A Woman’s worth. Is this something we should really be debating? Twice this month I have read two women’s tweets who attend Baptist seminaries here in Texas saying they are staying in their complementarian world to try and be a change for better. How many women say this when we are in bad relationships? I know I did. And I tried to do it with church, too. It is related.

Don’t hear me say that where I came from is all bad. Goodness, no. I have a few friends who are still here cheering me on and wanting me to do this. I would not be here without where I have been. My Guardian Angel, Nancy Ulrich, was the first to message me when I posted my preaching bio for this week. I cannot believe I am writing this. What was real remained, and I treasure it and hold it like I never did before.

Even in bad relationships, there are things that will be remembered that are good. Abusive relationships are not 100% abuse always. It is way more complex than a simple situation we can easily identify. This is why church is extremely difficult to see. We have been taught not to leave. We are reconcilers. How do we turn someone away? Doesn’t that defeat redemption? How is telling a woman she can’t preach or teach abuse when the Bible clearly says? All questions we should wrestle with more and change our minds.

When I first left home, I felt like a failure. There is a deep depression that follows when you leave a place you loved with all your heart. The church loved me, but not enough. We were not in an equal partnership and my experience was erased. Along with so many others. We do this in marriage, too, when we have a relationship where one is the head. One vetoes the woman (male-headship is the general rule and they get it from church) and man gets his say ultimately. This is why men are getting angry we are speaking. They don’t get to hoard all of the purpose anymore. Too bad they don’t know it is fun to live as friends. And that God will not cast us to Hell for letting people in. As the late Rachel Held Evans said: The gospel isn’t offensive for who it keeps out, but who it lets in. I cannot believe we still have not even let women in. But I think Al Mohler voiced it best as to why: If we start letting women preach, then where will it stop. That is right, Al. Women are more inclusive, and I don’t want it to stop for anyone who is called. No matter who you are or where you have been. God will be gracious to whom God will be gracious. We are not God, and I am so glad. I am terrible at trying to do her job.

Anyway, in the past, when women would say I am staying to try and make things better, I felt like I failed because I could not. But that was before I knew how dearly loved I was in my new home. Oh my gosh. There is nothing in the world that would make me want to go back now. I read these tweets and my heart goes out to these women who think they can make people care who do not. One even expressed her weariness because she has been trying to get men to listen for four years-IN SEMINARY, LET THIS SINK IN, PLEASE. She can’t even get them into a disagreement, either; she can’t get them to feel at all. As a 4, I felt every word of what she just said. That is what hurts the most. They do not feel the pain. When I left, it mattered little. I had invested so much into people who really did not love me back. Not the way I loved them.

So showing up at Wilshire, after a long journey away from church, I chose to love again. I wanted to love them, and I did the second I walked in the door. And a really strange thing happened; they loved me back. Like really loved me back. Started asking me to do all of these things I have never been able to do and never even dreamed I would do. I did not come here to prove myself or to announce I would preach. They discovered me because they loved me. They have walked me through grief that has hit me and none of us understood what this depression was, but they stayed with me. I am preaching this week because so many men and women invested in me to get here. They tell me to stop trying to prove myself because they already believe in me. This can be true for all women. And the men don’t lose, they gain too. We are having the time of our lives together. I am grateful.

So with this said, I grieve reading those tweets. If they are able to do it, which my heart tells me they won’t, I will cheer them on. And if they do, I won’t feel like a failure. I love being where I am and I did not have to spend one minute trying to prove myself. They valued me the minute they met me, and have turned their worlds upside down to help me flourish.

Love is the only thing that works. No argument can make someone love you. I told one of the women that I no longer leave room for disagreement on what a woman can do. I don’t care what your religious beliefs are. Women have been held back and it is a sin. God is calling women, and the men who are listening and want it to happen, are helping make it happen. Praise be to God.

This is me today. My hair has never been this long and thick. My hair stylist has been shocked. She even suggested I leave long with my hair this healthy. Everything heals when one begins to heal. And here is my first announcement to preach, too.

Love Wins! In the words of Leonard Cohen: Love is not a victory march. It is not somebody who has seen the light. It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah.

Morning Has Broken by Cat Stevens is the song I play on repeat today. It is so beautiful, but it also speaks to the moment I feel I am in now:

Sweet the rain’s new fall, sunlit from heaven

Like the first dew fall on the first grass

Praise for the sweetness of the wet garden

Sprung in completeness where His feet pass

I can’t say this enough: Hillary didn’t react to Trump when he treated her horribly, too. She played by the rules and no one noticed (or very few)- either bc many already had their mind made up about her as a demon, or we are so used to women being talked over it just didn’t register. Now the other side is reacting to the abuse (AND IT IS ABUSE!) and we think we have a both sides problem. I have issues with Joe, no doubt, but reacting to abuse – even though it won’t read this way to people who don’t understand- isn’t one of them. #endabuse

I knew in 2016 Hillary subversively got under Trump’s skin by calling him Donald throughout the debate. What I didn’t know is she was trained by someone on how to debate a narcissist. Her trainer knew he wouldn’t know where to stand so when he’s lurking over her while she’s speaking, she was trained for that—and it’s why she didn’t respond.

This needs to be known. This outrage should have been noticeable in 2016, but we don’t respect women. And now, I just heard Trump not only NOT denounce white supremacy, but, instead, calls on the Proud Boys to stand by.

This is frightening. A police officer, who lives next door to me, has a flag waving of muscle Trump holding an AR-15. A really hard flag to get and I have to see it every day. My therapist asked me if I feel safe.

Me: I don’t know.

Okay, tonight was a revelation. I can testify our class received a revelation from God, and we are trying to figure out what to do with it. I am so grateful for this moment, and I want to write my own experience to back up the important point that was brought up tonight through the black experience that James Cone speaks to. I really hope people will listen, especially faith leaders.

First of all, tonight we got to submit questions, and I submitted one that was read with so much dignity and care. It astounds me that my heart can be heard in the Christian world now. My therapist notices I am surprised by every word of affirmation. I am always surprised when heard or validated. I have never known validation outside my own family until now, and every word of encouragement shocks me. She noted this is probably why I struggle with critique. I am already critiquing myself so harshly already and I don’t need more of it. I am going to tell you why this matters to this story and my question I submitted.

My question aimed at the notion of using scripture as the first source of inspiration to God. What happens when man appeals to scripture to degrade your humanity, and if you argue they just say: Sorry, word of God. How do you get around that?

The response was so kind, and he honored that scripture does get used, and never should be used, to dishonor anyone’s experience or who they are. But his response was to appeal to scripture more and speak the truth to refute.

This doesn’t work when you don’t have a community on your side to speak to that. Or you haven’t been taught Scripture to speak like that. Plus, why would I appeal more to a scripture that tells me I am subordinate, and I am watching my faith community largely vote for a sexual predator and say nothing in the debates when he is talking over his female opponent, and is just being an ass with no coherent policy-he is just a bully. And what happened to me in soccer by mostly Christians. Why would I alone want to appeal to Scripture to talk to this crowd? And where is their call to repentance in this? And to appeal to abortion and not think about our kids watching this horrid debate on TV should strike us as odd.

James Cone gives voice to this through the black experience. The revelation of God comes to the oppressed community. This makes people upset because they feel he is saying only one community can receive the revelation of God and is using a contextual approach to his systematic theology. So there is no common language to get on board with experiencing God as a whole -oppressor and oppressed.

I did not hear in James Cone’s spirit say no one else has access to God. What he is saying is there has to be solidarity with the oppressed community. He is being judged for harsh language like all people who mourn and have been shut out do. Cone is giving voice to people who never had one, and it is life-giving for that community.

An argument was made that we need a common language about God, because we can never understand the experience of another group. I hear this all the time. Instead of hearing pain, people worry I am exclusive or going to become the oppressor. This frustrates me to no end because it favors the oppressor, and our pain is dismissed b/c it makes people uncomfortable. Cone is offering a way that we can hear the language of God – through the oppressed community. Join them and hear God through them.

Women are being abused at an astronomical rate in church and society. And we are taught we cannot be church leaders, pastors, or get paid the same as men. This doesn’t seem to be urgent to anyone because we are so damn used to it. We hear God as male constantly in our theology. If we are created in the image of God, too, then where is mother God. For the LGBT community, where is their vocabulary?

Also, and Cone would agree with me here, all of us as Christians would fall under the label Oppressor. There is Christian privilege in America. At the King Teach Ins we do with Friendship West and Wilshire, Rev. Dr. Freddy Haynes said we must identify every privilege we have and make sure we aren’t using it to serve Empire over those who suffer. Maybe this would help clarify, but I think Cone’s work is to intentionally disrupt, and it woke up two suffering women who aren’t silent in their pain.

Even Jesus had to be disrupted by a loud suffering women who knew who he was.

PS: I found Scripture through my tears and Twitter. Jonathan Martin was on Twitter speaking scripture to my pain every day. He did not even know me then! Scripture came to me.

There is something about having your life fall apart and see at the micro-level what is playing out at the macro-level. In the world of soccer, I noticed people will do anything to win. Will ignore atrocities for their 8 year old kid to win. The 2015 campaign was happening at the same time. Every time I thought am I wrong to be this upset about this campaign – I would look at what was happening right in front of me, and all of the sudden the campaign made sense. I am saying this because our politics did not happen in a vacuum. We are living it in our daily lives, and we are just used to it. There are so many things that changed about me in the soccer world that I wish I could say I was above, but I tried to do everything in my power to make it right when I saw the cruelty and could not ignore it. In the long run, the cruelty took me out trying to fight it. It turned the whole situation on me, and I saw what abuse is like at a systemic level, and it hurt like hell. By they way, I was fighting for children. I walked away in disillusionment at my personal life and our political life. Faith means very little to most of us. We say it does, but not when it costs us something we don’t want to give up.

I am saying this because Trump lied about the virus. He knew it was deadly and downplayed it, because he didn’t want to lose the economy. The God of Mammon. 200,000 people gone. I still haven’t attended a funeral for Pappy. What makes me so sad is this most likely won’t matter. And to call this out will just add to the “you hate Trump” rhetoric. I don’t hate Trump, but I owe no explanation here. Calling sometime to account is not abuse. And he has a credible rape charge against him and he wants us, the tax payers, to pay for his legal fees. This happened in the 90s! We have also funded so many golf trips, and he acted like all Obama did was play golf. I am so tired of the lies and the rape of women, and the silence of the faith community. I see why our physical doors are being shut – despite some opening anyway.

My hope and faith has never been in a politician. I am surprised to see how many people of faith have done this and what it has cost them morally to do so-blaming things like the massive fires on the west coast on Democrats. I cannot even catch my breath. Instead of lamenting we are all in this together. Our leaders are lying. We care more about money than the Earth and each other. We have used our faith and politics to create an other instead of a shared life together in beloved community. This is the result. I have stared death in the face, and I chose life. I will continue to create and tell the truth with every breath I have left on this earth. The Christ that resides in me.

25 They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.Romans 1:25

Today’s therapy was exceptional. We worked really hard to discover what exactly it is that I am striving for. She is noticing I don’t like to talk about myself, and I tell a great story with my voice missing. She’s been telling me this for a while, but it occurred to me, today, this is what my professors are saying, too. I know the material, but what do I think? Where is my voice?
I finally got some clarity and realized what I want is an education. I want to know everything, not to win or gain the prize of a grade (or anything else), but because I love all of it. And I have so much material I am overwhelmed, and I have a past history with grades that is unhealthy-not to mention I have to keep a scholarship.
I love the hard stuff, too, because that is the reality we live. I don’t need sugar-coated truth. Or a false platitude that will not work when it all falls apart. What I love about the Bible is it will not let us think one way. We can’t harmonize the texts because there is too much going on throughout the generations, and the stories adapt to their time and place and audience. Our Bible is influenced by other ancient texts, too. To me this opens up the mystery of the Bible more. The Bible is endless with mystery-more to learn. And it makes me want to learn more about what is going on around me, too. Not just then. How is Scripture speaking now. That is what our ancestors did.

All this to say is this is why I write so much. I want people to see I am doing the work to create my own thoughts within a community, and getting educated more intensely on tough issues I am talking about. My church nor seminary are telling me what to believe or think-they are helping me with how to think. Big difference. It is essential our faith is communal, our individualized faith has failed us terribly as citizens. As a faith community we should be on the side of those who are left out and poorly treated. The Bible is pretty clear about that.

We can’t make false equivalences to ignore major injustices. We also can’t skip over lies and deceit – Mike Pence replacing Jesus with Old Glory, for example. This is why I was asking that professor and pastor last week why he wrote loving our neighbor isn’t the greatest commandment. That is not our problem right now at all. I don’t even know what loving our neighbor too much looks like. I can testify it doesn’t look like the USA or the church. He needs to clearly state why he thought that tweet was necessary as a faith leader. He never gave me a good answer. This is what we are up against.

MAGA – no one knows what that means. We let that go without question from people who say Make America Great Again. Has America ever been great for everyone? We need a concise explanation on what that means. Also, abortion. Know what you are talking about. If it is important to you-then do the research. No blind loyalty and platitudes. That is how terror happens.

The book I am reading, that I mentioned last night, mentions how white America doesn’t like to talk about our sins. He is Hispanic and knows their history isn’t innocent. They were here first doing what white colonization is and was doing, too, but they don’t lie about their history. The Bible doesn’t lie about the sins of its protagonists, either. When I realized this, that is when I fell in love with the Bible. It is complex and messy, but we find God and liberation in it.

For me, education is the key to help us out of the mess we made. Without love it is nothing, though. And I know that is what the pushback has been on expertise, but throwing out education has made us foolish. People from other countries say they have never seen a country so proud to be uneducated. There are reasons for this: 1) we don’t fund education equally (major sin!) 2) we allow homeschooling and private schools go largely unchecked in the name of freedom – and they have been weaponized against public schools. 3) Public schools are the cornerstone to our democracy. They have failed in many ways, but they are the ones we can hold accountable for change as a society.

This is my passion.

I am really tired. Which means it is time to stop. I just saw some ignorant things our state and local government are doing, and I grieve. What our governor and the Dallas Mayor are doing leaves me at a loss. No amount of human suffering of people they disagree with will wake them to the reality that our system is racist and oppressive. Instead, our governor is passing legislation based on QAnon information. When we take action on false information, we hurt victims more. There was a false article in Georgia that reported a human trafficking ring being broken up by the government. It isn’t true. I am listening to sex trafficking survivors waving the red flags on QAnon and the GOP.
Then Evangelical Christian journalism. I am not going to talk about the human suffering that has come out of reporting on something that was none of their business, and created more pain. All I will say is it reminds me of when RHE died and journalists still went after her theology within days of her death. Evangelicalism is so incredibly cruel. It is amazing I am still Christian. It truly is because God met me in the wilderness and was the bottom that held when I sunk.
I say this and I 100% support responsible journalism. They are the gatekeepers to truth. It just sucks when they are working for Mammon, too. And theological purity is part of their agenda.
In one of my classes I will have to write a paper. A big one. I have been informed to write thinking about God first. When I hear this, I don’t have the normal reaction that is expected of a Christian. And I 100% love God with all of my heart, but I feel God in my heart saying – I need people to see my children, and the Earth. Time to enter reality. We devalue human experience for those we can’t see, and that is strange coming from a faith that serves a fully God and fully human God. Both/and.
Right right I can’t think of a time to emphasize Love thy Neighbor more. To feel the pain and suffering of those around us as if it were our own, and then we heal together. We have to grieve to get to joy. I think there is a need to emphasize the human experience and it is still faith based. I am also interested in how theology affects mental health-especially when it isn’t grounded in loving thy neighbor. Because the love of God idea we have going on right now is having us loving people who have never been born (and we don’t care about the situation of the one in the situation-the one here now) and believing conspiracy theories that are making peope say: unmask the kids because they are believing conspiracy theories. This is so dangerous.

I saw this quote on mental health by Scott Peck an American Psychiatrist and best selling author
Mental health increases as we pursue reality at all costs.

Today we talked about Michal (1 and 2 Samuel) in class. Michal is David’s first wife, and there is so much to this story. Even though the story is short; there is great depth in the little that is written. I think it is one of the most important stories for us to not only hear, but also feel, in this moment in time we are living. Juliana Moore Rivera led our discussion today. My love for Juliana Moore Rivera can’t be written adequately in words. She is a dear friend. And she is an amazing teacher. Conversations with her always bring out so many angles that speak to where each of us are on our journey. That is the beauty of scripture. It is supposed to do that, and a good teacher can make it happen. Juliana is one of those teachers. Michal’s story stuck out to me in Old Testament most vividly, because it is a story that actually communicates feelings by those around David. It doesn’t reveal David’s feelings, though, and I think that is really important to highlight. First of all, Jonathan, Michal’s brother and Saul’s son, loves David-as if he was his own soul (there is a lot to that statement). Then it also says Michal loved David. It is not often feelings are written in scripture. The stories are written and we do with them what we will- imagining what might be going through their head or how they feel. This story gives specifics, and when scripture speaks, it is important. The OT is a Jewish meditation and intentionally vague. I am saying this to emphasize again the importance that scripture wrote feelings in this story. It did not leave it up to us to decide-except on David. Saul, as we all know, quickly grew jealous of David. Jonathan intervenes on David’s behalf-and so does Michal. Michal does it after they are married, which we know she loved David, but we don’t know that David loved her. He went and won 100 foreskins (gross) from the Philistines so he could earn her from her father Saul (Patriarchy is a beast). Eventually holding off Saul from killing David becomes too much, and Michal helps him escape. She fools her father, like Rachel did with her father when she and Jacob were fleeing. David leaves for 14 years and marries other women. The story of Jonathan and David’s friendship continues, not Michal’s story with David. It isn’t until he needs Michal again to make a power political move when he calls her back to him. She is forced back to David with her weeping husband following behind her. This is so so sad. I have tears writing this. She has a man now who clearly loves her. We know by his weeping. David, no emotion is written. But in 2 Samuel 6, Michal is looking out the window (in my mind this is her seeing reality for what it is-she has been used over and over) and sees David dancing around naked for all to see. Now the text says she despises him. She goes out to him and calls him on his shit. Then David arrogantly says it is the Lord that chose him in place of her father. He is the prince of the people, and he was dancing before the Lord. He says a few more things and then Michal is sent away, and it says she had no children. She is no longer in the story. This happens to women over and over. And this a story that actually names the woman, often we don’t even get a name. There are commentaries calling her a bitter and cynical woman. We like to do that when women get angry. I feel Michal so deeply in my spirit. She was used one too many times. She saved David’s freaking life, loved him in marriage, went to him, when forced, to suit his political needs–but her anger is what sent her out of the story. I told the class her wounds were healed that day. She chose herself. She chose to stand up for herself, and believed she was worthy of better treatment than what David gave her. The script may have tried to write her out, but this moment is a gigantic moment, and one more women need to know about. For all the talk about David’s chosen-ness, there are women (and men) he deeply hurt. They did not give him a pass by calling him chosen. What does that even mean? When we learn to love ourselves, the world may call us names and make false assumptions. But Michal became free that day.Makes me think of Queen Vashti, too. She told the King no, and he sent her away. This is when Esther comes in. Without Vashti, there would be no Esther.

I woke up today feeling the best I’ve felt in a while. Not sure if it’s just a glimpse of class last night, a quick vacay before school starts ahead, or just admitting clearly I’ve been struggling.
The depression has been many things: gymnastics relived (Athlete A), soccer- every time I’m triggered these memories come back vividly (we are doing EMDR therapy for this), and having a leader like, Trump, Abbott, Paxton, Patrick (I can keep going). They are unkind, and represent all the abuse I’ve received my whole life. Listening to Trump recently, on the Daily, listening to scientists about the process of creating a vaccine, and he’s like: Hurry up. Better yet, I’m taking this to the private sector and see what happens.
I’m all for different ways of doing things, but not at the hands of an abuser who has zero idea what he’s doing, and neither does his admin. He didn’t pick them based on qualifications and talent. It’s who pays him and will never question him.
Now I know why I couldn’t make it in oil and gas. I don’t work that way. And abusers don’t motivate me, they take me out. Trump represents the abuse so many of us have suffered. It seems like a satire, but he’s revealing it. We haven’t been united. We were comfortable with the silent terror.
Speaking of abusers-Ted Cruz. I saw a glimpse of him in a Fox News interview. He said: if these guys win. We are going to wake up with Elizabeth Warren as Treasury Secretary.
🎉🎉🎉🎉
Tell me more good news, Cruz. I like it.

Warren’s story with banks sounds so much like my awakening with church. Warren used to be Republican, until she saw the corruption in the banking system. Her whole world changed, and the journey is eerily similar to mine, but in politics instead of church.

So, I’m just saying, Cruz thought he was giving a warning- and I say: let the party begin.

So now that USPS is on the chopping block because of extreme cruelty in office, I would like to share a quick story about my Papa who worked for the Post Office. He was an administrator who worked for USPS for a really long time. He also served as a medic in WWII.
I was with my Nana and Papa driving home from Mangum, OK the night before he died. I was in the back of their van listening to a newly released song: In the Living Years by Mike and the Mechanics. It was (and still is) so beautiful. The lyrics: I wish I could have told him in the living years- hit my heart deeply. I was in 5th grade; apparently, I’ve been a deep feeler my whole life. I noticed Papa wheezing a lot that night—he smoked a long time. That’s not uncommon for his era and military service. But he also did something I never remember him doing in my whole relationship with him-when they got to my home and dropped me off, he kissed me on my cheek. He had never done that before in my memory. I think he had some PTSD so emotionally we weren’t always connected, even though we were close. I will never forget it. The song, the kiss, and the next day the phone call he died. He couldn’t breathe anymore.
Just last month my Nana, who has just moved back to Mangum, sent me my stamp collection Papa made for all of his grandchildren. I have stamps from as early as 1944 and continues throughout the decades.
This Book was created with love. By, Lester Blake.
Here are a few of the pages.
I also listen to “In the Living Years” to remember him.