A shout out to my wonderfully unconventional youth group

Generally, when I hear the words "youth group," what comes to mind is lots of Kumbayaa-ing around a fire pit, a series of nonsensical group games involving whipped cream and paper bags, and a lesson that inevitably leads us all to repent of our weekly failings and draw closer to God.

So when my church asked Joe and I if we'd be youth group leaders, I had to seriously pause.

My parents were my youth group leaders when I was growing up, and they were always full of energy and earnest about their roles.

But in this era of postfeminist thinking, I had to re-evaluate what my approach youth group might look like. I decided that I'm anti-indoctrination, anti-God-as-father-but-not-as-mother, anti-religion-as-excuse-to-sit-back-and-wait-for-heaven, etc. You get the picture. So what's a feminist youth group leader to do?

Fortunately, I'd found this superbly crazy church family at Central Baptist Church, so I had nothing to worry about. (Don't let the Baptist fool you -- these guys and gals are into social justice, changing the world, serving the poor, welcoming the LGBT community, etc.)

At this weekend's annual youth retreat, we had the requisite group games and singing, but we also journaled, played with modeling clay, made up rhythmic chants as prayers, and painted.

My favorite activity this weekend came when one of the leaders asked the youth to create a craft project that reminded them of God. One kid drew an awesome picture of a muscular guy with tattoos. "I think God sits on a big couch up there with a high-def TV, making sure we're all doing alright," he said.

When someone asked him about God's tattoos, this kid said matter-of-factly, "Oh, isn't it obvious? God's been in the Navy."

I cracked up.

Then, another youth member said that God, to her, was a woman.

The kid sitting next to me read me his "Letter to God." It said:
God, please watch over us. You are a light saber. May the force be with you.
Another made a banner out of purple glitter that said "God is da bomb."

Unconventional? You bet. But what's wonderful about these youth is that they view God as this great creative being, as one who lives beyond rigid gender roles and can be man, woman, light saber and purple glitter all at the same time.

In short, I love each and every one of these youth for their quirky creativity. I love that they are all reflections of a God that I can believe in -- one who is full of love, joy, and endless, genderless possibilities.

Green feminists

Today, I'm giving away Gender Lens' first ever GREEN AWARD to myself for carpooling and taking public transportation to work. (Ok, so it's not exactly ethical for the judge to choose herself for an award, but hey, somebody's gotta get things started here.)

Last year, because of Joe's job, I had to drive 2 1/2 hours each way to work. Yuck. Now, I feel like this carpooling/train-riding is a bit of my penance for the havoc I reaked on the environment (and myself) for being in the car so long.

It's also quite fun. Talking to my carpooling buddy on the way to work at 6 AM makes me a little less bleary-eyed when I face a classroom full of students. And riding the train in the afternoon allows me to hop off at the Reading Terminal Market for some fresh produce or a canoli. All without the burden of contributing (as heavily) to greenhouse gases. Really, what could be better than that?

I will be accepting nominations for future green awards via email and/or Facebook, so feel free to drop me a line. Sharing your green ideas can help others envision new ways to be green. (Which means, ahem, that helping others is the only real "reward" at this time. Maybe one day I will have million dollar greenly sponsors on this blog and can actually give you a cool gift certificate. Until now, deal.)

So what does joining this new fad of greening have to do with feminism? Well, feminists have been saying for years that injustices are inextricably linked. For instance, consider the startling statistic that 2/3 of the world's poor are women. This injustice is due to multiple factors, including gender oppression, class and race inequality, economic factors, and, yes, the environment too.

Consider, for instance, the ways that global warming has affected a country like Bangladesh. The change in climate patterns has caused excess flooding, taking out homes and crops, and making fresh water ponds unfit to drink.

This burden of poverty typically falls on women, who are in many cases the primary caretakers of the family. Sometimes it's hard to see how our individual actions here in the U.S. have much consequence for women abroad, but consider this:
"Although Americans represent 5 percent of the world's population, U.S. transportation sources contribute 45 percent of the world's emission of carbon dioxide, according to a report by the nonprofit group Environmental Defense."

So GO GREEN and share your GREEN ideas with the rest of us.

It's your night

On Friday night, my partner and I took a class together at the Viking Cooking School. Joe is really into culinary experimentation, and I'm really into eating whatever it is he whips up, so this seemed like a good move for us.

We enjoyed ourselves quite a bit and ended up with a mean lobster-mushroom risotto, lamb chops, and a freaking yummy pound cake dessert parfait thing. (Hey Paula, if you're reading this, now we have a recipe for your yummy leftover pound cake! And to Cathleen or any of my other vegetarian friends: I'm sorry about the lamb.)

The moment of gender perplexity in this scenario occurred early in the evening when the chef was giving us instructions. He explained that there were two prep stations, while there were six of us, so we needed to work together in whatever arrangement was preferable. Then he turned to me and said, "Whatever set-up makes you happy. This is your night, and I want you to be happy."

Well, here's the thing. It wasn't really my night at all. Not even close. This was Joe's bread and butter. I was just along for the culinary ride.

I blinked a few times and remembered when I had heard that phrase before...three years ago, when I got married. I can't tell you how many people told me that the wedding was "my day," and I should do whatever I needed to do in order to make it perfect.

Uh, what about the other half of this celebration? I often wondered out loud. I'm not exactly getting married to myself here.

So as the chef stood there grinning at me, I couldn't help wondering something similar.

"This isn't my night." I said matter-of-factly.

His face began to twitch a little. This was not the culturally-conditioned response.

I tried again. "It's actually his night," I said, gesturing at Joe.

He tried to collect himself, and his grin got a little more uncertain, a little more forced. "Whatever makes you happy," he replied tersely.

Joe and I tied our own apron strings, smiled to ourselves, and began to chop some serious shallots.

Oprah: Feminist Theologian??

This past weekend, a small sliver of a dream came true for me. I got the chance to see Oprah.

No, I didn't land free tickets to her show or open my front door in my jammies to see her camera crew there waiting to whisk me off to Neverland.

Instead, my partner and I went to hear her speak in Steadman's hometown of Whitesboro, NJ to a small crowd of 500 people. (In fact, all pics in this entry are c/o my partner Joe You rock, babe.)

And she was everything I hoped she'd be: confident, funny, motivating, emotionally moving, and theological.

Yes, theological. And not only that, her stories reflected a theology that empowered women, something we don't always encounter in churches these days.

Oprah told the story of how she had auditioned for the movie The Color Purple and then heard nothing about the part for weeks. She couldn't remember wanting anything more.

Then Joan Rivers called her "fat" on national television, and Oprah vowed to visit a fat camp. She was running on the track, feeling sorry for herself, when she realized that she needed to "give everything to God," the movie role, her anxiety over it...everything.

As she walked off the track, she felt relieved.

Just then, a woman in a purple coat came running towards her, telling her that Steven Spielberg was on the phone. She'd gotten the part.

Now, this post is not meant to be a lesson in prosperity theology. Instead, what I found interesting in Oprah's talk were the ways that she reclaimed religious language in an almost feminist way.

I expected her to sermonize about how important it is that we [as women] give up control of our lives to God. This is a fairly typical viewpoint in Christian theology. In fact, there are numerous worship songs that are popular in churches today with lines like "less of me; more of You," "I decrease so He increases," etc.

The problem with this theology, particularly for women, is that it encourages us to literally become less of ourselves. For some women, this can manifest itself, quite literally, in anorexia. For others, it appears in a quiet meekness, a hesitancy about ourselves, an overall lack of self-confidence, or worse, a deep manifestation of self-loathing.

In truth, if we become nothing, we remain nothing. God is a God who works through responsive, active human beings. Consequently, I believe that when we become more of our true selves, we embrace God's transformational power. When we love ourselves, we are able to love others. When we love what God has created in us, we are more able to create positive change in the world.

And this is essentially what Oprah told the crowd. When she let go of the Color Purple role and gave it up to God, she was saying, "I've done my part. Now it is up to the universe." She didn't say, "I became nothing, so that God could be something."

She didn't discredit the importance of her own agency in this process. In fact, she said that she never would have gotten the part had she not practiced, auditioned, and made the follow-up phone call.

This is so different from the author friend of mine, who, when she got offered an incredible 2-book deal from her publisher said to me, "Well, I didn't do anything. It was all God."

Now let me be clear. I'm not against giving God credit. I just think it's important that we, as women, recognize the vital importance of our human agency in creating positive change in the world.

Oprah puts it this way: "Every morning, I pray that God will show me how I can do something greater than myself."

VOTE!

Ok, so while my latest post on Barack Obama might slightly influence your decision, I'm curious to see what my readers think about the presidential candidates and their feminism (or lack thereof). So let me know your thoughts by taking my little quiz.

Feel free to also leave comments here as to why you chose what you chose.

And don't forget that regardless of your party affinity, it's important to actualize your right to VOTE on November 4th.

Time to change the lawn signs, Mom

It's hard to believe, but in 2004, my mother (think: church-going feminist matriarch in small town) was a staunch George W. Bush advocate.

I couldn't believe it myself, but when I returned home to visit the fam one weekend that year, I was bowled over by a collection of what I've not-so-affectionately begun to call "Bushy" lawn signs in my parents' front yard.

Her affinity for the Republican party didn't stop there. She also became an official "Bushy" representative for her church, and she's received a Christmas card from the Bushies ever since.

But this was all before Barack Obama's inspired speech this week, in which he accepted the Democratic party's nomination for president. Here is a selection of the furtive text messages I received from my mother throughout his 42 minute speech (which, honestly, was so gripping that it felt like 5 minutes):

are you watching. You are making a democrat out of me
You have to admit that i can keep an open mind. I am loving this! I love that he is young and enthusiastic! I adore his wife. Love that his mom made him study at early hours of am. Sound familiar? I even like joe biden and his wife. Am I turning into a liberal? Love this!!!

So my dear Republican mother is a convert, as are many previously-Republican women this election. Some of the reasons are those my mother stated in her texts: Obama is visionary, easy to relate to, and dedicated to social change.

But I also wonder if women are supporting him this election because, like many previous candidates, he doesn't just sweep women's issues under the rug. Consider his recent speech. In 42 minutes, he mentioned the following key issues for women:
1. Equal pay for equal work. The glass ceiling is still a reality for many women today. Women still make 76.5% of what men make.
2. Women's reproductive decisions. Many feminists believe that a woman's right to choose what to do with an unplanned pregnancy is an important right for women to possess. I happen to be pro-choice but anti-abortion, meaning that I believe that women should have the right to make their own decisions in regard to their pregnancies, but I personally believe that abortion is not often the best moral/physical/emotional decision. Obama's commentary on this issue was great because he acknowledged that both sides of the debate can come together and work towards preventing unwanted pregnancies in the first place. While some feminists might say that he didn't go far enough, I'd commend him for bringing up such an important topic in such a vital and visible speech.
3. Rights for gay and lesbian couples. While skirting the issue of gay marriage, Obama had this to say: "I know there are differences on same-sex marriage, but surely we can agree that our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters deserve to visit the person they love in the hospital and to live lives free of discrimination." Again, while some feminists would have liked to have seen him articulate a clearer stance on the issue, it's certainly groundbreaking for a candidate to so confidently mention gay and lesbian issues in his nationally-televised nomination speech.

What's refreshingly encouraging to me about Obama is that he's made women's issues visible to America. In fact, he's taken them out of the realm of "women's issues" and made them American issues. Finally, we have a candidate who isn't afraid to acknowledge that gender discrimination is still a reality in the U.S.

So, Mom, I guess it's finally time for you to change your lawn signs. :)

Keep going

If you missed Hillary Clinton's speech last night at the Democratic National Convention, you should thank your lucky stars for YouTube. These words that will most certainly go down in history brought Bill Clinton, myself, and countless others to tears. OK, I know you're thinking that Bill and I are just saps when it comes to this kind of thing, but take a look for yourself at my favorite 3 minutes of Hillary Clinton's moving speech:



You can read the text here. Even if you're not a Clinton supporter, Hillary has become a symbol of women's progress in this country. Granted, it seems a little crazy that it took us until the 2000's to have a female presidential candidate, but here we are...finally.

I'll leave you with some of her prophetic words. (Don't worry. Bill and I won't tell anyone if you shed a tear):

I'm a United States Senator because in 1848 a group of courageous women and a few brave men gathered in Seneca Falls, New York, many traveling for days and nights, to participate in the first convention on women's rights in our history.

[By the way, for a brilliant account of this fight for the vote, check out the film Iron-Jawed Angels, starring another Hilary (Swank).]

And so dawned a struggle for the right to vote that would last 72 years, handed down by mother to daughter to granddaughter -- and a few sons and grandsons along the way.

These women and men looked into their daughters' eyes and imagined a fairer and freer world, and found the strength to fight. To rally and picket. To endure ridicule and harassment and brave violence and jail.

And after so many decades -- 88 years ago on this very day -- the 19th amendment giving women the right to vote became enshrined in our Constitution.

My mother was born before women could vote. My daughter got to vote for her mother for president.

This is the story of women and men who defy the odds and never give up. How do we give this country back to them?

By following the example of a brave New Yorker , a woman who risked her life to bring slaves along the Underground Railroad.

On that path to freedom, Harriet Tubman had one piece of advice.

If you hear the dogs, keep going. If you see the torches in the woods, keep going.

If they're shouting after you, keep going.

Don't ever stop. Keep going.

If you want a taste of freedom, keep going.

And even in the darkest of moments, that is what Americans have done. We have found the faith to keep going.