

Re-reading my gratitude journal is a strange re-living of joys, all jotted down hasty with my scrawling cursive impatient with happiness. Most entries brim with sunshine, but some recall late nights and anxiety, gripping to hope hard when the world is too big and too broken, choosing to hold onto and record the good.

But re-reading makes me laugh a little too, because who but me might find this interesting? My journal is terribly repetitive. I can’t count the times I’ve counted coffee cups and long conversations amongst my daily joys. They must be mentioned in at least thirty percent of my gratitude journal entries. I’ve become quite the proselytizer of this process of counting graces and the joy it gives. Sometimes people’s eyes widen at the mention of 1663 joys recorded, like who is this girl and what is her life that she’s got 1663 new happy things all the time?

But the truth is I don’t, just an endless recycling of the same happy themes, hugs and cuddles and dance parties and Jesus talks rejoiced in again and again. I’m not that creative. Flip pages and you can find verbatim the exact joy, “coffee in the morning with mama” colored with cold-fall air and brilliant leaves about, instead of the warm sand on summer toes coffee morning joy of months ago. 

And for me that’s been part of the secret; gratitude and “giving thanks in all things” is opening my heart this quiet, consistent joy. I’m learning contentment is not a great big searing joy, but delight in mundane joys in endless variation.

And the harder entries, the times when I had to fight hard to find hope in bleak days, those are some of my favorite to re-read. They’re more real, they’re a testament to the fact that God is truly teaching me to be content in whatever circumstance I am in. And I’m not always guaranteed coffee in the morning and days that make me want to dance, but I pray and write and hope that this journaling and joy counting becomes so ingrained that I can face the future with praise on my lips and pen in hand all my days. 

all photos by merry y. 

what skype and homesickness taught me about God

For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part, but then I shall know fully even as I am fully known. -Corinthians 13:12

Today I realized my relationship with God is something like a bad Skype connection.

After 3 ½ months in Cameroon, Central Africa, and looking forward to another 2 months of internship away from my family, I know something about bad Skype connections. I know calculating time differences and desperation to see the faces of the people I love, miscommunication and missing them by 2 minutes, lying awake in my mosquito net re-reading gratitude journal entries about family because I’ve run out of internet credit and Camtel isn’t open till Monday.

But I know also the joy of my Yaoundé balcony seat, curled up telling my family my adventures and worries; I know sitting shoulder to shoulder with my Kribi sister Marcelle, the unstoppable smiles as my sisters meet across the world; I know memorizing details in the middle of the market, storing up my best stories for them; I know how this stilted connection helps homesickness and makes it worse simultaneously, it’s a taste of the real thing that comforts and entices. I played catch up, splicing together their delayed image with garbled words, gathering enough of the gist to give joy but prolong frustration.

Because the fuzzy pixelated beauty of my baby sister’s face cannot compare to the moment when I was finally home and could kiss her chubby cheeks. Squealing with my sisters about boys and impatiently demanding they Skype the next day to give me the next installment of their current life-story meant I missed out on being physically there. But I was delighted to find that, a continent away, I was still very much a part of their life story, and they mine. It wasn’t perfect, but it was enough to get me through.

And that, I realized, is God. Through sunshine and coffee morning devotions, underlined passages and dog eared  Bibles, late night conversations with people who know my soul, tall pines and red needle carpets, I get little pixelated images, but I have to do the brainwork and put together the picture, the face of God in my life.

And these glimpses of God satisfy my soul and makes me more hungry at the same time, it’s a taste of the homecoming that’s coming, when he shall live amongst us. It’s realizing that all of history is leading up to the real homecoming that waits.

Look, God's home is now among his people! He will live with them, and they will be his people. -Revelation 21:3 

how getting outside helped me get outside of self-hate

Yoga helped save me from self hate.

Learning to love my body has been a long journey. In high school, I used to fall asleep thinking about how ugly I was; self-hate and body-image issues haunted my life. When I discovered yoga and learned to windsurf, I took the first steps towards healing. Exercising had always seemed like a punishment to me, but I fell in love with yoga and windsurfing for the sheer fun of it, for the tension of sails and wind and water on my windsurf board, for the joy of holding crow pose two seconds longer, for the thrill of challenging myself and growing. I discovered that my body is capable of more than being looked at.

It’s through my body that I get to experience the world, I get to hug my baby sister, dance through fall leaves crunching under my bare feet, taste triple chocolate brownies. While loving my body for its own sake was still a long way off, I slowly began to appreciate my body for all that it allowed me to do. I began to exercise to celebrate, not punish, my body.  And eventually, the day came when I was able to appreciate my body for its own sake too.

I’m thrilled that this fall, the Annual Women’s Center “I Love My Body Day” on Wednesday, September 10th will coincide with a new social media campaign #girlgetoutside which encourages girls and women to engage in outdoor activities. As a participating college, we’re also using #sienagirlgetoutside to join the nationwide campaign. Join us. It just might change your life too.

I got outside; I got outside physically, I got outside of my comfort zone and challenged myself, I got outside of my prejudices about what “exercising” had to look like. Most surprising of all, this helped me get outside of the cycle of self-hate I’d lived in for so long. I’m signing my name on our “I love my body just the way it is” banner with a proud flourish, because thanks to God and getting outside, it’s finally true.

flexible

Dance class, I’m twisted on my back while pounding the floor with my fist, jumping and singing and stretching.

Coming home from class, the door is locked and my family in Dschang don’t have a second key. So instead of attacking the pile of homework I’m trying not to be anxious about, I curl up in the chair my neighbor provides (each of the three times it happened)  and instead listen to his playlist of Cameroonian and American music, and tell him how excited I am about the women’s day outfit I am having made.

Showering by the light of a non-electric flashlight because the electricity is cut, I’m just grateful that the water is back on. I was starting to smell after the water was cut yesterday.

Walking by the group of Cameroonian guys building a wall, when one guy holds out a hammer and asks if I want to try, I say yes for once and impress them all with my long-unused drama crew skills. Not to brag, but I’ve used a circular saw before, hammering a nail into thresh wall isn’t that hard. Being confident and comfortable enough to interact solo with a group of six Cameroonian guys is harder, but they are all friendly and we laugh a lot.

Saying bonjour first while walking down the street, trying hard to be culturally competent and aware. The “ma chères” I can handle, but it’s hard not to be freaked out by the half kissing/half hissing sound which is a perfectly normal and appropriate way to get someone’s attention in Cameroon. Especially coming from guys on the street, it’s hard not to feel degraded but I try because I know it’s just a cultural difference.

Dance class, power cuts, ambling walks, pausing to talk to everyone; they’re all teaching me flexibility. I think it’s one of the best things I will take away from this beautiful country. I knew flexibility would be required; it always is with new things. I was prepared to be flexible with different cultural approaches to time, with food and language and even myself. What has surprised me most was that I’ve also needed to be flexible with my own internal values. 

The very first weekend here, thinking about my reaction to constant comments on the street from Cameroonian guys made me realize I need a deeper type of flexibility. I would have to choose between two things I value deeply: Feminism and reform against objectification, and being culturally competent and respectful. Do I go all activist and campaign against what I see as harassment, or stretch myself to see another perspective (even if I disagree with it?) I want desperately to always defend bodily autonomy and integrity, that is one of my core values as a feminist, but I am also someone who wants deeply to respect and embrace other cultures. It’s a strange thing when some of your core values are in conflict with each other; it’s requiring a lot of thought and internal negotiation. It’s a dance that requires a flexibility of worldview, and  I am sure I will mess it up as frequently as I mess up in dance class, but I am going to keep stretching myself and trying. 

thoughts on walking home

I spent last weekend in Bamenda, one of Cameroon’s two English speaking regions. Speaking English on the street was a nice break for my brain, but it also made me more aware of street harassment.

            I’ve gotten used to the constant “ma chère, ma chère/La blanche, la blanche” in Yaoundé and Dschang, but being able to fully comprehend everything enthusiastically shouted at me and my friends this weekend made the experience more intense. As we threaded our way through the dripping rain and busy streets of Bamenda’s main market (a colorful and hectic experience) we understood every word when asked “Can I find a wife amongst you?” and the repeated “I love you, you are beautiful, I love you!” shouted at us as we scurried away.

Usually, I miss a fair bit of it because of my French comprehension. But the language barrier is a good defense mechanism too, when I want to ignore a comment in Yaoundé or Dschang I often fall back on “je ne comprends pas” which usually works. Until, of course, that one guy who simply repeated distinctly in English “I think you are very pretty.” “Oh, uh merci.” But that still doesn’t mean you get to walk me home, and thanks, but give me back my hand I wanted to finish.

        

            Overall though, I have been shocked by how little it’s bothered me. Before arriving in Cameroon, homesickness, French competency, and verbal street harassment were my main worries. The times I’ve encountered street harassment in the U.S., I’ve felt a slimy sense of violation and a choking rage at my own vulnerability. Quite frankly, it makes me want to turn around and shout rather obscene suggestions for what they should do to themselves (because I certainly won’t). But while whirling around and shouting “fuck you” is my enraged urge, out of shock and fear I’ve never done that.

            But the harassing language I’ve either overheard or experienced in the U.S. is very different from what I hear walking down the street here. “I want your pussy, shaved or not” is a far cry from “ma chère, ma chère, tu es belle.” Men still don’t have the right to comment on my body, it is not here for their viewing pleasure or awaiting their judgment and affirmation. So while the comments here are much more innocent, I still initially objected to them.

            But my fifteen year old neighbor gave me a very good piece of advice while showing me around the quartier my first weekend here. I walked along soaking in the crowded, colorful streets, aware in my peripherals that as usual I was being stared at. Luic commented “everyone is looking at you” and I responded that it made me uncomfortable and so I just ignored it. He told me “They just want to know you. Just say bonjour.”

It’s good advice, and following it has made me realize several things: The street commenting really is cultural, and is usually not meant in a degrading way. “La blanche” is an overture for friendship. These days I actually “bonjour” people first.

I figure, well, this is quite literally a two way street. If Cameroonian guys stare at me because they think I am pretty, honestly it’s mutual. I think they’re pretty too, and I’m not sure how much that contributes to me not minding their appreciative reactions to me. But more importantly, there’s a fine line between appreciation and objectification, but the smile and quick head nod I often get is somehow very different from a slimy ogle which undresses you with its eyes. This feels like genuine appreciation, curiosity and friendliness.

But the real reason I “bonjour” people first these days is it puts me in charge of the interaction. I am no longer being commented on, like a prize pony in a horse show, I am initiating the interaction and firmly anchoring it in the realm of friendliness, negotiating any objectifying undertones by creating space for friendliness sans the “unwanted commentary” aspect. For me, it’s been a small way to embrace and respect Cameroon’s welcoming, people oriented culture without surrendering my agency. 

Happy Month Anniversary, Cameroon

25/02/2014

A month ago I was in the backseat of the SIT car, driving too fast through Yaoundé on my way from the airport to Benedictine monetary/hostel at the top of Mont Febé which was home for a week of orientation. I’m slightly addicted to driving too fast, and Cameroonians have this down to an art form. There was wind in my hair and a bit of dust in my lungs and the smell of heat and city, and just so much joy because I was finally, after four years, back in Africa.

Despite the relaxed Cameroonian attitude towards life/time, I still feel like I’ve been flying since then. I can’t believe it’s been a month already. There are so many thoughts and experiences I have wanted to capture, but I have been too busy living them to bother writing them down. My head’s constantly a blur of new information and impressions, but here is a snapshot of some of them over the last month:

          The sound of Annie, my host mom in Yaoundé, singing nonstop around the house. After just two weeks in Yaoundé, Annie’s lilting, not quite off key singing sounds like home. 
My shoe, vaulting over heads in the fancy nightclub when my 30 year old Cameroonian dance partner dipped me and whiskey and soda and his impressive dance skills made me mistakenly think that I, too, could dance. I proceeded to try a leg/kick/flip thing that I kind of learned swing dancing years ago, with unfortunate results.

·         Tonight, dancing around the living room with my little host sister.

·         Madeline, Justine and I bent over laughing, collapsed on the dusty intersection on the road to the SIT office in Yaoundé. When Madeline fell with her giant backpack when we were packing up for Dschang, and none of us could get up we were laughing too hard.

·         Omelets inside a baguette, baguettes with Tarentina, baguettes with dinner, a whole baguette eaten on the way home from class without even realizing it, marching through Dschang happily munching.

·         Luic, my 15 year old sort-of neighbor in Yaoundé, and the laughing head shake of incomprehension he has when my French is particularly horrible.

·         Swamp ass, all day everyday.

·         This feeling of complete awe at everything I have to learn. I know nothing and I want to know everything—the language, what books about women and Africa Professor Noupa thinks are best, how to wash my sandals correctly, at exactly what time in the afternoon you switch from bonjour to bonsoir (different people seem to do it differently) where the line between universal human rights and cultural imposition is drawn, what Annie wants to do here PhD research on (I asked once and then forgot and need to ask again), why the dirt is red, everything.

·         Skirt hiked up, squatting in the kitchen with my Dschang host sister, washing dishes and talking.

·         Wearing my pagne (wrap skirt) from Mali for the first time, and my Dschang host mom telling me I am a real African woman and wanting to explode with joy.

·         Simply walking through the streets being happy. It’s hard for me to stress here because it’s simply too beautiful. I’m too busy trying to soak in the noise of taxis and French and constant friendliness, and the aching vibrancy of colors and life.

·         Chopping onions for dinner, all of us dancing in the kitchen of the Yaoundé SIT office on student’s night. These incredible people who share their brilliance and stories of bowl movements with me, the fact that my host mom asked me who my best friend in the program was and I started listing people until I realized I'd listed everyone. 

Cameroonian traditional dance class and our dance instructor literally grabbing my leg and moving it for me because I fail at rhythm, the feeling of being ok with not being perfect, a miracle  

Oh hey here's a massive journal entry

Saturday, February 1^st  

Today I helped my host mom make koki, a ground up bean paste that you mix with red oil, salt and a bit of pepper. You wrap it in banana leaves and boil it in a pre-heated pot. I sat and tore long strips of banana bark to tie the leaf-bean-pudding pouches and asked constant questions about the French word for kitchen items.

Today I also got to know the neighbor kids who live in the apartment next to ours, we share a balcony. Loic, the fifteen year old, is the oldest child I’ve met so far, but there’s a little girl and three little boys. The littlest boy is just a baby, probably 4 months. I held him and chatted with Loic for most of the afternoon. Our conversation was made possible by the translation services of the little girl, an 8 year old with incredible English. They each got to decide what language to study and Loic chose French, the little girl English. I think they said she’s studied English for 6 years, how that is possible when she’s 8 I don’t know. Possibly I misunderstood the French I was hearing, which is likely with my comprehension skills. Or the Cameroonian education system is just way better than America’s. Also possible.

Whenever my French was particularly unintelligible while talking with Loic, he’d call his little sister over and make her translate. We were able to find out each other’s favorite months, why they’re our favorite seasons, favorite colours, and lots and lots more. I love kids, and I’m not surprised that I love talking to Cameroonian kids. I don’t feel as self-conscious about my French, and I just have more fun with it. They’re all adorable and super nice.

Sunday I woke up at 7 am to scrub my fingers raw washing my clothes by hand. I was wearing my last clean shirt, the desperation explains the early wake-up call. I’d hoped to go to church, but my host mom Annie wasn’t feeling well so we plan on going next week. Annie and her sister Gella are “Evangelique”  Christians, and when we couldn’t go to church Annie put on praise music instead. She danced around the house and sang, and I joined in singing since I knew a lot of the English songs. I cooked omelets for breakfast after Annie instructed me in the use of the gas stove (the whole matches/fire thing still freaks me out). After lunch I walked around my “cartier” neighborhood with Luic as my tour guide. He’s fast becoming my adopted little brother/best friend/tour guide/French tutor, and I am pretty sad because he is gone to school until next weekend. Annie gave him specific instructions about where to take me and  when to return, so that she would know where I was at all times, which I am pretty sure he completely ignored. He was supposed to show me the Catholic church, since I’d told Annie I also like Catholic services, but there was no Catholic church in sight. Instead we ambled along red roads and avoided the insane traffic and laughed at my French.  We did see a mosque, and the call to prayer was haunting and melodic.

That afternoon Nathalie, the host family coordinator/unofficial “mom”/counselor of the program had organized a soccer match for the SIT students and families. I’ve missed African soccer on red gravel fields so much. It was wonderful. I am as aggressive a player as ever, but my footwork is entirely gone from my old middle school soccer glory days. I just ran around energetically and got in peoples’ way and had a fabulous time. Luic was my stand in family, and played goalie for the opposite team. I scraped up my knee stupidly when the gravel slipped out from under my feet, but the blood made me feel a bit bad-ass.  As usual Serge, the program assistant, literally took care of everything, grabbing my knee and demonstrating how to wash it properly without wasting my drinking water too much.

Luic and I walked to the top of the “palais de congress” which has public fields and then a tall building at the top of a long row of stone steps. The view of Yaoundé was gorgeous, of course.

Then we walked back home and sat on the deck in the cool of the evening and talked French some more, while I held the baby of the family. Cameroon is a culture of sharing, and neighbors and friends share work and responsibility and parenting. Annie and Gella freely chastise and love the neighbor kids, no problem. I was changing the neighbor baby Onzo on the first day, and Annie has promised the other neighbor friend downstairs occasional free babysitting for her little one courtesy of me. Which I am genuinely totally cool with, more than that. I love babies and I love Africa babies (they tend to be pretty chill. Also beautiful) and I love integrating into the culture. Tonight, Annie and Gella borrowed my internet key (looks like a USB drive but it is plug in internet access you can pay for) because theirs’ ran out, and also my converter for the fridge after their converter broke.
 I love it because Cameroonians NEVER ask favors of temporary “guests,” but once you’re in the friend/family circle, sharing is just the way of life. I’m pretty thrilled to be becoming part of that circle. 

Ironic

February 1, 2014

My host “mom” is early thirties, a journalist, with impeccable English and impeccable fashion sense.  Quite frankly she is intimidatingly fabulous. My first day with my host family was basically a continued subversion of so many stereotypes about Africa and America.

My host mom is determined to help me taste Cameroonian culture, today she made me koki, a traditional dish, and she also plans on bringing me to her favorite nightclub. It’s not the first thing that came to mind when I thought “African culture.” I’ve been a college student near Albany, an ok sized city, for three years, but never in my life have I been to a nightclub.

There was this dude last semester who kept telling me that I needed to let my hair down and have some fun, and that we should go dancing, and I was like “Nightclubs are not my scene.” “What is your scene then,” he demanded, and I said Africa.

And now, because I am obsessed and focused on understanding and integrating into African culture as best I can (and also because I DO like to have fun, and occasionally my definition of fun and other people’s definition overlap) I am going to go clubbing, African style. It’s pretty ironic and I think it’s fabulous.

I’m loving the fact that my own expectations about Africa are being contradicted by Cameroon; the vibrancy and red dirt and warm smiles of Cameroon are very familiar from Mali, but the main difference I’ve noticed so far is how metropolitan Cameroon, (or Yaoundé at least) is. I first noticed it in the slightly superior tone of a Cameroonian ex-pat (we were best friends for ten minutes in the customs line at the airport) when we discussed the differences between Cameroon and Mali. The “big city” impression has grown since then, largely because, well, Yaoundé is a big city. With a population around 1.5 million, Yaoundé dwarfs anywhere I have ever lived (primarily Hoosick Falls and Siena, each at a solid 3 thousand population).

I am a small town girl in the big city and the unique flavor of this African city just makes that even cooler/stranger/more contradictory and interesting.  I frequently feel like a country bumpkin, particularly because we were instructed to bring very conservative clothes, and the incredible fashion sense of Cameroonians puts me to shame. Whether it’s traditional, elaborate embroidered dresses or Western jeans and heels, Cameroonian women rock the fashion world. I’ve never been super self-conscious about being fashionable, but walking around in a frumpy skirt and men’s t-shirt, I have clothing envy all the time.

And the education level of most of the Cameroonians I have interacted with so far puts me to shame. My host mom rattles on in the perfect English that is necessary for her job, and I feel like an idiot with my stumbling French.

But as out of place as I sometimes feel, at the back of my mind I love it for the ironic contradiction of so many American stereotypes of Africa. As far as normal Americans go, I am a little bit less clueless about Africa after going to Mali when I was 16 and being obsessed with Africa since 12.
But even so, I know nothing, and have everything to learn.

*Note: I did actually go to a nightclub. Maybe it's just Africa, but it could occasionally be my scene. 

la feminism and dinner table french

January 28^th.

Today is technically the first day of orientation, and I had an in depth conversation about feminism EN FRANCAIS. I’m pretty ecstatic about it. My French is terrible, the three A’s I’ve gotten in all my French classes lied because my listening comprehension and oral skills are shit. Throughout the last three days, I’ve already gotten used to the blank panicked feeling as people rattle on in French and I understand about 15%. But I think a big part of the problem is the blank panicked feeling. Tonight over dinner all seven of us SIT kids made a pact that we are going to only speak in French during meal-times, we can use English while hanging out but if we want to improve we need to practice together. I was like “oh dear” but agreed, and as we sat and laughed and each stumbled through French occasionally, I started to relax a little and have fun instead of viewing each French sentence as a test. At one point, Jeff (who is the only guy in the program) said something jokingly that had a tinge of sexism, and I laughed and said “Careful, I’m a feminist” (but in French as per the new dinner table rules). 

Suddenly that turned into an in depth discussion of “La Feminism” which mostly involved Serge (our program assistant, who incidentally studied minority and women’s studies at university), and Brittany and Jeff, who both have adequate (ie really good) French for the subject. I was really frustrated, because it was such a fascinating topic and I wanted desperately to hear Serge’s voluble Cameroonian perspective, and felt I was missing it all. But when they recapped in English for me, I found I’d already gathered many of the key points: that in Cameroon the role of mother is highly valued, that he thinks feminism means that for American women there are more roles that are considered valuable (ie are open to women), that there are some types of feminism that are radical:  "la femme la femme la femme!” and that feminism in the U.S., France and Cameroon are very different because culture influences what feminism is, and what types of feminist there are. I responded in broken French, and with some help, that I agreed, but that there are different types of feminist in the U.S. as well, and that  “A mon avis, la feminism ne signifie pas la femme est mieux l’homme, mais la feminism est égalité” (or something like that. My written French is worse than my spoken, and that’s saying a lot). “D’accord.” 

And then I couldn’t stop smiling from then until now because I was having a philosophical discussion (one of my favorite things) about feminism (one of my favorite things) with new friends in Africa (clearly one of my favorite things) all EN FRANCAIS.

Maybe I am actually smarter than I seem, and stronger than I think. 

embarrassment: get used to it

Within five minutes of starting my grand solo Africa adventure, I managed to completely humiliate myself, before I'd even gotten past customs at the Albany airport. Honestly, it was the perfect start to the trip though.
So I was of course really nervous about keeping my passport and tickets safe, and decided to lace the strap of my little passport bag under my shirt, “because,” I thought “no one will be able to get to it there.” I should have thought of the fact that “no one” included me. But of course I didn’t until 3 minutes into my adventure when the lady in customs said “I’ll need to see that, dear” and I realized that “that” was my passport bag, securely tucked away from all access under my shirt. I tried at first to switch the strap over my head and out through my shirt sleeve, trying desperately to be both quick and inconspicuous while my arms flailed around under my shirt. But that of course just made everything worse while the bag-strap got hopelessly tangled with my bra strap. Finally I sighed, and, right in the middle of the security line, took my shirt off.

Thank God I’d listened to the advice to layer while flying, and had a tank top on underneath (yeah, that mental image was getting too vivid). Tank top or no, I was still sufficiently flustered as I handed her my passport and they did the magic electronic scan of my body. After a few moments, she handed back my passport and reminded me gently “you can put your shirt back on.”
Oh, yeah.

I was pretty embarrassed, but honestly mostly just completely amused. I mean, can you see me? I can see me. It was like I was a spectator to my own…well, spectacle, and despite embarrassment I could recognize that it was freaking hilarious. In fact, I was rather glad that my parents, who’d stayed to wave to me one last time when I was through the customs barrier, had witnessed the whole thing.

Somehow it made me so much less nervous about the upcoming international flights, the next four months of living in a culture and speaking a language I am unfamiliar with. All of these unknowns that I have no experience with…of course I am going to royally and spectacularly fudge things up, frequently. It will be embarrassing. It will be hysterical. But making mistakes means you are doing something deeply and truly right, because you are doing something new, something challenging, something that will grow you.

The key is the ability to watch your own mistakes and laugh and love it.

 It's a skill I will be needing often. 

2014-2015 Life List

Life Lists: They're like bucket lists, but less morbid and more doable, because you give it a specific time-frame. Scribbled with my sisters while drinking tea a week ago, this year's is pretty exciting.

• go to Africa
• have red West African dirt caked to my feet again
• travel internationally, on my lonesome (the international part comes in 2 hours. WHAT)
• speak only French for a full day
• go to an African dance party
• find an African church to go to
• make dinner with my host mom(s)
• buy something in a Cameroonian marketplace on my own, without a translator 
• take a taxi for the first time (location optional: Africa, Paris, USA) 
• ...swim in the Mediterranean 
• order Cafe au Lait...in a cafe in Paris
• also, eat baguettes and pain au chocolat in Paris
• did I mention, see Paris? 
• buy a scarf of a summer dress..something so I can say casually "oh yeah, I got it in Paris" 
• play soccer with African kiddos every chance I get
• learn to take good photos...aka at least one I am very proud/vain of, because good is subjective and I have too many photographer friends
• make fabulous French press coffee, without having to call for Mom's help
• have a real grown-up internship
• perks if it's anti-trafficking 
• buy a silver (African) ring that fits my lonely, too fat for all my rings, pointer finger
•  dance at midnight to 22 as I turn 22
• throw a 12 dancing princesses evening party, and dance in flow-y dresses with a bonfire and flowers in my hair
• have a townhouse (hopefully) with a KITCHEN 
• bake challah and make all my friends delightfully and happily fat, but mostly me
• dance rave in my kitchen all the time
• focus on joy senior year...and people 

leaving

It's funny how the thing you want most in the world can also be what terrifies you most.

And it's funny because it's been this way since I was 12, and you'd think I would be used to it by now. I've desperately want to move to Africa since I was 12 and I've dreaded it every second. The downside of knowing that I wanted to move across the world was living with a bunch of goodbyes over my head, looming on the horizon. I fly out to study abroad in Cameroon in 12 days; I'm not ready for the goodbye. And for a girl in love with her family, who wants nothing more than to bake cookies with her mom and stay right here, four months on a different continent is a long time. But relatively, it's a little taste-test to see if this, Africa, is really truly it. After my two week trip to Mali when I was sixteen, I'm still hungry for red dirt, barefoot soccer and the beauty of people who laugh in the face of hellish poverty and suffering. Mali broke my heart and stole it too, and I'm hungry for that again, but frankly I'm terrified too.

 Part of the nerves are familiar from before Mali- I've wanted it for so long, that one of the biggest fears is getting there and realizing it isn't for me, that I was wrong about my life calling. Being known as the social justice girl who's obsessed with Africa is sort of like an overly showy relationship--what if it doesn't work out? There's a certain social expectation entailed by being openly in love, before you've really proved the relationship. I was terrified that it wasn't the "real deal" before going to Mali, and in answer just fell in love with the country and the people. But Cameroon's for a lot longer, and this time I won't be with family. I didn't really experience culture shock when I went to Mali, I loved every second of it (my culture shock coming back to the U.S. was much worse). Having my dad travel to Mali with me was a big part of that, I wasn't homesick because Dad brought home with him, I was safe.

But this time, the goodbye is a lot more real, and the real taste-test of (hopefully) the rest of my life in Africa, away from my family, is about to begin.

I don't really know how to live without these people. I count myself lucky that I have great friends and people who like me at college, only an hour away from home, because I have yet to fully figure out how to be myself without my family, without kitchen floor conversations about feminism and our souls, perpetual eating, bedtime stories with the littles, Sabbath dinners and challah dough between my hands. I'm only me when I'm with you at the top of my lungs dancing with my sisters in our living room, and it's our song because it's quite simply truth.

I guess I am praying that I will forgive myself for leaving, not just for this four months, but another two after that (another story), and eventually for as much of my life as God decides and clues me in on.

I'm praying that everything my family is, security, anger at injustice, passion and hope and dog-eared Bibles and a burning desire to love people and love God, that these people and these things that have shaped me are so well and truly in me that I will carry them with me as I hurtle into my future.

names we're given: beloved

Fall torches the hills 

orange and gold

speed shakes up through my feet

creation shouts 

with the voice of glory

"beloved." 

Curled up in the back seat, speeding home from my cousin's wedding, nose pressed against the glass drinking in the beauty.  "Holy Baptism and Contemporary Theology" by Herbert Vorgrimler, due for the class I didn't actually want to get back in time for, lay open on my lap, and I'm nerding out scrawling poems in the margins of my religious studies readings. 

For some reason, I really love this moment. I think I'm embracing the fact that I'm that nerd girl, scribbling fragmented sentences left over from the poems that occasionally hit me in the margins of my theology readings, teary eyed because God is just that beautiful. Also because I love roadtrips and speed and being with people I love, the coffee cup in my hand and the sweater cozy as I curled up. 

But the thing I truly love about that moment is that fact that I am learning to think of myself as beloved. I have struggled so much with my self-understanding, with how I identified at the core of who I am. And it is a beautiful miracle and I want to sing when I see what God has done, the change he's making in my heart. For so long the names I identified as were inadequate, flawed, unlovable, these whispers of hate and fear that I listened to over God's life shout of love. And I finally just begged him, around two years ago, to fight for my heart. 

And he did. And slowly and surely I have come to hear, see and touch his love, poured out in sunlight on water, in coffee cups and conversations with people who know my soul, in their love and their words of grace speaking God's great grace into my hungry heart, in fall leaves blazing scarlet and 730 graces counted, the mundane miraculous gifts that scream his love. And counting and hunting for these instances of his love has opened my eyes, and I count and count and how could all this love be for me? And how can I deny or talk down the power of this love? 

This love is redefining me. And I love that moment, the nerd girl curled up scribbling poetry, because her heart was singing with the love of God. Because this miracle where I'm not listening to the lies anymore, and I can finally hear behind all the grace and beauty God's voice, calling me, naming me, defining me.  Beloved. 

Daily bread

Sometimes I wish there was a way to store joy, so I could hide away the smell of fall leaves, wind in my hair rushing through the countryside, dancing in my kitchen, the feeling of being known and loved anyway, save all this abundance of joy for days when it's harder to find. I'm home again, for a brief stint of grace-filled, grace abundant days and it's too short. And I'm back to school tomorrow, which I love but which wears me down with busy-ness, with too little room in my calendar and too much caring, too many causes. But the thing about this semester, which is somehow the hardest and the best I've had, is that I'm slowly learning the meaning of daily bread, that grace is for today, enough for today and not tomorrow.
I keep chanting "give us today our daily bread." And that bread is the daily grace that gets me through, the long list of everyday kindnesses showered on me, the pages and pages of numbered gifts in my gratitude journal, the fact that I fall into bed exhausted but fulfilled each night. Daily bread, Jesus' reminder of God's faithfulness in the desert wandering. Bread from heaven every morning, and Friday's enough for two, gathering for Sabbath. But most days we're forbidden to gather double, and I don't think that's because God likes rules, but because that is how grace works. Enough for today, and not tomorrow.
And worry is wormy manna, the sour taste of fear, hands clutching for control. When I try to gather for tomorrow, store up joys in fear of dry seasons I know will come, they turn wormy in my hands and I clutch at memories and compare the now to the past, which is always rosier in remembering. I cannot taste tomorrow's grace because it is today.  
And this is the character of God, and this is learning trust. I'll number my overflowing list of graces tonight, and without fail there will be more tomorrow morning, enough to get me through. And more than just through, enough to give me joy. Because that is God and God is good. I'll taste tonight's graces, full to bursting with joy (literally full to bursting with home-cooked goodness) and know that tomorrow I will taste the goodness of the Lord again. 

seeing me

Thinking about the days when my self image was at its very worst, and the long redemptive road to now, where it's day by day but overall good, I realized something important, about something important I'd had to learn.
Convoluted, I know. I'll break it down, 'cause I like over-analyzing things.
The thing I had to learn was to step back from focusing on flaws, and smile at my reflection instead.
This simple step was incredibly hard. but deeply profound.
And the other day I realized another layer of why it works, why it was so helpful.
In my dark days, I could never see any prettiness in me. I could vaguely see that other people saw it-beauty-in me, and so subconsciously there was this bit of hope, that maybe it was there. But I didn't see it.
And I had to slowly learn to change the way I looked at myself. Metaphorically and spiritually, definitely. But, as I already noted, a huge part of that was changing the way I actually physically looked at myself.
Other people looking at me saw prettiness, some something attractive, either on just a physical level but probably also on an emotional/spiritual level, my real me-ness that makes anybody want to talk to me for more than 5 minutes, be my friend, what have you. But I couldn't see it, and what was with that?
When I looked into the mirror, I saw a person who looked out with gleeful criticism, jumping on every flaw, every pimple, anything and everything that could ever be construed as a flaw. I looked at a person who looked out with disappointment and self-loathing.
But how did I look to someone else? They saw prettiness, and no wonder, because they saw someone who laughed a lot, and smiles at people even more, who gets really passionate and excited about important things, who tries, to the best of her small ability, to look out at everyone (almost) with grace in her eyes. Grace to know you, like you, give you the benefit of the doubt and focus on the good in you.
So I think people thought I was "pretty" because 1) I am actually fairly pretty in just an arbitrary-scale way (the scale is dumb and I reject it wholesale, but that's another post) and 2) I looked at them with grace and liking.
If I'd looked at them the way I looked at me, they too would have soon become convinced that I was highly unattractive, in fact a disgusting person. Because I would have been all up in their face, literally examining them critically from 2 inches away, crowing maliciously over every flaw they had, and a few extra I could make up and convince them they had. I would have stared at them with condemnation, and they would have hated me with a self-protective rage to defend from the inadequacy I made them feel.  Insecurity giving rise to dislike and their dislike translating into the belief that I was physically ugly because they felt ugly emotions around me. Because our emotions are so entwined with how we perceive people, the way they make us feel.
And aside from an arbitrary out there "scale" defining prettiness, I think this is why people could see "prettiness," beauty in me when I couldn't. I'm certainly not perfect, but overall I like people, I love the image of God in them, I try to extend grace. It's this strange circular thing, seeing beauty in others and them responding to the beauty in you, the opposite of the vicious cycle of seeing ugly-creating ugly.
And I had to break that cycle, take a physical, tangible step back, and smile my warmest, smile with joy and love behind it, laughter and grace extended. So that I saw in the mirror not a girl who extended grace to (almost) everyone, but everyone.
Including me.

Sabbath Semester: Day 1-The Rules of the Game and Shabbat Shalom

Today is the very first day of my Sabbath Semester Challenge. I slept in late, Saga sat over breakfast and had a true heart-to-heart with dear friends, two old and one brand new made over coffee five minutes before.
I'm doing this thing that I'm calling Sabbath Semester, where I do no academic work from Friday to Saturday night, because I'm not happy with how I have been living in my college world thus far. I have an incredible life, I have two jobs I love, and so many dear-heart friends, but still, it's been two years of the college world and I've still never felt like things were quite right. It's like the wholest, realest me only fully comes out when I am home, and to an extent I've realized that will probably always be true, and it's ok. But I still want to be living whole-hearted, centered from who I am, wherever I am.
And this crazy thing I am calling Sabbath Semester just might be the key to that whole life I want.
Sabbath is something I grew up on, a tradition my quirky Evangelical Christian family took up when we realized Sunday is never really a day of rest for Pastor's families, and when we remembered, some fifteen odd years ago, that our goal as Christians is to be as much like Jesus as possible, and he was Jewish. So we started doing a lot of Jewish things, and found an incredible amount of blessing in the Old Testament Commandments we mostly forget about as Christians.
I started out, some fifteen years ago, a little girl with Hebrew words guttural and strange in the back of my throat. And then Sabbath became something that defined my family and defined me. Sabbath is melting candles and long conversations, family time with Handel's Messiah in the background, trying to eliminate distractions of work and business and focus on us, together, and the God we love.
Despite how much Sabbath shaped me, I didn't really consider observing Sabbath when I came to school. There was just so MUCH to do. It was impractical and impracticable in this new world of stress and deadlines and proving myself, and I didn't truly consider it.
But I'm reconsidering, because in a world of deadlines and always overextending myself so I am not quite the self I want to be, it is just what I need. Because Shabbat Shalom is not just a phrase, it is everything that Sabbath is. Shalom, the Hebrew greeting meaning peace, is not just peace; it is health, harmony, rest, soundness and wholeness. It is the whole life, soul-centered living flowing out of who I am, who God is. I live harried, I live hurried and fast, and Shabbat Shalom, slowing, is what I need.
So here are the rules.
1) I will do no academic work from Friday night after dinner to Saturday night after dinner.
I was really worried about this, frantic voice in my head asking how I would get everything done. But honestly, I've practically been observing Sabbath already, vowing to get work done tomorrow on Friday but so exhausted by Saturday that I'd lay in bed and pinterest all day instead. But with it came guilt at not getting anything done, because I was never giving myself permission to just rest. Sabbath is permission from God to just rest. To just relax and trust he'll give me the strength and skill to honor him with my days and in my commitments, but for now just to be a human and enjoy being alive.
2) I will use this time of rest to focus on God and people, which Sabbath is all about.
This means it's not just permission to lay in bed and pinterest every Saturday. I want to be intentional. Sabbath days I want to journal, read my Bible, pray and take long walks and think and pray more. Do some yoga, drink some tea, and then connect connect connect with people. I want to be intentional to make plans with people, share Sabbath as much as I can. Last night I invaded my friend Bev's townhouse, and we broke challah bread I'd brought from home, drank apple juice as a wine replacement, and and I stumbled through the Hebrew blessings without my family's voices with me. My lovely roommate came, and we talked long and sleepy and it was lovely.
3) I can do reading homework on Saturdays, if I am bored and I enjoy the readings (aka my African history readings). Basically, before I do anything on Sabbath, I need to ask "Does this activity give me life, or steal my joy?" That sounds dramatic, but math homework? Not every allowed to be part of Sabbath, because it steals my soul.
4) It's allowed to be flexible. I can re-arrange the days, rest on Sunday, etc, whatever, even do a little bit of work  if I talk with God and he's cool with it before hand. Sabbath Semester is not about legalism, because obedience to God is not ever about legalism, it's about blessing. His commands are good: Eat good food, talk long with your family and people you love, talk to me and relax. Experience my Shalom peace. Wholeness, rest, soul connection.

Start living it.

Challah

Dear World. Here is a recipe for happiness. You're welcome.

3/4 cup water, warm
3 tablespoons butter, melted
3 eggs, whipped
1/3 to 1/2 cup sugar, depending on how sweet you like it
1 tsp salt
4 cups flour
1 tablespoon yeast

If you have a bread machine, dump all these ingredients in the mixer (put the yeast in a hollowed out hole in the flour so it doesn't get wet if you want to used timed-start), put on the dough cycle, and let it all mix and rise. Also skip this next section.

If you don't have a bread machine, mix warm water, yeast, and an additional tsp of sugar in a separate bowl to foam and rise. In large bowl or kitchen aid, mix butter, eggs, sugar, and salt. Slowly add in the flour, 1/2 at a time, alternating with the foamed yeast/water mixture. If using a kitchen aid, you can switch to the dough hook after adding the first two cups of flour. Mix almost all of the last cup of flour in, but reserve some (probably about 1/3 cup or 1/4, I'm actually not sure because I never make less than a triple batch of dough when making it by hand) to flour your counter with and kneed in by hand. Kneed in that last but of flour until the dough has a smooth, elastic feel. Set in greased bowl and cover with a dish cloth, to rise until doubled.

Now both our bread machine/by hand peeps join up again. When it's risen, kneed on a floured surface for a few minutes to kneed out air hole pockets. Divide in half and cut them into either 3 or 4 strands, depending on the braid you're using (or more strands, if you wanna get really fancy) Let the pieces set for five minutes, then roll them into long "snakes" and braid. Put both loaves on a greased cookie sheet, and let rise till doubled.  Brush with 1 egg yolk mixed with about 1 tablespoon of water (pastry brushes are your friend, paint brushes not so much) to make a lovely shiny glaze. Bake at 375 for 8 minutes, cover loosely with foil, and bake for another 8 minutes.

Let cool on baking racks or a wooden serving plate (if you leave it on the baking sheet too long the bottom gets gummy, it's gross), for about 10 minutes or so, but you should probably eat it warm. Gwen would tell you that it's better still-fresh-but-not-warm, but she would be wrong. Tear off large chunks,* lather in butter, and enjoy!

*This step is highly important. Whatever you do, do NOT cut challah. 1) it tastes better torn (it's a scientific fact, practically. Anyone with halfway decent taste buds agrees) 2) Cutting it goes against the Jewish tradition, based on prophecy that swords will be turned into plowshares (Isaiah 2:4) 3) IT'S SACRILEGE. It just goes against all the sacred rules of challah, ok?

Thomas, called Didymus

Better known as doubting Thomas, he's gone down in history with infamy, three years of following Jesus, walking covered in his dust so close behind, all erased by a moment of doubt. But I wonder if his sin is not the one we think it is. Doubting Thomas, cold, analytic, demanding proof, the scars and living skin to touch before he could believe. The ultimate skeptic.
But what if that was not his sin?
Three years. His Savior, friend, the man he'd left everything to follow, the man who gave meaning to his life, ripped away.
How often, when grieving, is cold rationality our first recourse? If we do run to rationality, isn't it a kind of refugee? Fleeing to unfeeling scientific sterility of emotion to numb pain, to hide from further hurt?
Because hope always, always, is a risk. To long for anything is to open oneself to disappointment--and the deeper and more desperate the hope the more horrific the hurt.
I doubt that Thomas was a doubter--that was not his sin. He was a man broken and terrified. Terrified to believe the joy in the other disciples' eyes. After believing Jesus was Messiah, son of God, God himself made man, and then the cross, what was Thomas to believe but that God was dead? And that left nothing but darkness, a world of chaos. Hope offered an escape from that prison camp world, but to hope only to have the door slammed again in his face, surely what would kill him.
I have a sin of fear. Maybe that was his sin.
But is it any wonder he smothered hope? The only thing left that could hurt him worse than he'd already been wounded?
Who are we to cast stones? What miracles do we miss because we will not open our hearts to the hurt that hope risks? We dream small, puny dreams, live small, puny lives because the bigger the dream the greater the risk and too often we are cowards. Hoping hurts. So we smother it to shield ourselves.
What was it Jesus said to Thomas when he'd touched his scars? Because you have seen me, you believe; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.
Isn't that us? We have a chance to be those who have not seen, but believe. In a world that can still seem like a prison camp, we have a chance to hope for more, and in hoping, fight to create. It's not as much a matter of overcoming intellectual skepticism as emotional terror--fear we'll be hurt, fear we'll fight for nothing. We are cowards afraid to believe in redemption, but only by believing do we experience it.
We need to hold on hope, risk the hurt it taunts, and believe in the redemption that is in the hands of the scarred Savior we cannot see.
I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms. -Ephesians 1:18-20 

taking boys out of the equation

We need to take boys out of the equation, the discourse of modesty and sexual purity directed at girls in the church. The books, the survey's of teen guys about what was attractive or "tempting" to them, the lectures and seminars, blog posts and even the messages teen girls sent each other, peer-to-peer, the "modest is hottest" culture, they all hinted at it: the objective of being modest was to guard the purity of our brothers in Christ. Oh, and to honor God.
The whole framing of the modesty issue left me feeling that way--that guys, not God, were the focus. Too much of the conversation was dominated by protecting our  brothers' purity, making their battle with lust easier and not being a "stumbling block." The issues this spawns are numerous,  not the least being the fact that it sexually objectifies the female body as surely as the hyper-sexualized "wordly" attitudes; can lead to eating disorders and self harm, entirely ignores the fact that women can also lust (shocker) and, taken to the extreme, burdens women with the weight of male responsibility, holding women and their bodies accountable for the thought life of men.
In my life, I was blessed to have men who didn't surrender their accountability and foist it on me, but rather approached lust as a sin issue/spiritual battle that I could be instrumental in making easier for them. I'm grateful for this, and beyond the "Christianese" I genuinely cared about the young men in my life, and understanding each other as a soul in love with God made them my brothers in a very deep, real sense. Sacrificing some cute outfits to help them focus on God and not my boobs during youth group was something I could cheerfully do. In the years since, I've heard one of my closest guy friends from high school thank the girls in our circle of friends for how we dressed, and said that it was a blessing in his life. He thanked us for learning about God and life and girls from our friendships, and it was beautiful to hear.
It was especially life-giving to hear because there was frustration and hurt in my heart, remnants of the modesty-culture and discourse. Being a Youngmann girl, I finished developing at the age of 12, which meant I'd been on the frustrating search to "dress modestly" from a very young age. Frustrations range from: finding a bathing suit that is a) not a bikini, and b) not disgusting, I found-this-in-my-grandma's-closet-esque, to internalizing the "modest is hottest" message so that modesty, ironically, became just another way to attract guys, to only be disillusioned, frustrated and fed-up when the "righteous" young men we were making all these sacrifices for didn't seem to notice, and instead of appreciating our virtue chased after all the bikini-clad girls. (note: this is not meant to be shaming for people who make other clothing choices, this was the frustration of a 12 year old too early burdened with the mixed messages of a confusing conservative idealogy).
By the age of 13, before I could even articulate it, I was frustrated and fed-up with the fact that modesty culture casts women as temptresses and men as animals. This all came to a head one day when  I had to reject yet another adorable outfit because the skirt passed the arm test (length longer than the tips of your fingers) but not by enough to be truly modest. I proceeded to have a hissy-fit.
I started throwing the adorable too-short skirt repeatedly at the ground, with all the violence I could muster. "I am SICK of it! I'll never get to wear these AWESOME outfits that I look AWESOME in, and no one will ever know how AWESOME I can look because teen guys are gross, lusting animals!"
You get the picture.
My central conclusion was, and is, that guys aren't worth it. Not worth the bother, the headache, the lie that a woman's body is sinful, should be hidden...the heartache.
But that day as a frustrated girl, barely a teen, throwing a fit, I realized what has defined my understanding of modestly ever since: It wasn't about guys or for guys, and it never had been.
I asked myself, who are you doing this for? The answer was, God, always.
Modesty is something I choose, something I want to always remain committed to because God has called me to it and I want to obey. Because it is my spiritual, intimate act of worship to the only guy who is worth it, Jesus. Because the Bible urges "brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercy, offer your bodies as a living sacrifice to God--this is your true and proper worship." (NIV, 2009) Romans 12:1. It is between me and God. It is worship, it is an expression of my spiritual, independent choice, it is an act of love for the God I love. It builds spiritual muscles as I submit my day-to-day choices to God, as I develop discernment, and if my clothing choice is right between my spirit and the Holy Spirit, then I have done my duty and what goes on in someone else's mind is simply not my issue.
I had to take boys out of the equation for modesty to be something other than a thankless, guilt-ridden burden. If men are blessed by modesty, that is wonderful and I am glad, but that is a side effect, a perk to personally honoring God, not the end goal. It's a perk that he planned, I am sure, but the goal is God, not the mental state of our brothers in Christ, however much we love them. Modesty is an act of worship, and the object of worship in the modesty discourse in the Christian community needs to be reinstated as God. Otherwise we end up worshiping failed human beings, men and boys whose minds we can never control, and who we should not uplift as idols or denigrate as animals.We end with broken, burdened women and shame-filled hearts for beauty that should be, is, a joy.
Let's worship the one who is worthy.