Five Things Edition
lifestyle blogs, commentary series, Renita Weems
I talked to a stay-at-home mom who is leading a group at church and she shared how she feels ill-equipped and underprepared. Her exact words were that she has been “sweeping floors and wiping butts for a long time.” I took that moment to tell her that I will never stop repeating how being a stay-at-home mom is preparation for so many things and valuable work on its own and that people need her perspective and her skills. I frequently find myself reminding working-outside-the-home moms how much they contribute and how their work complements their parenting. And telling single and/or childless women that their lack of marriage or children does not keep them from having a voice and a perspective that we all need. And I believe it. We need each other with all of our differences. God is not calling us to the same things. How completely boring would that be? I saw a quote from Renita Weems that said, “One of the best ways to get an idea of how a woman feels about being a woman is to take a look at how she treats other women.” I want to constantly cheerlead and call up other women. Men too.1 You and I can only do that as we walk in the confidence of Christ about our own lives.
I’ve inhabited the internet space of Cup of Jo for years. My favorites are the outfit posts. Next up are the beauty uniforms which talk just as much about the woman’s work and often her ancestors as her skin care routine. Other posts are light-hearted notes about parenting, short explorations of different corners of life, guides for gathering people. I rarely buy things that are recommended, but I love seeing the little corners of other people’s lives. I disagree with some politics or spirituality or policies, but that’s also true with the people in my real life.2 When Cup of Jo launched their substack Big Salad, I subscribed immediately and I look forward to it every Friday. This month I paused a subscription on a Substack and subscribed to Morning Person. I spent the next week and a half reading back through a year and a half of the archives. I’ve wondered about it before but my deep dive into Morning Person brought it up again: what about these spaces do I find so fascinating? For now, I’ve tied it back to two things: delight in the everyday and curiosity about life. Delight is a skill I’ve been nurturing for years, maybe even a decade. It’s seeing my own life with all its little details with gratitude and joy. And these posts, which might be considered unnecessary, delight me. Here is this quirky cup I found at a flea market. Don’t you love it too? I am also deeply curious about life. What makes up a life? How do other people live? These blogs whisper into that as both of those women have lives so incredibly different from my own. I have this one life but I could have other ones with some changes. And there are lives I will never have. What are those like?3
A few weeks ago I decided that I am going to collect commentaries on each book of the Bible all written by women. I’ll have to buy one book from this series and one book from another, but won’t that be wonderful?4 We are hosting a monthly women’s gathering at church and teaching through the book of Ephesians this year.5 I thought it would be a great idea for us to have a shared resource since the teachers are coming from different churches.6 I knew that Dr. Lynn Cohick had an Ephesians commentary and looked it up only to discover that it cost $45 on sale and was over 500 pages long. I get excited about books and nerdy resources, but most of the time I have enough self-awareness to know that everyone else doesn’t. I bought us all a copy of this smaller and cheaper, though still excellent, work and bought myself Cohick’s commentary. I’m reading it slowly and counting it as the beginning of my collection.7
In a couple of weeks, I’m teaching in our full-time director’s meeting.8 I had planned to talk about politics and spiritual formation, but I had just finished reading Think Again by Adam Grant and I couldn’t get it out of my mind. I borrowed the book from a friend about a year ago and it had been sitting on my nightstand waiting for me to dig in. And I dug in.9 For our meeting, it seemed simplest to play a YouTube interview and facilitate some discussion but I ran into a problem. Most of the leadership and productivity talk is done by white dudes with backgrounds in the military or sports who sound like sportcasters when they talk in public.10 Our trainings over the summer had been full of white dudes (I keep track of things like that) and I wanted to do something different, but got very frustrated when I started looking for material. This is not to hate on white men at all. I’ve learned a lot from Grant and from Cal Newport, who I’ve been listening to again lately. BUT I would love to hear from some women, some people of color, some people with different backgrounds of leadership and related topics. I’ve been contemplating for a while how our ideas of leaders would be different if they weren’t mostly formed by the military and professional sports. Do you have great resources?
Some friends came to dinner and brought a book for me to look at. It was a “five lies of our age” type of book, chronicling what’s wrong with the world and how we are viewed with suspicion by unbelievers. I didn’t love the characterizations in the book (it was mostly about gender and sexuality) or the generalizations, but, most of all, I would just rather approach the world differently. Instead of teaching what’s wrong with the world first or even most, I’d love to teach the beautiful vision of the kingdom. I’d love to teach it and practice it and repent when I get it wrong on repeat. If we did that, we would recognize when things are wrong. I think it would help our witness as well. It is unfruitful to frame certain people or movements as the enemy. It’s hard to grow in love for people when you are constantly talking about how horrible they are and how they are spreading lies in the church (It seems Paul saves that for religious false teachers).11 I’m beginning to think we focus on things that are wrong so often because we are still incapable of imagining what’s right. We don’t talk about a robust theology of sex or hospitality or engaging in community because we actually don’t have them. Let’s build something instead of just shouting other things down.
Have you ever tried talking to men about their clothes/appearance/interests like you would a woman? They LIGHT UP.
I practice being unoffended when I disagree with people.
They are also unabashedly marketed toward women, I think. I’d love to know the breakdown of their subscribers. I keep thinking about what it means to dabble, or delight, in things that are marked with a “WOMAN” stamp and not worry about whether or not men read it.
After that, I’ll do a collection that’s all written people of color/from the majority world. This is near the top of my list to buy way before I start that collection.
I’m teaching in February!
And I oversee this entire project, though I don’t run it.
This by Dr. Amy Peeler will be next.
It was supposed to be a few weeks ago and the schedule was rearranged but at least the work is already done.
There were some things that I just could not read alongside all of my seminary homework
Yes, I did text that to my husband and he said it was the funniest part of his day.
Those of us in church leadership had better be regularly inviting the Spirit to deeply search our own hearts.