Hands are for... Proverbs 31:19-20

In her hand she holds the the distaff

and grasps the spindle with her fingers

She opens her arms to the poor

and extends her hand to the needy

Whack! and one child has hit the other yet again. Time out's ensue and then I restate that hands are not for hitting and I ask what are hand's for? We come up with a well rehersed and ever longer list. Hands are for stroking, hugging, eating, making, drawing, cleaning, washing, helping, sharing etc.

I think a lot about what we do with our hands. Hands can function as a really powerful image of our humanity. Just as our tongs can build up or destroy our choice of what to do with our hands is often about building up or knocking down. 

We lose something of the poetry in our translations. My commentary would suggest the Hebrew is structured in a way so that the woman's hands are the central image.

Her hands she extends to the doubling spindle,

            Her palms grasp the spindle.

            Her palm spreads out to the poor,

Her hands she extends to the needy.

So her economic productivity benefits not only her but the wider community. She is not content to ensure the security of her own family but seeks to extend the benefit of her security to those for whatever reason are not able to provide for themselves. 

Jesus said that we will always have the poor with us. The question then is how do we respond if we find our self in a place of material security? Do we build fences, shore up, pursue profit for profits sake, do we look for who to blame for poverty? Or like this women do we simply extend our hands in love and generous humility?

Hands are not for hitting they are for so much good. What are we doing with our hands today?

A Mothers perspective on the cross

I wrote this a couple of years ago and the wonderful @God_Loves_Women posted it for me on her blog. Anyway feeling emotionally able to post it here now and since its recently been child loss day I thought I'd put it up. Hoping it helps some.



Ever heard a preach on the Father heart of God? Ever heard a father preaching about how horific it would be for him to loss his son.  Probably. Ever heard a mother preach about child loss? I suspect if you have it will have been less often.

I find it hard to spend any length of time in worship at present without experiencing substantial amounts of pain. God is gracious and let's me run away and run back and slowly I grieve.

God chooses to reveal himself in scripture in both terms of father and mother imagery. So here is a mothers perspective on the cross.

I had a child wrenched from my womb, I watched as I lost all ability to nurture, care and grow this precious being, watched it poor out of me. I lost the possibility of holding that child to my breast, to nurse it with its ear next to my heartbeat to stare into its face and see my own emotions mirrored back. I lost the oppertunity to suuround them with love, joy and goodness.

I had nothing to hold or bury so vast was the seperation raught between us so I buried a box of memories in a garden I will never walk with my child in. But I have hope. God gave me a picture of the future and when I get to glory there's a child waiting ready to run towards me arms wide open shouting 'mummy'.

Because God's love can reach right down into the depths of this broken world. Right down to a collection of cells that could never have lived, that had the 'wrong' collection of chromosomes that lacked what it took to be a viable human. Yet still God breathes life.

Both my children have taught me so much about the love of God for us. What my unborn Eden has given me is a glimmer of is the cataclismic pain God bears when his children are taken and the eager anticipation with which God longs to be reconciled.

"Men find their value in being strongest. Women find their value in being prettiest."

This is part of a series in which I'll be exploring gender differences suggested by readers. To find out more about the series click here. 

So here we go our first suggested inherent gender difference. 

Is it true of all men and women? 

You can vote as to whether you think it's true just to the left. 

I think this statement is evidently not true of all people. I for one have no need to be prettiest my feeling's about being pretty are summed up in this fabulous poem, the audience reaction to which makes me think I'm not the only one. I know several men who don't seem to communicate any need to be the strongest. 

But let's see what the vote tells us.

Is it true of most women and men?

If this statement was preceded by the phrase 'our current cultural narrative tells us...' I'd be inclined to agree with it. But the fact that this is the dominant story line in our media doesn't mean it is the lived experience of the majority of people. I would be very interested if anyone had any references to research exploring where people find their value. I think generally there has been a shift  in recent history from people finding their value in what they do to finding their value in what they own. (I'm not sure either is great). 

So without a big piece of social research we have no definite answer to this question.

Is it the teaching of scripture?

If indeed this is a genuine pattern in the world is it one created by God or is it one that we should 'not conform to'? Where does the bible say we should find our value? I think for most of us the first answer that comes to mind is 'in Christ'. 

Does the bible instruct women to put their energy into being 'pretty'? I was blogging through a series on Proverbs 31  which I will get round to finishing at some point. So far I haven't found any encouragement towards calorie counting, mirror gazing or face painting. 

1 Peter 3:3-4 and 1 Timothy 2:9-10 Would both suggest that there is active discouragement in scripture for women to pursue 'prettiness'.

What about a quest for strength? Their are certainly many male characters in the bible described as strong, with whole stories surrounding their strength. But was David primarily given as an example of someone strong or was he remembered for for being 'a man after God's own heart'.?

And what about Christ? There was huge expectation on him, we are so often told in sermons, to lead a rebellion and with the use of strength overthrow the occupying forces. He didn't, in fact he did very little in his ministry that required physical strength. 

But I think the biggest issue I have with the statement above is in the little suffix 'est'. What happened to the first being last and the last being first? What happened to the equality of all humans before God? Considering others better than ourselves? What happened to the being one body of different parts? Being 'strongest' or 'prettiest' necessitates competition between us. Sound's more like patriarchy than God's Shalom to me. 

I'd say this is a good example of why it's so important to define what we believe it means to be human before we define what it means to be a man or a woman. 

In summary I am fairly convinced that whether or not this is an experienced reality it is not encouraged by the example of Christ or scripture. As Christians we believe we are children of God that is where we should place our value. We value others equally because they are our neighbor and equally precious. 

Same difference?

So I found myself saying a couple of times recently that I thought the Bible was rather silent on the subject of gender differences. But I have been pondering this, it would be strange if it were true and certainly I have heard gender differences asserted to be biblical many times. So here is my next blog project, to find out if the bible gives any specific instruction or reflection on the nature of 'masculinity' or 'femininity'. And I need your help, particularly if you hold a complementary view of the sexes. 

Here's how this is going to work. If you believe there to be differences in the nature and character of men and women please give those differences one at a time in the comments bellow and feel free to explain your rational if you want. I'll then start a blog for each one with a few of my own thoughts and we can have a discussion about each separately. That might make the conversation more manageable. 

The other thing I wonder is can we do this while leaving aside the question of leadership? - Let's try shall we?

So throw them at me what is the difference between Women and Men?

A Conversation about the Conversation

 a time to be silent and a time to speak, 

Ecclesiastes 3:7b

But knowing which is which is the tricky bit. Anyone reading threads may have noticed that I don't feel like now is the time to be silent. A huge part of me is saying; walk away let them have the last word, its not worth it. The conversation is so predictable in its tone and direction it's been had a thousand times is this really going anywhere?

The other part of me however for whatever reason is not going to let go of this one. Partly because while I began with some critiques and questions about the original post I now feel like I'm defending its main point. 

During the discussion women collectively or individually have been labeled as boring, lacking in humor, aggressive, arrogant and of course feminist. Feminist I do not consider an insult so go ahead. I will dispute that women in general are boring or lacking in humor but I possibly am but I never read anywhere that that was a sin or that the point of threads was to make people laugh. 

While the phrase 'you sexist, patriarchal, misogynistic, fart stop mansplaining things to me' has gone through my head many times, I have not written it and have repented of thinking it because these are all human beings I am interacting with and because I am determined in my commitment to non-violence in thought word and dead (it's gonna be a long journey).

But its so difficult to move the conversation about gender forwards. 90% of the time we are discussing each others motivations, experiences and emotional responses rather than answering each others points.

At the end of the day is there any point me discussing this with a complimentarian? If we fundamentally disagree with each others reading of scripture can the dialogue move forward? Are either of us actually even replying to each other or are we writing for the audience in our head still deciding on their theology? How do we get away from the trap of throwing passive aggressive insults at each other, concentrating on each others emotions rather than answering each others points? How do we get good at this discussion? 

Am I really going to trall through 'why men don't listen and women can't read maps' so I can say yes I did read it and here's what I think. Would it be a productive use of time? 

What ground rules do we need for productive conversation? Would love to hear others thoughts and experiences.

Jesus the Man

I believe that Jesus Christ was God incarnate. I believe he showed us who God was, what it means to be children of God and a better vision for the world. I believe he enabled us to be reconciled with God and become agents of change in this fallen world and take part in building Shalom. 

I also believe that he was anatomically 100% male. I find no where in the gospels any teaching or instruction from the mouth of Jesus that implies different expectations of male and female disciples. When he picked up children and put them on his lap, he was 100% male. Not as someone once told me 'in touch with his feminine side' he didn't have one. When he wept, had compassion, washed feet he was 100% anatomically male. 

When he laid down his life for humanity he didn't do it by leading a military uprising. Didn't prepare for it by watching hours of Braveheart. He suffered abuse, shaming and torture from people who toke power over him. I cannot see how testosterone was at all necessary or helpful in that situation.  

As Dworkin said there is a reason feminists haven't taken up arms and it's not the lack of knives in the kitchen. We believe in men Jesus believed in men he believed they were human. My plea to Christian men ask what does it mean to be human and what does it mean to be like Jesus in our humanity get that sorted then ask what does it mean to be a man - though you will probably be side tracked on a mission to bring justice, equality and salvation by then. 

Taxes

There have been many terrible terrible thing's that have been said of late about social security and those in receipt of it. And there are many people doing a valiant attempt to refute them in the rhetorical war exploding around us. However there is a phrase that I keep hearing that is not being challenged which is 'Taxpayers money'.

Is it just me or does this phrase not make sense. If I pay taxes then the money that I pay to the treasury is by definition no longer mine but belongs to the nation. Now I have a democratic duty to hold the government to account for how they administer our collective resources, but it is not my money it belongs to all of us as a collective.

The problem with referring to it as taxpayers money implies that as a taxpayer I somehow have greater right to decided how it is spent than those who currently are not paying tax, and by inference the more tax you pay the more decision making power you have. There is something inherently undemocratic in that. 

I am also fed up of being told what upsets me as a tax payer. There are things about social security that upset me, but not the ones the government tell me are upsetting me. It upsets me that there is such a thing as working tax credits and that people can work a 30 -40 hour week and still not earn enough to survive. I fundamentally think the purpose of social security should not be to subsidies the private sector; they should jolly well pay decent wages. 

It upsets me the amount of housing benefit people need to claim. Which is the result, not of too many children or people scrounging of the state, or living in Kensington. It is the result of unscrupulous capitalists, decades of daft housing policy and an obsession with private ownership. It upsets me that the tax system isn't such that it curbs the behavior of such empire builders.

But what upsets me more than any of this is that while friends and love ones are being squeezed to live on what is not possible to live on, while the price of everything is going up and life is getting tougher for almost everyone I know. I take a walk round central London and see wealth oozing out of the city. When I pass 6 Starbucks on a street and get sent links via amazon. When I see an add for a bank that the country bailed out with amounts of money I can't even conceive of, offering me an app to help me budget better. Then I get really really mad. That is what Tax payers are upset about (well this one at least).