Eternal Echoes

On receiving praise.. (a feminist perspective)

Well they have arrived, the reports on my work and ministry, the reports that I have been dreading! One of these reports is from the District Tutor, looking at my ability to reflect theologically, the other from my Superintendent Minister who has assesed my practice.

I didn't want to open the e-mails, but when I did I was both shocked and surprised; one described my accademic work and reflection as of a very high standard, while the other described me as a more than competent Presbyter. Now I am not saying this to blow my own trumpet, because to be quite honest my first reaction was not to breathe a sigh of relief and say that is OK then, it was actually more a reaction of panic; the response oh cr*p sprang to mind!

Why oh cr*p, well first because it means that I must press on, must continue in this process of becomming that I have been called to, and second because I find it difficult to receive praise. Yes I find it difficult to receive praise. I think it is a cultural thing, not only do we Brits root for the underdog, if the truth be known in many ways we prefer to be the underdog, and I suspect that because of that we fail to acheive our full potential. I also think that it is part and parcel of being a woman, generally we don't do praise well...

In some ways I guess that I look at these reports and know that I have many faults and flaws but I also know that these have not been overlooked but treated and received with grace. I have been given some advice and some ideas of things to work on but that has not diminished the good reports in any way, in fact in some ways it has added to them, so I am left with the question as to why I find it so hard to receive them, and can only come back to the problem of knowing and loving myself...

I know that I am loved, but struggle to love myself, and because of this it is hard to accept praise and oh so easy to live with my own paranoia. The truth is that my situation is not that unusual, women particularly find it difficult to accept praise; a few years ago I blogged on a paper from Valerie Saiving on The Human Situation, it took an anthropological view of the feminine situation- asking whether it is right to challenge women on the sin of pride- suggesting that the major feminine sins are sins of distraction and lack of focus- these stem from the acceptance and passivity of an expected role of nurturer and sustainer of a family unit...

Saiving has tried to awaken theologians to the fact that the situation of women, however similar it may appear on the surface of our contemporary world to the situation of men and however much it may be echoed in the life of individual men, is, at bottom, quite different - that the specifically feminine dillemma is, in fact, precisely the opposite of the masculine. Women are quite simply more likely to sin by denying their God given gifts and talents than they are to fall prey to the sin of pride.

I know for myself that I struggle with this; writing is a joy; well it is until somebody is going to assess it, at this point I enter into the procrastination zone, not because I am lazy, but because in some perverted way I fear my own abilities. Is this all rather strange, well quite possibly it is to the oposite sex, as for me I will continue to struggle with myself before God. I will try to not only live up to the praise but also to step into being the person it calls me to be, all the while acknowledging that I do so by the grace of the one who has called me. S/he knows me and S/he loves me, and that is enough...

...ain't I a woman?.....

I have spent much of the day researching feminist readings and exegesis of John 4- the account of Jesus meeting with the Samaritan woman.  So often she is instantly demonised by her marital status ( or lack of it) and we are guilty of allowing this demonisation to continue, Jesus makes no judgement, after simply revealing to her that he knew her through and through the conversation entered a completely different sphere.

Well versed in Samaritan theology she questions Jesus about the place of true worship, these questions from a Samaritan woman to a Jewish man are bold , and yet she clearly expects an answer, which is what she gets.

Jesus had approached her, declaring his need for physical refreshment, she in turn voices a need for spiritual refreshment, and in the end both of them are satisfied. Through her questioning she finds truth, and that truth in turn lends power to her voice as she speeds back to her community, a community that has shunned her, with the Good News.

The disciples are shocked to find Jesus speaking to this woman, I wonder if they were more shocked at Jesus willingness to let her become his spokesperson, an evangelist to Samaria?

As I have been reading about this woman I am struck by the compromise I often make when speaking- because my speech is often emotionally charged and may be seen as irrational I find it necessary to censor myself, there are bits of me that remain silent for fear of rejection. To be feminine is often portrayed as a weakness, and yet it is so often suffused with emotional depth and strength.

Sojourner Truth knew about the depths of strength that were required in claiming and owning her own voice. Torn from her mothers arms and sold on the auction block aged nine she turned to the God her mother had told her about. Believing that prayer should be voiced aloud she built a wall of twigs to pray behind. Her relationship with God strengthened as she spoke to God and God honoured her prayers by speaking back to her.

Her given name had been Isabella, she claimed her new name as she spoke again with the God in whom she found her strength. Her now famous speech:

"That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud puddles, or gives me any best place, and ain't I a woman? ... I have ploughed, and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me -- and ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man (when I could get it), and bear the lash as well -- and ain't I a woman? I have borne thirteen children and seen most all sold off to slavery and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me -- and ain't I woman?"

Made to the Ohio Women's right convention showed that she owned both her womanhood and her strength! Sojourner issued a challenge in her day to those opposed to both emancipation of slaves and equality for women. Both she and the Samaritan woman challenge women to own their voices, to speak out their questions and to be whole.

I am aware of my own resistance to owning my whole self, to speaking out my thoughts, perhaps this stems from past experiences of being ( in my opinion) unjustly criticised, perhaps it is because I am still in the process of finding myself beneath layers of religious and cultural expectation. Whatever the problem I pray that the voice I speak with will be shot through with grace and seasoned with salt. For Jesus has heard me, and ain't I a woman?