Being Woman in the World is in the world!

Hi everyone,

Just letting you know that BWW is now available in e book and from Amazon etc.

Amazon can provide you with kindle versions and also Print on Demand.

Click the links to order:
Amazon.com | Amazon UK | Amazon Aust

Kobo NZ | Kobo UK | Kobo USA | Kobo Aust. | Smashwords

The ebooks are available through Philip Garside’s website (see the link below):

https://pgpl.co.nz/ebooks/being-woman-in-the-world-ebooks/

People ordering from me are taking the opportunity to purchase a trilogy set or to catch up on copies of Book 1 or Book 2 if they have missed those before. Good idea!

The contents list may give you an idea of the scope of the book. I have put the names of the poems in italics. They are sometimes at the ends of chapters and sometimes within them. Rose Riddell in her endorsement (see last blog) says the poems ‘glide and sing’. You can judge for yourself! Sorry about the wobbly line of page numbers!

Being Woman in the World

Contents
Basic Assumptions…………………………………………………………………
1 – When her world changes, what’s a girl to do?………………………
Yes……………………………………………………………………………… 11
2 – I need to talk……………………………………………………………… 13
I don’t know what to think!……………………………………………………. 18
3 – In the beginning…………………………………………………………….. 19
In the beginning………………………………………………………………… 28
4 – Theology or Misogyny?………………………………………………….. 29
Dust to dust and breath to Breath…………………………………………… 38
5 – A Fall or An Awakening?………………………………………………… 39
When did I fall asleep?………………………………………………………… 50
6 – Can girls do anything?……………………………………………………. 51
Misogyny/Philogyny…………………………………………………………… 62
Biblical women………………………………………………………………… 63
7 – Brave and Prophetic Women…………………………………………… 64
Gomer…………………………………………………………………………… 69
Tamar…………………………………………………………………………… .77
8 – Me Too……………………………………………………………………… .79
Bathsheba…………………………………………………………………………84
9 – Terrible texts………………………………………………………………… .87
Raped by the Pen………………………………………………………………… 87
Bat Jepthah………………………………………………………………………..89
‘To the wilderness so hostile’………………………………………………….. 98
Tamar…………………………………………………………………………….. 99
10 – Women disciples followed too……………………………………… 100
Women of the Way……………………………………………………………… 107
Whose Authority?……………………………………………………………… 111
Mary M………………………………………………………………………… 115
11 – Women mentioned in dispatches ………………………………… 116
‘Letters written to the churches’……………………………………………. 121
12 – Who says women should keep silent?……………………………. 123
‘For all the saints’……………………………………………………………… 133
13 – He or she or something else: who and what is God?……….. 134
Was there once a light?…………………………………………………………. 142
MotherGod……………………………………………………………………… 143
Who is in charge?…………………………………………………………….. 147
14 –Women leading now……………………………………………………. 148
The dinner party – ended?…………………………………………………… 157
15 – Women of The Burning Bush after 25 years………………….. 158
‘The woman came’…………………………………………………………… . 167
16 – Women of The Burning Bush after 50 years………………….. 168
Thoughts on Psalm 131………………………………………………………… 173
Poem to………………………………………………………………………… 175
17 – Women’s inner voice………………………………………………….. 177
‘Let us reach down deep inside us’……………………………………….. 179
18 – Being Woman in the World…………………………………………. 190
Poems of Lament & Celebration…………………………………………. 197
Lament for Everywoman……………………………………………………… 198
Celebrating Everywoman…………………………………………………….. 199
Appendix 1 Other Women from the Genealogy of the Christ
in Matthew 1…………………………………………………………………… 200
Rahab…………………………………………………………………………… 200
Ruth…………………………………………………………………………….. 202
Mary……………………………………………………………………………. 204
Appendix II…………………………………………………………………… 206
‘Jesus was fortunate’…………………………………………………………… 206
Endnotes……………………………………………………………………….. 208

All books, of course, still available from me for the pre publication discounts as follows:

Wherever you are You are on the Journey $18

We’re All Equally Human $23

Being Woman in the World $26

Coffeeshop Conversations Trilogy special $63.50

Progressing the Journey $23

Special prices valid till 7 December 2022

Go well, be gentle on yourselves and the world

Susan

It doesn’t stop because we are tired of it

This has become my saying about the pandemic, but it is also true about other chronic attitudes and atmospheres which pollute society. Even if you offer a free book, people don’t choose to read any more than they already have (which of course might be a lot) about LBGTQI+ matters. Maybe it’s me. By my having been quite activist at Assemblies people might think a book on the topic by me would be a rant. I understand if reading in this area just simply makes you really really mad and angry and you are tired to the bone of feeling that way. Some give the reason that they have many unread books and should not get another one they won’t read. Perhaps I am too precious in thinking this one is different.

So I thought I would post a few samples to whet the appetite: In the first chapter, Charity and I have just talked about the church’s national gathering the following week. Charity is attending; her first time.

I hope Charity’s experiences the next week wouldn’t be too
challenging. Our church could be unconsciously cruel in the way it
conducts debates on what had become known as “the gay issue.”
I look up and see Charity’s girlfriend Katy coming into the hall.
It embarrassed me that people like Katy, who’d exited the church
after an abusive fundamentalist upbringing, should see a so-called
broader church being so draconian in its moral judgments. It
certainly didn’t encourage Katy, and many others, to dip their toes
back into organised church waters any time soon. I sigh inwardly,
then smile at Katy.
“Hi Katy, come to take her away?” I ask.
Katy grins at me from under her heavy straight black fringe. “Oh!
Hi! Yep, she’s been here all afternoon and we have a date with a pizza
and a movie,” she replies.
“Sounds great! Her relief has just arrived, I think,” I say as I see
Tom and his partner Blake approaching the stall. “Take her away and
romance her,” I suggest.
Surprised, Katy gives me a cautious look. She still can’t get used
to a minister approving of gay relationships. It hadn’t been her
experience in the past. “Yeah,” she says, warily.
I smile. Katy would get used to our inclusive attitude here. It would
take time. I hope Charity’s experiences next week, won’t affect Katy’s
and her trust levels too badly, but I wasn’t too sure. Intending to do
the right thing, the church frequently didn’t get it right in the end.

When the conversation gets going later in the coffeeshop after the national gathering, we talk about how people pick up ideas, attitudes or consumer products at different rates of enthusiasm. There’s a graph I’ve found very helpful in explaining this.

Then the ‘aha’ moment happens, like those that happened to me. It becomes impossible to
treat the Other as Other anymore because they’ve become human
to us, become just like us. I remember thinking at that time that gay
ministry students facing rejection by the Church were students just like me.”
“We are!” replies Charity with a wobbly smile. Welling tears turn
her eyes into teal-green pools. “Another iced coffee to celebrate, I
think,” she says and moves towards the counter.
“Make mine an iced chocolate,” I ask.
When she returns, I’ve sketched a graph on the back of the napkin.
Roger’s Adoption Curve

I notice she’s dried her tears, though she still looks a bit fragile.
I think some brain work might help to move our focus from the
emotional to the cognitive for a while. Not that emotionality was
wrong, but we can seldom get the logical part of our brain to work
if we are in its archaic, generally emotional, sector. Charity looks
curiously at my hastily drawn graph.
“Have you seen the Roger’s Adoption Curve? It’s another way of
looking at ‘ingroup’ activity,” I ask.
“A bell curve, seen those before,” replies Charity.
“Yes, that’s the shape. This one is about how readily people take up
or adopt new ideas. We could draw lots of graphs for different ideas
and you might be at a slightly different place on each one. Today, let’s
let this curve represent how church people adopt the idea of same sex-
attracted people being accepted for ordination as ministers or
elders.”
“Firstly, there are the Innovators, a ridiculously small percentage
of the population. In this case they might be gay themselves, or
liberally minded heterosexuals or people who have gay children or
siblings. Whatever, they know gays are not dangerous subversives!
This might include a gay person who applied for the ministry. They
know it could be dodgy. They are convinced however of their call
and their right to be a minister in the Church if suitable in other
ways. In other areas of life, these might be the inventors of a new
product like the mobile phone.”
Charity nods and I move my pen to the Early Adopters’ section.
“The ministry students who were rainbow people in the first sector
probably managed to get to training because they met some Early
Adopters along the way. Maybe it was their family, their minister, or
a lesbian lecturer at uni. Early Adopters see the new thing happening
and like it. They are still a small percentage of the whole population.
They know the new thing is unusual, but they like unusual. They like
being first when a new thing is happening. In the world of mobile
phones, Early Adopters will line up half the night to buy the new
model at midnight when they go on sale.”
Charity grins and proudly taps her new cell phone. Katy, her
girlfriend, had lined up to buy it for her the previous week. Charity
had been over the moon, not just about the cool features on the cell
phone, but about what that act showed about how much Katy cared
for her.
“Notice the percentages in these sections. Add them together and
you get 16%. A new product does not reach mass market status if
only this small number of the population have bought it. A company
needs to influence the next group as well to get real entrée into the
mass market.” I move my pen to the Early Majority section of the
graph.
“These Early Majority people aren’t as keen on a new event,
product, or idea as the previous two groups. But they watch the
first two groups as they engage with the new product, or idea or
behaviour. They keep an eye on how it’s going. If there are few or no
teething troubles, they will buy the product. This gets the product
into mass market status.

I noticed on the news recently that it was claimed having more than 5% of the population buying EV vehicles meant the idea of EVs was ‘over the tipping point’ i.e. was reaching mass market status. I think they are jumping the gun a little, or perhaps LBGTQI+ is more complex.

Watch David Tomlinson mention We’re All Equally Human on The Holy Shed You Tube channel. https://www.facebook.com/philipgarsidepublishing.

The rest of the Holy Shed session is worth watching too. Dave says some important stuff on the topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxq3y0-ByeA&t=12s

I will post some more another day – but that might give you an idea of how Book 2 of the coffeeshop conversation trilogy goes.

We’re All Equally Human is in Scorpio Books Christchurch!

In the meantime, stay warm/cool (whichever hemisphere you are in), stay safe and stay well – all quite tricky things these days!

Susan

Orders: jones.rs@xtra.co.nz

Good Friday revisited

When you decide that something no longer fits your pathway, maybe it’s because the existing world ceases to have meaning. Sometimes it means a new world explodes in front of you or creeps quietly into your life. If it is the second then you are left in no doubt about what is succeeding the old for you. A certain amount of courage is required to convince friends and family and former community members that you are taking this new path now, but at least you have quite a firm idea of where you are going.

If it is the first, however, the period of grieving for the familiar and the popular and the community who you were happy in before you weren’t, doesn’t have a happy ending in sight. There is a gap, a hollow, a hiatus, a nothing, where before there was some thing.

I didn’t realise until a recent funeral that I had so thoroughly left the interventionist God behind. I had talked about it theoretically, but when the funeral celebrant suggested we might be angry at God for whisking away our friend so suddenly out of our lives, I got a real shock. While I was as discombobulated as everyone else at the suddenness of the death, it never occurred to me to blame God for it. Fortunately the celebrant made no attempt to have that conversation after his first acknowledgement of what for him was a theological problem. I would have found that hard to take.

Easter has followed soon after. In 2019 I was conducting services for my last Easter as an active minister. I wrote a complicated sermon which linked the re-creation of a perfume from the DNA of an extinct Hawaiian hibiscus with the idea of resurrection. I remember relating a scientist’s description of the transfer of genetic code from a scrap from an old desiccated hibiscus flower into a yeast cell which then made the perfume. I then likened that to Jesus’ DNA code of how-to-be-authentically-human being transferred to us so the fragrance of it continued long after his own extinction from the world.

I don’t remember now how I felt last Easter (2021). The previous Easter (2020) we were all caught up in the mysteries of our first lockdown, of course. This year I found myself thinking about the gap in which I found myself, having let go conventional explanations and theologies of the point of Christianity. I wondered about attending a Maundy Thursday mass at the Cathedral. I knew I didn’t want to go to any kind of Good Friday event and Easter Day has long been expressed in terms too triumphal for me to endure, especially when fighting and victorious imagery is used.

A Palm Sunday Holy Shed helped with the revelation (for me) that the significance of the foal was to underline the point that Jesus was riding a female donkey. And I like the explanation that ‘Jesus is Lord’ is a treasonous statement in a world where it was mandatory that Caesar was Lord. But still that leaves Jesus lording it over me, the source of all spiritual power, external to me.

A fellow colleague posted a comment on Good Friday in which the point was made that Jesus’ death was result of his being human. This set off a train of thought. I have thought much the same about Jesus’s death for some time. He was the most authentic human being the world has known, and he acted authentically all the time. He didn’t back off being authentic when It looked like that might get him into trouble. It is always true that in a world where the majority of people are hiding behind inauthentic masks, an authentic person will cause discomfort and distress and eventually anger.

When I think about it, I can be authentic for a while, but in front of some kind of danger (and it doesn’t have to be very much danger – just disapproval will do), I will back off, soften my statements or keep quiet. Jesus managed to be himself all the time. I am sure the Authorities of his day sometimes sighed and thought “The idiot, if only he would keep quiet, but he’s spoken out so we have to do something now.” In a project I am engaged in, recently, people have changed their stories once they were out of the face-to-face situation. It was too hard to keep speaking up when you sensed disagreement across the table,

And yes, I agree with the other concept which the post my friend put up included: That to be human means to suffer. It doesn’t have to be the kind of political suicide Jesus committed in the interests of true authenticity. It may be having chronic arthritis, or post-viral fatigue syndrome (ME, CFS, Long covid), or being sad because your children have left the home nest, or being disappointed at the end of a long working life that you hadn’t been braver, or depression or being fed up with a pandemic and how scratchy it has made us all. It may be suffering discomfort and opprobrium because we align ourselves with an oppressed group from Maori to Pasifika to LGBTQI to refugees, women and the abused.

The escapist literature many of us like to read is as seductive as it is because it pictures a world where authentic people win out, not the unscrupulous, comfort and ease are possible all the time and love is everything and fixes everything.

But life is, while not about unrelieved suffering for most, about being disappointed, disillusioned, forgotten and abandoned a lot of the time. ‘Life is difficult’ said M Scott Peck in the opening of The Road Less Travelled. When my mother read that book, she bought a copy for each of her children. I never asked her exactly why, but it had something to do with that first statement. Being human is living as gracefully and honestly as we can through all those different difficulties.

Perhaps a phrase to typify the celebration of humanness which I would want Good Friday to become might be ‘Life is difficult – make it count’ or ‘Life is difficult, live it well.’ or ‘Life is difficult enough, be yourself at all times.’ Good Friday could become a day when we lament the difficulties within life, support those wrestling with them and commemorate those who have gone before through the difficulties with head unbowed, like Jesus, looking to them for ways to be authentic ourselves.

Photo by Mathias P.R. Reding on Pexels.com

What do you think?

Susan

Orders: jones.rs@xtra.co.nz

Info: www.jonessmblog.wordpress.com

An Addendum

Last post I used a picture of the young woman Russian ice skater who apparently did the first quad jumps in women’s figure skating at an Olympics (and won gold with her ROC team). Since then, news has broken that the medal ceremony has been delayed because of drug investigations connected with her.

She is under 16 and so is seen as a ‘protected person’, meaning the sole responsibility is not seen as hers. Also because of her age, her name should not be known publicly.

The official word will come out in time. I’d like to say however, that the thought of Russian coaches etc., breaking drug banns when Russia has been allowed to send a non-national team, despite intentionally dodgy past behaviour, defeats my powers of understanding. Watch this space.

There is forgiveness and mercy which may be called for in some sense given the age of the athlete, but there is also the question of taking responsibility and of accountability and of fairness to other athletes. There is also the question of how very young athletes are treated in the effort to bolster national pride and glory.

Going from stage to stage

Photo by Tobi on Pexels.com

Reactions to Wherever you are.. are bringing insights into people’s journeys. One thing I’ve noticed, (which I could have worked out before), is that those who have stopped church involvement are finding the book affirming and helpful. Others maybe not so much.

It’s made me think about what makes the difference for a person between one stage of the journey and the next. While Fowler and others might present the stages as discrete from each other, they do, of course, blur into each other at the edges. I’ve also experienced a kind of cyclical movement for myself where I can revisit former stages depending on the topic. For example, my theological ideas might become quite radical, but I can be fundamentalist about church customs and traditions. It may be that I cling on to those traditions exactly because I feel less secure in other areas of my spirituality. Sometimes in the darkness you need to hang on to what comfort you can find!

Photo by Mitja Juraja on Pexels.com

This reminds me a little of flying in to Wellington airport (bear with me, all will become clear). There is often turbulence as we approach the land from the sea and the plane is wobbling around up and down and sideways. I comfort myself in those moments that the pilots can choose an average of all those positions and are checking all the time that we are maintaining the appropriate height for each stage of our approach.

It’s kind of like that with faith stages. We may seem to be wobbling around, but somewhere inside, something has clicked which drew us more into the questioning stage, than remaining in the conventional stage – or more into disenchantment than remaining wholly enchanted. (Get the book if you don’t understand these references, see below).

It can be that a shocking event moves us decisively, with no mistake, into the next stage of faith. More often, I suspect, we move more slowly. A series of events, comments, books, people, combine to move us out of conventional faith, out of the enchantment we had felt and into the next phase. What I am working out is that until that has happened, we remain mostly enchanted or mostly conventional.

There is nothing wrong with that, as we all move or don’t move at our own pace and in our own idiosyncratic fashion. There are no prizes for speed in this ‘sport’, there are no technical skill points or artistic impression points (yes I’ve been watching Winter Olympics figure skating and snowboarding). If you can’t do a quadruple jump, you haven’t failed!

15 year old Russian skater does first quad jumps in women’s Olympic figure skating.

So why am I teasing this idea out? It has occurred to me, through recent emails and conversations, that it’s important on our own journeys to find like-minded people to walk with. So, whatever the one event or the conclusion from several events which has moved you into the next stage, seek out others who have experienced that same shift in consciousness. They will know what you are talking about, even if your journey is qualitatively different from theirs. They will ‘get it’. It will help both your journeys to talk with each other. (If there is no one you can find in your neighbourhood, drop me an email and we can chat.)

On the other hand, that very dear friend of yours, with whom you have always talked a lot and shared many deep experiences? They might not have made the same shift as you have. You will not of course, now cut them dead, but you may find that it is best to confide a little less of your new discoveries to them. Those conversations may be saved for the people who have made the shift. Your long term friend? Still good fun, still a stimulating companion, but let the ground of the conversation move to other topics.

You will know what I mean when I say that to move ahead, you sometimes need to employ a sharp knife’s edge to ideas you formerly held dear. The phrase ‘cutting edge’ is not an accident. To get somewhere new we need to slice through some long held knots and ties. Continuing to talk a lot with those long term friends still in the same old place, can dull your faith-knife’s cutting edge. Someone who has not made the same shifts as you will not understand this ruthless-seeming approach to cutting old ties. It’s not ruthless but it is conscious. It seems ruthless to people still unaware of how ideas and assumptions can twine about us like the tendrils on a sweet pea plant, holding us. That holding firm seems like a good idea at first as we struggle to get a foothold in the faith, but it can also hold us back as time goes by.

Even delicate seeming tendrils can hold us back and fence us in

I know that more conventional believers think that a questioning, seeking person might be in danger of losing their faith. But it takes more trust, I believe, to step out on a journey where you do not know the final destination. Faithfulness is required on the seeking journey, but it is a faithful determination to keep putting one step in front of the other, trusting our Companion and our companions. What an adventure!

In other news…. It was a thrill yesterday to be shown an order of service which had used an affirmation which is in Wherever you are, You are on the Journey. That minister (whom I don’t know personally) had obviously ‘made the shift’ and recognized words they and their congregation needed. It was particularly timely as Progressing the Journey is in the final edits stage. It has not only new words to familiar tunes like the one I posted last week, but also liturgical fragments for different times of the church year, including affirmations. I remember the thrill of discovery I felt finding Dorothy McRae McMahon’s books of liturgy. it would be wonderful if Progressing the Journey provided the same sense of discovery for others. That’s a dream to be made real, I hope. Here’s a taster:

Affirmation and Recognition of Faith Found in Epiphany
Epiphany Year C
We recognise those moments of epiphany
– we’ve all had them –
when we have suddenly realised
everything has changed.

When we have seen deep down inside us
and found there what we did not expect.
Instead of the dark, greedy, grasping selfishness
we have been warned of all our lives,
we have discovered within, instead, light.
Light which children’s drawings sketch around angels
light which softly glows with compassion and welcome,
beckoning us to own our inner rich resource
which is so like God
as to be no different from that we call divine.

We recognise, in those moments of discovery,
in those glimpses of the truth,
we can never be the same again,
even if the waters are deep and dark
we will be led through them
by a loving guide
who is, sometimes, us.

And thankfulness rises deep within.

Go well everyone, befriend intentionally and live courageously,

Susan

Wherever you are, You are on the Journey still available from me at jones.rs@xtra.co.nz.  $20 per book and $5.60 for P & P up to 3 copies.  I’ll send the bank account number and you send me your street address. Easy-peasy! Loving the emails I’m getting about how people have found it a book which gets them thinking about their own journeys. Let me know how you’re finding it!