Martha and Mary: United

I am reduced to tears by today's flurry of accusations and defenses about "stay-at-home moms" vs. women who work outside the home.


My day started well, reading Psalm 37:
Delight in YHWH, and you'll be given the desires of your heart. 
Commit your way to YHWH, and trust in YHWH...
Rest in YHWH and wait patiently....


But at breakfast instead of reading newspapers I decided to turn on CNN to hear whether the UN-negotiated cease fire in Syria is actually taking effect. Big mistake.


Instead I heard sound bites of Hilary Rosen saying Ann Romney "hasn't worked a day in her life" and Republicans attacking Rosen and all Democrats for not respecting women who stay home and raise kids.


Michelle Obama weighed in via Twitter, and the president's news secretary was holding a press conference to list everything President Obama has done to support women who work outside the home, women who stay home and need the WIC program, women on Medicare, women who are teachers, etc.


So much for delighting in God's presence, trusting, resting, etc.  As I cleaned up the kitchen and dining area, (roses from Easter dinner now dying, dishes in the sink from the last couple days when I had to rush off to work at my part-time job), I felt depressed.


Not again.  Not this debate from the 1970s, accusing feminists of only valuing work outside the home and not respecting women who put their time into child care and housework. 


There's a reason why my blog is titled "Martha y Maria," in addition to my desire to honor the death of Martha Puebla in 2003 and the suffering of Maria Riveros and her daughter, whose life was endangered by an abortion done at home in Paraguay in July 2008.


Martha and Mary are the two women who were sisters and close friends of Jesus.  He stayed in the home of Martha, Mary, and their brother Lazarus when he visited Jerusalem.  They lived in Bethany, a few miles outside the city. 

This blog's subtitle is "Women's Lives, Women's Rights."  That could have been the name of the blog, but I wanted to announce that Mary, Martha, and the Bible would be the touchstone of all my writing.

Both were probably among the women present at the crucifixion and  the women who announced the resurrection to the other disciples.  Luke says, "Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told this to the apostles" (Luke 24:10-11).  Mary of Bethany is also known for anointing Jesus at dinner shortly before his death.

But the most well-known passage with Martha and Mary is Luke 10:38-42, where Martha says, "Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me."

Jesus answers, gently but carefully, "Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing.  Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her."

Martha, like me this morning, has been distracted from that peace of mind that is every believer's goal: "Delight in the Holy One, commit, trust, rest in God's presence."

Jesus recalls her to the One Thing that is important: a heart committed to joy in God's presence. 

He also affirms choice.  Martha has chosen, Mary has chosen.  On this day when Jesus is present and teaching in their home, Mary has made the choice that most people looking back on this day would want to have made.  She is sitting at Jesus' feet, drinking in his words. 

"Recently, the phrase 'at his feet' has been reinterpreted as a term for learning from a teacher as a disciple (compare Acts 22:3, where Paul claims to have been educated 'at the feet of ' the famous teacher Gamaliel)," comments Mary Rose D'Angelo in Women in Scripture: A Dictionary of Named and Unnamed Women in the Bible (Houghton Mifflin, 2000). 

This pull between Martha and Mary, between the kitchen and the arena of ideas and public action, has been part of the movement for women's equality, both in the 19th century and in the 20th-21st century. 

Women who ask for the right to vote, the option to do paid work outside the home, the right to be part of government, business, education, etc. have usually done so while being mothers.  The extended family has helped with child care and housework, or a husband has shared that work, or help has been hired, or day care facilities have been used.

The anti-feminist effort to keep women only in the home has been supported by claims that those who support women's work outside the home do not respect women who devote their lives to child care and homemaking.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, in the passion of the fight for equal rights including the ERA, I and others scorned the option of staying at home seven days a week while our husbands went out to their demanding but sometimes exciting work in the public sphere.  Yes, we talked about "working women" and meant "working outside the home."

Since then, however, the women's movement has been careful to note that women's work at home is challenging and demanding and important--and it is work. 

But every now and then, someone slips up and refers to "women who don't work" instead of "women who don't work for pay" or "women who don't work outside the home." 

If you listen to the full text of Hilary Rosen's commments on CNN, you will find she does affirm care for children and care for the home as Work--but there were those ten seconds where in criticizing Mitt Romney's frequent references to his wife as his source for the views of women, she says Ann Romney doesn't work.  Rosen is arguing that Ann Romney's views are those of a privileged, wealthy woman--they do not represent all women, especially those who are both raising a family and working outside the home to make ends meet. 

Those ten seconds are grabbed by Republicans who want to gain women's votes next November. Ann Romney says raising kids is work.  Other stay-at-home-but-activist women chime in.  

A free-for-all ensues. 

Righteous Demoncrats shout that Republicans have opposed legislation helping welfare mothers (who choose to stay home with their children), equal salaries for women in the paid work force (the Lily Ledbetter Act), etc. 

Righteous Republicans shout that Democrats don't respect women who stay at home, don't value The Family and Marriage, etc.

Women are the rag doll being yanked about by both sides.  We are used and torn in the battle for presidency of the world's most powerful nation, just as men yank women about in the battle for power in some Muslim contexts:  "You must be completely covered (Iran).  You must wear the hijab (Shiites in some countries)... You must not wear the hijab (France)."

I am saddened to see women being used in the clash of ideologies. I lost some momentum in my day by taking time to comment on the exploitation of women occurring today in the presidential race. 

But now I will return to the work I had planned--both at home and in teaching--and try to keep my mind and heart focused on God's presence.

Commit your way to YHWH, and trust in YHWH...

Rest in YHWH and wait patiently....

George McGovern's daughter

Thank you to Kathy for sending me a link to this story in USA Today about George McGovern's family losing a daughter to addiction 17 years ago.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/forum/story/2012-04-06/addiction-drug-abuse-alcholism-recovery/54082322/1

There's now a good organization in South Dakota for help with addiction.

Boycott JC Penney

Plastered on the front page of my LA Times today is a sticker proclaiming "It's best price friday."

 Really? And I thought it was Good Friday, remembering the day when Jesus was sentenced and executed. 

Never have I seen the god of merchandising so directly challenging/parodying the holiest day of Christian faith.

Sad.  

"Choose this day whom you will serve," said Jesus. "God or money?"

Boycott JC Penney and write to the LA Times.

Payback to Clinic Stalkers

Thank you to my daughter Marie for pointing out this commentary on the Jezebel website about Voice of Choice, a new group that calls people who harrass abortion providers and clinic owners.

http://jezebel.com/5897699/brilliant-abortion-clinic-landlord-teaches-protesters-that-payback-is-a-bitch?utm_campaign=socialflow_jezebel_facebook&utm_source=jezebel_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow



The Washington Post first reported on Voice of Choice:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/a-clinics-landlord-turns-the-tables-on-anti-abortion-protesters/2012/03/29/gIQAThgwiS_story_1.html

Todd Stave is the owner of a building in Germantown, Maryland, that houses the Reproductive Health Services Clinic.  Dr. LeRoy Carhart provides women's health care in this building, including late-term abortions. 

I heard Dr. Carhart speak two years ago in Minneapolis at the annual meeting of Presbyterians Affirming Reproductive Options. He risks his life daily to continue to offer women choice--including those who are carrying fetuses that cannot survive after birth.  To force these women to complete all nine months of a tragic pregnancy is inhumane.  This doctor is a saint--he worked with Dr. George Tiller and knows the price he may pay for caring about pregnant women who want to end their pregnancies.

When Todd's daughter began being harrassed at her middle school by protestors, he asked friends to call some of the people who routinely left threatening phone calls at his home.  He specified that the calls had to offer prayers for the anti-abortion callers--but that they could mention the names and schools of family members. 

So this is where legal access to abortion stands in 2012 in the US: harrassment of harrassers. 

Meanwhile next door in Mexico, the Roman Catholic Church continues to prevent women from having legal access to ending pregnancies, and the Pope visits to cheer on the Catholic Church in Mexico.

Women continue to lose their lives in botched, back-alley abortions in Argentina, Mexico, Brazil, and so many countries of the world--but these protestors in the US don't care about that.

Pro-Death Policies

LA Times columnist Sandy Banks wrote about Project Prevention on October 17, 2009.


http://digitalmicrofilm1.proquest.com.libproxy.csun.edu/RollForm.aspx?jobNum=proquest


This program gives poor women access to long-term contraception--IUDs, implants, hormone patches, and shots.


Drug-using women who have multiple pregnancies and give the babies away are the target of this program.    See http://www.projectprevention.org/


They are even paid for using birth control through this program.


"We are helping mothers heal when we keep unwanted children from being born," writes Sandy. 


She was moved to write her column after reading about the deaths of two foster children who had made their way through LA County's child welfare system.


Miguel Padilla, age 17, hanged himself, and Lazhanae Harris, age 13, was stabbed to death, both in 2009.


Lazhanae was the third of nine children born to a drug-using mother who gave each child away at birth.  Lazhanae's siblings include one who died as a toddler; five who wound up in foster care, and two who are unaccounted for. In 2009 the mother was only 33 years old. 


Sandy's concluding comment: the rights of these children "ought to be as important as Mom's."


She means that being pro-life while a child is unborn is not enough. 


A truly pro-life policy would make birth control widely available to women at no cost and would not encourage women to complete pregnancies if they don't plan to keep the baby.  It would make sure that unwanted babies actually have good homes and education.


Our new national health care plan would take steps toward making contraception available to all women at no cost.


Those who oppose widespread access to contraception are pro-death.  Their restrictions would cause more abortions, more unwanted babies put up for adoption, and more children ending up in the child welfare systems of the nation. 


The end result is more children like Miguel and Lazhanae who die in their teens or earlier because they were unwanted and never had a fair chance in life.

We are the Pawns

It's a chess game between the Ayatollah and the Pope. 

On both sides, women are the pawns, along with voters and the religious faithful. 

Sandra Fluke is a pawn who got out of control and became a threat, so the Pope sent out his knight Rush to decapitate her. 

Sandra made it to the finsh line, however, and gained the powers of a queen, quickly taking bishop Santorum. 

We need to place both the Pope and the Ayatollah in checkmate, then unite the pawns and make peace between the red and the black squares of the board.

How To Control Women

Amid the swirling currents in this year's electoral cauldron, a teachable moment caught the attention of many this week.

Thank you, Rush Limbaugh, for opening our eyes. 

Thank you, President Obama, for making that phone call to Sandra Fluke to support her for speaking in defense of regulations requiring that contraception be available free of charge in the new health care program.

Thank you, Sandra, for your courage.

Without your help, Rush, many people would still be thinking that women have a fair amount of equality in this country.  They might still be thinking that "women's lib," as it was called in 1968, has been accomplished. 

After all, 17% of  our senators are women.  We've seen two women make serious bids for vice president in the last thirty years.

We have the Pill, and women who live near big cities even have access to abortion, unless they go to the wrong hospital or clinic. 

Lots of women, including mothers of young children, have jobs outside the home and earn about 80% of what men earn.  They may even be the sole wage earner for their family if a man has left or been laid off. 

Women with education and ideas are valued almost as much as those with scantily clad bodies, except on television and in films, and in some job interviews. 

It looks good to many, but you opened our eyes, Rush, by calling Sandra "a slut" and "a prostitute" in your show on Feb. 29.

You opened our eyes to the continued existence of the ancient and honorable double standard.

Women can and must be controlled by questioning their sexual purity, but men don't need to be controlled. 

Men get to speak out and have important roles in politics, business, and government, regardless of whether they may be sexually active.  These days they may run into a little media attention if they have multiple divorces and affairs, but certainly not if they are college students. 

Sandra spoke about women at her college not having access to birth control unless they go outside the student health plan and pay up to $1000 per year for the Pill and related doctor visits.  She applauded the new plan that makes contraception part of the basic health care package. 

For this, she is branded with words of shame.

Women having access to contraception is not okay with Russ nor with the Catholic bishops in this country nor with a handful of other religious and political groups.  Rather than debate the issues before Congress, as Sandra tried to do, these folks use barking dogs like Rush to intimidate women. 

It's not so different from Afghanistan, where a woman who shows an inch of her ankle gets the same labels and may even be killed. 

The goal is the same: control women and their bodies.  If they get out of line, whack them.

Only in this way can we preserve the social order.  

In Afghanistan, it's the rule of the Taliban and an ancient interpretation of Muslim law that must be preserved.

In the US, it's political power and a "biblical" view of marriage and sexuality that must be preserved.   

The politicos here and the Taliban there are men, of course.  The ones interpreting the Holy Scriptures have also been men in both places, for the most part

Thus it comes down to gender politics--men trying to retain control over women's bodies and lives, as part of keeping their own political power.

In some places, however, women like Sandra are standing up to these forms of social control.

Call me anything you like, they say.  I will still use my voice.

Born-again in Bakersfield

LA Times columnist Steve Lopez drove around California's central valley finding out whom conservatives favor in the upcoming presidential race--mainly because California's primary next June could actually carry some weight in when Republicans choose their candidate.


The answers he got to his questions were both funny and scary. 


http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-0212-lopez-centralvalley-20120210,0,5204952.column


Steve was lucky enough to be invited into the home of Rosalyn Strode in Bakersfield to listen to her views and those of several friends.


Those present favored Rick Santorum as having the most "Bible-based" values.


Loren Hodge, director of a ministry providing food and clothing to persons in need, expressed his views, and is quoted in Steve's column, "Taking pulse of state's GOP:"


"What's happening in this country," said Hodge,  "... is downright scary. With all this "abortion and homosexuality," he went on, the United States may be headed for a hell "worse than Pearl Harbor, worse than 9/11."


"God," Hodge said, "will not be mocked." 

Those words are from Paul's letter to the Galatians, chapter 6, verse 7, where he tells the Christians to "bear one another's burdens" and "test their own work."  They should "not grow weary in doing what is right... God is not mocked, for you reap whatever you sow."

Is it respectful of the Bible to take these personal words to new believers and interpret them as a hellfire-and-damnation message to the USA?


When I was attending First Presbyterian Church in Bakersfield in the 1960s, Bible-based values did not include opposition to legalized abortion or to same-sex marriage.  Those issues hadn't come up yet.


There I heard the call and accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and saviour, thus becoming born-again.


The main requirements to be accepted as a Christian then were to accept the Bible as God's Word--every verse of it--and to be "in but not of the world" as explained in Paul's letter to the Romans.


"Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God--what is good and acceptable and perfect" (Romans 12:2). 


Being transformed so that your life would reflect your new relationship with Jesus was expected, but that didn't go much beyond the Ten Commandments.  No sex outside of marriage was part of the deal, and of course, wives were expected to be "in submission to" their husbands.  I figured I'd get around that one by not marrying.


The only political issues that divided "real" Christians from the average church-goers were your position on divorce and your position on evolution--at least as far as I knew.  Jesus made clear his views on men's easy access to divorce in 1st-century Israel, and I accepted my church's view that you couldn't believe both Genesis and the theory of evolution.

Randall Balmer in The Making of Evangelicalism: From Revivalism to Politics and Beyond (Baylor U Press, 2010) documents the rise of the abortion issue as a litmus test for Christian orthodoxy. 

He explains that before Ronald Reagan became a candidate for president, having a "Bible-based" position on divorce was the true marker of an evangelical Christian.  An Episcopalian or some other Christian could be more likely to toss out of the Bible a particular verse that seemed inconvenient. 

Frank Schaeffer in Crazy for God reveals his own role in moving abortion into a central place dividing truly biblical Christians from those who might not turn to the Bible for answers to social issues today. 

It's been almost fifty years since I became a Christian in a Bible-believing church community in Bakersfield. 

Today I teach RS 304 Women & Religion at California State University, Northridge. 

I still cherish the Bible and read the Psalms or one of the Gospels almost every day, but I have learned to study who wrote each book of the Bible, for whom, in what social context.  I still see it as God's Word, but I appreciate how each part of it came to be and when it was written.  I value it as truth but not factually "inerrant."

I study Genesis but do not view it as a scientific document that could be in conflict with the theory of evolution.  In fact, I am amazed at how scientific theories, such as that of the "Big Bang," can go hand in hand with the words, "And God said, 'Let there be light.'"

I have studied the handful of biblical texts that are used to combat legalized abortion and to oppose same-sex marriage, but I don't come to the same conclusions as Loren Hodge, Rick Santorum, or Jerry Falwell.

My views today are aligned with those of Nicholas Kristof in his column "Beyond Pelvic Politics" in the New York Times on February 12.

"I may not be as theologically sophisticated as American bishops," he writes, "but I had thought that Jesus talked more about helping the poor than about banning contraceptives."

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/12/opinion/sunday/kristof-beyond-pelvic-politics.html?_r=1&scp=3&sq=nicholas%20kristof&st=cse

What does it mean to have biblically-based values? 

Certainly one of those values is to read the Bible (all of it--not just a few verses), to study each book of the Bible in its own context, understanding who wrote it, when, and why, for whom--and only then to presume to make conclusions about what God wants us to do today.

That's how to respect the Bible and form values that are truly Bible-based.

#    #    #

The Shekhinah, God's Presence

Professor Daniel Matt, pre-eminent scholar of the Zohar, an ancient Jewish text, spoke at Leo Baeck Temple in Los Angeles this weekend. 


"From Kabbalah to the Big Bang: Ancient Wisdom & Contemporary Spirituality" was the title of the lecture series.


My Hebrew teacher, Gilla Nissan, invited her students and friends to attend, so I took part in Shabbat evening services in a temple for the first time.


"Holy, holy, holy--kadosh, kadosh, kadosh" is about all I can say of the experience.


We sang psalms: "Sing to God all the earth, sing to God a new song...."Tov L'Hodot"... "L'cha Dodi"...


For this Presbyterian it was kind of like the praise singing at the beginning of some church services, but in Hebrew with Hebrew tunes and rhythm, so much more powerful and authentic.  These words have been sung and chanted for three thousand years to reach out to the Almighty.


The rabbi leading the service was herself a treat to watch: a joyful smile spread across her face as she spoke and sang, close-cropped brown hair topped by a kippah or yarmulke, more often worn by Jewish men.  

Her clothing too was androgynous: a simple black suit with black scoop-neck shirt and no jewelry or make-up... clearly female but joyously free of the usual gender accoutrements.


Then Daniel Matt spoke about "Shekhinah: the Feminine Half of God."  He noted that although the Hebrew God is clearly beyond gender to those who reflect on the issue, still God has been portrayed predominantly in masculine terms.


"We have to balance the masculine with the feminine," he argued.  


Kabbalah challenges our understanding of God.  It pushes us to move beyond our childish images to "Ein Sof"-- a god that can only be described as "Without End."  


The Talmud uses a word with feminine grammatical gender, Shekhinah, to describe God's Presence.  Kabbalah says that when the Shekhinah and "the Holy One, blessed be He" are reunited, the original union of all things will be achieved.

"Every human action affects the divine couple, either helping or hindering" this union, Matt said.  "If we become truly receptive, wisdom appears spontaneously, taking us by surprise."  

The Zohar was written in Provence and Spain in the 12th & 13th centuries by Moses DeLeon, perhaps using earlier mystical material.  It's about mysticism, which Matt defined as "direct contact with God."

When Moses asks for God's name, God refuses to be pinned down, saying only "I am Who."  The ten commandments include the prohibition against making "graven images, but Ezekiel begins with a most riveting picture of God.  That book becomes "the archetype of Jewish mystical ascent," Matt said.

The community out of which the Zohar developed began to reimagine God in new and startling ways, Matt said.  They used "new ancient words"--milim ha-attiqim ha-hadash.


"There is no place on earth empty of your presence," says a commentary on the Torah in the Talmud.  The word Shekhinah denoting God's presence comes from the root shakan meaning "to dwell."


Partly because of the word's feminine gender, Shekhinah came to be seen as the Divine Feminine.  One rabbi even describes his mother as "the embodiment of the Divine Feminine," said Matt.

He said that Gershem Sholem calls it "the revenge of myth" that God starts to be seen as both masculine and feminine because for so long any hint of the feminine had been excluded from the view of God.  The prophets criticized worship of Anat, Ashtoreth, and Asherah--the female gods worshipped in Canaan. Maimonides and others had said for so long that God is not physical.

But in the 12-13th centuries, a view of God as union of masculine and feminine re-emerges in the heart of rabbinic Judaism in Kabbalah.



"Some people don't realize that God is equally masculine and feminine," Matt said.  


Matt summed up his view of God in three statements:
1) God is Ein Sof--without end and beyond any other descriptive words.
2) Thus we cannot see God as masculine.  More accurately, there is a balance of the divine feminine and masculine within God.
3) God needs us--is incomplete without our cooperation.



"We need to reacquaint ourselves with the Shekhinah," he said.  One way is to welcome the Sabbath as a queen, a practice that was begun in Kabbalah:  "Come, let us go forth to welcome Queen Shabbat."


"As the sun sets and the Sabbath begins, go to a high spot, close your eyes, and meditate on the Shekhinah, God's Presence," Matt suggested.  "Shabbat means 'to stop.'  It is an opportunity to reacquaint ourselves with God.  For the whole day, we possess the greatest luxury possible--not thinking of money [or work]."

"We can disengage from materialism," he said.  We can enjoy walking, reading, unplanned time.


"The Shabbat is a palace in time, a chance to recover the divine presence of God."


As his words ended, the room was filled with awe, a holy sense of God's nearness, and a new feeling that we can indeed live in God's presence for at least one day if we choose.

Such a Winter's Day

News of Whitney Houston's death today makes us all wince.


It began as such a lovely day in Los Angeles: billowing clouds rolling in from the ocean, challenging the standard blue sky and sunshine.  It remained a brisk and boisterous day of weather with the sun winning, the 20% chance of rain fading.


I went shopping in the downtown fashion district with my daughter Ellen, looking for wedding accessories.  Then we went to lunch in Echo Park at a Thai-Mex fusion restaurant.


How could such a happy day be invaded with this kind of news? 


While 10 million people in Los Angeles County are working, playing, thinking of Valentine's Day or the Grammy awards, some are taking one more hit of a drug to get through the day.


For Whitney in her room at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, the pills are fatal.  She misses the annual party she loved to attend before the Grammys.


For the rest of us, the evening turns cloudy and thoughtful.


I'm reeling from these repeated sucker punches: a 22-yr-old Santa Monica girl in November, Amy Winehouse last summer, and now Whitney Houston.


In each case there's so much talent and beauty, the struggle against addiction, and so much loss.


As a mother, my heart aches.