God as Woman: #WhyIStayed

I have no idea why I am writing this at this present moment – in the midst of theological colloquy papers and field education case studies, I should clearly be focused on writing scholastically. However, I have wanted to write this for a while in the purview of what happened with the Ray Rice and Janay Palmer domestic violence tragedy that swirled out of control in the media. After the video of Janay Palmer being physically abused and accosted by her husband (NFL player) Ray Rice surfaced, there was a storm of backlash she received for staying with Ray Rice. As woman who has never experienced domestic violence in a relationship such as Janay Palmer, I felt very conflicted as I watched people attempt to snatch every bit of Palmer’s agency by defaming her name, questioning her intelligence, and attributing her loyalty to Rice as a bi-product of her desire for material wealth. How did anything about Janay Palmer’s personhood have anything to do with Ray Rice’s actions? Needless to say, I was so happy to see the #WhyIStayed hashtag campaign arise to give space for women’s voices to speak their truths as it related to domestic violence cases.

Soon thereafter, I began thinking of relationships, spaces, and places that I remained even despite of abuse I was suffering. Though, as I stated previously, I have never had a man lay his hands on me (besides the one whoopin I got from my Dad as a child), I started to realize that I had experienced an abusive relationship – that was my relationship with my church. I had given so much of myself, so blindly, to my church throughout my time in youth ministry that I was almost shocked that my calling to ministry would not be affirmed. But on that day when I went to the church leadership to confess my calling, I was stiff armed with every scripture in the Bible containing expectations of women’s silence, submission, and servitude within the church. It was very damaging, now that I look back on it.

One would think that it would just be easy to pack your stuff and leave at the very moment that your truth, worth, and personhood was denied. But it wasn’t that simple. I had ties in my church. I had family – biological and extended. I had worked so hard to cultivate meaningful relationships with my youth and the leaders of the church. God had given me a vision for moving the young people forward in their relationship with God and that is what I was doing. My leaving, or even standing up for myself to be recognized as a minister, just didn’t seem like an option when other people’s souls were at stake. So, I stayed. I stayed because I felt that my voice wasn’t as important as the well-being of my kids. I stayed because I figured I could handle the abuse (being used for ministry excessively while not being recognized as minister) because I was comfortable with what I did have. I stayed because I thought it was where God wanted me to be. Sounds eerily similar to women who have suffered abusive relationships at the hands of their spouses.

After a time of feeling choiceless, voiceless, and suffocated – I finally left my church to seek out God’s call on my life. Even though I did enter fellowship with a church where I could affirm my calling, it has taken me up till very recently to really begin the process of healing. Abusive relationships that deny, negate, or harm your personhood have a tendency to seep into your soul in places you would never think to look. Even now that I am in divinity school, I watch as I second-guess myself and my calling time and time again; and, before now, I never had a problem with self-confidence.

In the aftermath of dealing with #WhyIStayed, I am so thankful that this theological journey has begun teaching and showing me a new way of looking at God. Just before I began my first year at Vanderbilt divinity school, God showed me a dream/vision (yes I believe that God speaks, through the power of the Holy Spirit, to people in dreams). In my dream/vision, I was asleep in my bed, the daylight had already broken, but it was still fairly early. A woman – a regal and royal Black woman – walked into my room. She had deep chocolate skin and was slightly heavy set. She had on a shiny, light blue and green looking suit and hat to match. She was a fly church mother if I ever saw one. As she walked into my room, I became so startled because I did not know who she was. She walked around to the opposite side of my bed and she stood there, looking over me. I began to try to get up and scream for help, but just then my body became paralyzed and my tongue stuck to the top of my mouth. She smiled at me, calmly, then proceeded to get onto her knees and pray. Calmness and peace quickly took over me as she prayed. And, then the vision/dream ended.

I believe that God was preparing me to understand the embodiment of God’s divinity in womanhood. Typically, in most churches (especially Black churches), we use he-language and father-language to describe God. But I reckon that the vision God gave me was something like the transfiguration experience Peter, James, and John had as recorded in the synoptic gospels. I believe that Jesus was in my room that morning, showing me a divine manifestation in the form of a woman. I know for some people this is a difficult comparison – however, I would contend that the blood and tears that flow from women make us more like Jesus, who when pierced water and blood flowed out, than any other species.

I am praying that in my time of healing and preparation in becoming a theologian and minister I am able to better understand and utilize what Dean Townes calls Liberating Theological Language. We have, for far too long, made our language and our interpretation of scripture too literalistic about God. There is nothing in our language that can capture the fullness of who God is – therefore, all language about God must be seen as metaphorical as ways that we see God acting in the world and how we experience God. I stand in agreement with theologian Sallie McFague who affirms the awesome responsibility and power of metaphorical theology by saying the power of metaphor helps us uncouple our tendencies to make generalizations about who God is and who we are.

In a time when people are wrestling with the very question asked in Exodus 17:7, “Is the Lord among us or not?,” I believe we must be asking where we have seen God and through whom we have experienced God thus far. For me, I have experienced God most through the sacrifices and teaching of the women who came before me. For others, they see God in those who are sick, homeless, or oppressed. And, still for others, God may be among us in nature and creation. Either way, it is my sincere hope that we as leaders of today and tomorrow continue to find new ways to describe and experience God so that no more of God’s sons and daughters have to experience abuse at the hands of the church who continues to one-dimensionalize an infinite God.

The Potter & The Process: Re-Piecing Shards of Faith

Ever since God uprooted my whole life to move me from Little Rock to Nashville for Divinity School last year, everyone always wants to know what I'm learning, how I'm liking the program, and what I plan on doing once I achieve my Master of Divinity degree. And my answer to all of those inquiries is a resounding "I. Do. Not. Know." Sounds crazy, right? One would think that after completing my first year I should be settled in and picking a concentration area. But that has, by far, not proven to be my particular experience as an up and coming theologian, scholar, and minister. My journey to theological education was a long and protracted one – one which dropped me off at the doorsteps of Vanderbilt University not knowing at all what to expect. So, let me be honest in saying to all of you reading this – Divinity School has been a whole 'lotta hell and holy shedding of tears.

The thing about undertaking theological education is that one must consider every single portion of one's own social location (i.e. race, gender, demographic, upbringing, moral/spiritual formation and beliefs, etc.) and be ready to wrestle with why you believe what you believe, how you came to believe that, and if it is actually YOUR truth rather than a construction of truth fed to you by your parents, teachers, the church, and other guiding agents in your life. Though you may have read through that sentence swiftly, I challenge you to think about that for one moment: how does my background inform or impact the beliefs that I carry and are these beliefs really mine to begin with? If this doesn't seem uncomfortable to you, then great – you can skip the next paragraph. But if you have ever experienced any amount of discomfort or uncertainty relating to this question, then do not pass 'Go' and do not collect $200. Just keep reading.

Whether I was ready or not for answering that question, that is precisely what Vanderbilt Divinity School made me do upon my arrival. Just to be clear, I have used my engineering brain to graphically depict what this past year has been like. You can play along, just replace my labels with descriptions about your own life. For me, as a Black woman, who is now an Engineer and Minister, born and raised in the south, in a traditional Baptist setting, mostly by a single mother– my faith sphere has values and systems that were engrained in me since birth. The way I view family, marriage, identity, sin, love, economy, justice, religion, gender, virtue, and many, many more aspects of human life have everything to do with how I was raised and the journey my upbringing carved out for me.

So, when I accepted my calling to Divinity School, I just knew my well-fortified faith sphere was going to not only keep me sane but also keep me near the cross as I traversed the hallowed hallways of theological education. My, oh my, how I was so sadly misinformed. To my surprise (and dismay) my faith sphere was tugged, pushed, pulled, slapped, spat upon, questioned, squeezed, stirred, boiled, baked, and fried starting on day one. Please do not misunderstand what I am saying. I am not saying that Div School made me "lose my Jesus", which so many of the folk in the traditional Black Church were worried about upon my departure. What I am saying is that I was made to critically survey, deconstruct, and analyze my lens as it relates to my faith. There was no more resting complacently on such flowery and empty statements as: "My Pastor says," or "My Bible tells me," or "God said it, that settles it." Instead, it became questions like: "how do we adjudicate Biblical authority?" and "what are the customs, culture, and context behind this scripture?" and "how has Biblical interpretation been appropriated toward society, either helpfully or harmfully?" I don't know about y'all, but was it not so much easier when all we had to do was sing "Jesus loves me this I know."?

After a year of much writing, reading, researching, praying, picking apart scripture, literary/historical/critical/canonical analysis – I have to be completely transparent in saying that this is what happened to my faith sphere: 

It shattered. That's right. Into a million tiny pieces. And, you know what else? It hurt. It still hurts. Yet, as unprepared as I was for this type of faith-altering phenomenon, I can say that it has been the most eye-opening and enlightening experience of my adult life. Yes, it has been painful. And, yes, I have received cuts from the broken glass. But if I could describe the sensation to you, I would say its like breaking through a glass ceiling of limitation that you never even knew existed. Rather than coming to find that my faith had been shattered beyond repair, I have come to see that my faith needed to be wrestled with – handled with brute force and thrown around with reckless abandon.

You see, while I know this journey…rather, this process, is not for everyone – I know God called me here. God, my Potter, would not have brought me to this place if there wasn't some unique assignment for me. And, I believe that is true for everybody, regardless of vocation or location. There are simply times in your life where you have to cast out every single confining and defining convention you have held on to because it is time for God to do a new thing. This is not to say that you need to throw the baby out with the bath water, so-to-speak. But everything God places in you that needs to remain will be restored back into you with more meaning, deeper value, and, perhaps, even stronger faith.

So, while it may seem strange to some that I am basically positioning myself to be the new Christian in Sunday school, I am so humbled and happy to be in this space. I reflect on the words of Isaiah who says "Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?" In a time such as this, when our churches are looking for leaders who will not be bamboozled into the false faith of traditionalism and our communities are crying out for justice and not just re-heated sermons, I feel the call of the Sovereign God upon my life to remain faithful to the process. Though tears may drench my pillow at night, though family and friends may not understand my journey, though I am uncertain and timid at every turn, I am fully persuaded that God is well-able to do just what was promised and exactly as God wills for me to do.

As for the rest of my time in Div School, I pray to spend it constructively – working out my faith, my call, my passion, with God's heart and Jesus' mission of deliverance and healing. I know it won't be easy and at times it seems like re-piecing and replacing the shards of my faith is impossible. But I truly believe that God enjoys using those of us who are broken in some places. Why? Because. That means there are just more pieces for God to work with. [For any of you on this journey with me, or any of you struggling with allowing God to help you wrestle with your faith/being your most authentic self, check out this book: Daring Greatly by Dr. Brene Brown. It has been an awesome, in-depth look at the power of transparency and vulnerability.]