Rachel Held Evans is hosting a "Week of Mutuality."  Here is my contribution to the syncroblog!

I always thought I was a complementarian. (According to the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, complementarianism "affirms that men and women are equal in the image of God but maintain complementary differences in  role and function.") Then Lianne Roembke, author of Building Credible Multicultural Teams and a woman I greatly admired, asked me how our marriage actually worked.

As a young wife I trusted Terry’s judgment more than my own. He was so logical, so convinced that he was right,  could state his reasons for coming to any decision, and rarely changed his mind. I had gut feelings and changed my mind ... a lot. But he (smart guy that he is) listened to me and learned to trust my intuitions.  We never, that I can remember, made any significant decisions that we did not agree on. I do not remember him ever trumping my views because he was the “head”.  Our roles and functions could not be described as “lead”  and “submit.”  We always functioned as equal partners, under the authority of Jesus, seeking to respond to the Spirit of God and to represent His kingdom.

As the years went by, he helped me to become more confident in my own insights, my own thinking and my own wisdom. When he had surgery to remove a brain tumor in 1993, was hospitalized for 5 months, and subsequently faced with a long rehabilitation, we had new roles to play. I had to make the decisions. I handled the finances, dealt with his medical issues, sold the house, organized an international move, and supported the children as they were uprooted from their homes and established in another country. I did it well, with the grace of God and the help of many. 

In the subsequent years, Terry (who is by the way, is the best and most Jesus-like person I know)  encouraged me as I went back to school to get my Master’s degree and established a new role in ministry in Campus Crusade for Christ.  (“They need what you have,”  he said.) He enjoys hearing my insights, is influenced by what I am learning, and is glad I read all those books and give him synopses (so he doesn’t have to read them.)  He likes the (rare) opportunities that I have to speak at church – because my sermons are good. I could never have done what I do without his encouragement and support. He helps to create an environment in which I can thrive.  

There have been other men with who have done the same.  Dr. James Houston and Dr. Bruce Hindmarsh, professors at Regent College who treated my work with respect when I felt like the escaped housewife in a classroom full of bright young men;  Steve Ellisen and Matt Mikalatos who as my bosses in Campus Crusade for Christ gave me a platform;  and colleagues  like Bob, Darren, Jason, and Kirk who have always sought out my contributions and valued my gifts.

My very wise mentor, Ney Bailey, told me “you be responsible for the depth of your ministry, and let God be responsible for the breadth.”  I  don’t want to fight for a voice or a place at the table (or on the platform.)  But I love it when men like these act like Jesus and fight for me.  Thank-you, brothers.

"The Absence of God"

From The Gospel According to Job by Mike Mason:
"Even as Job confesses His faith in the living God, he matter-of-factly accuses this God of deserting him, of leaving him in the lurch. It is as if God, though alive, might as well be dead. Nevertheless Job appeals to this silent, absent God as one whose living reality remains entirely beyond question, one whose existence is more certain than his own. (Job 27:2) ... Faith is the ability to tolerate the intolerable paradox of God's clear and undisputed title as Lord of the universe in spite of His apparent absence. Some might prefer to see faith as an awareness of God's presence, the discerning of His hand at work in our lives.But what of all the times we cannot see any hand at all? Sometimes the Lord touches us directly. But often He works through secondary agents - through other people, through created things, through life experiences both good and bad - and in such cases we may not be aware of His involvement until long afterwards, if at all. This is when pure faith is called for, faith reduced to simplest terms. "When you cannot practice the presence of God,"  wrote C.S. Lewis, "then it is something to practice the absence of God." 

Happy are those ...

The field of positive psychology has great  insights into the happiness and the brain. Here is a very entertaining Ted talk  which is a good example.
An observation, and a question:

• Note the connection between the practices he mentions - gratitude, journaling, exercise, acts of kindness - and Christian spiritual disciplines. 
• What do you think is the basis for this positive outlook? As one who believes that God is redeeming and restoring the world, I have hope, and thus a basis for a positive outlook. Apart from that, I don't quite get what the basis might be for this positive outlook, other than that it works ... that is, those who cultivate positivity are indeed happier and more productive, as demonstrated in a great deal of recent research. 

Making Sense of our Lives

People who are able to make sense of their difficult or traumatic experiences are more resilient, more able to have secure attachments than those who haven’t. A child who has one person in their life who is present to them, who sees them, who is able to help them make sense of their experiences will survive even traumatic experiences more readily than one who doesn’t. (It has to do with the connections between the left brain and its rationality to the right brain and its bodily and emotional responses. For those who know about neuroscience, please forgive my limited understanding and explanations!)

When we read Scripture, we enter into the story of history and find our own place in it. I read the prophets and discover that the pattern of God’s work is the pattern of death and resurrection, not “progress”. I remember that God is a God who brings life out of death. I identify with the lamentations of Jeremiah and remember that in spite of how things looked at the time, God did fulfill his promises to his people. When I participate in communion I remember and reenact God bringing life out of death. My brain is making sense of my own experiences – making a narrative, putting it into context. I am entering into and finding my place in the story.

Reading the Bible ... participating in communion ... changes your brain.

Yet Lie Still and Sink Beneath

From today's Daily Strength for Daily Needs:
"Be not troubled; for if troubles abound, and there be tossing, and storms and tempests, and no peace, nor anything visible left to support; yet lie still, and sink beneath, till a secret hope stir, which will stay the heart in the midst of all these; until the Lord administer comfort, who knows how and what relief to give the weary traveller, that knows not where it is, nor the way to look, nor where to expect a path."

Exercise is Medicine

I have been going to Paul, my physical therapist for a problem that started a month ago. Paul is a great physical therapist. "Exercise is medicine:" he says. "If you don't do the exercises, I can't help you."

Yesterday I discovered that I have been sitting down wrong. Standing up too. You would think that I know how to sit down and stand up - but one develops these bad habits, sometimes the result of an injury, and ones whole body begins to adapt to it. It throws things off, and causes weaknesses and pain in unexpected places. Everything shifts a little, until doing it wrong feels right - and doing it right feels wrong.

You see where I am headed with this, right?

The only way to change this is 1) to have someone point it out to you, someone who knows how your body ought to be working, and show you how to do it differently, and 2) decide that you are going to change the pattern, and then practice, practice, practice. At first it feels wierd, and you have to concentrate. (I am doing 3 sets of 10 - sit down, stand up, sit down, stand up. Watch in the mirror .. are my knees straight? are my feet straight ahead? Where is my weight? ) Over time the new habit becomes more natural and the pains and disability the old habit caused begin to go away. (I know this because Paul has helped me change other bad body mechanics habits.)

#1 above is the equivalent of spiritual direction. You rarely can recognize these patterns yourself - you just know that you have weakness and pain somewhere and don't generally know why. A spiritual director is one who has learned to recogize the workings of the soul and has learned some exercises for it.

#2 above is the equivalent of repentance (change your mind and your direction) and spiritual discipline.
Now I know I sit down and stand up wrong. Just knowing that doesn't change it. I need to exercise. So here I go - another set of 10. So simple... but gets the job done.

God Works in Stuff

One reason we don’t understand spiritual practices very well is that we often think of human beings as bodies who have a soul ... that is, the real me is somehow inside this body, not integrally connected with it. This is dualist Greek philosophy, not Hebrew thought! The Biblical view is that human beings are embodied spirits. God, who created the natural world and was Himself incarnated in Jesus - works in real stuff – blood and hormones and neurons, not in some magical, disembodied way.

Because we are human – embodied spirits - our training takes place through practice. We are creatures of habit, and our brains, our emotions, our impulses, our responses are conditioned. That is the process by which we are transformed.

It’s a long process, and I really don’t think there are shortcuts.