Moving On

I've decided to consolidate all my blogs into one, so I won't be posting here anymore. Please visit the new blog at:


http://www.lainiepetersen.com/

West Memphis Three

Christian writer, speaker, and researcher John Morehead is calling Christians to action in the case of the"West Memphis Three": Young men who were the victims of "Satanic Panic" in the 1990s and who convicted of the horrific murders of three little boys. I have been aware of this case for some time, and was shocked to discover how shoddily this case was investigated and prosecuted.

Mr. Morehead is right in his call to action: It is time to stop being shocked and to start acting on behalf of these men who appear to have been victims of a modern-day witchhunt. It is especially important for Christians to denounce the "satanic panic" and to demand that justice be done:


http://johnwmorehead.blogspot.com/2007/08/west-memphis-three-satanic-panic-and.html

Your Husband is Your Jesus

So I am over at my mom's for Sunday dinner, and my 22 year old sister is in a dither. She recently attended a wedding where the scripture passages were 1st Corinthians 13 (standard) and Ephesians 5:22 et al (conveniently leaving out Ephesians 5:21). This was irritating, but she could deal. But then the pastor told the bride that he "You need to treat your husband as if he was Jesus, as if he was your savior." Then the minister goes on to say to her husband: "You need to treat this woman beside you [he wouldn't even use her name] as if she was the church and you are Jesus."

Now how the heck am I,(or anybody, for that matter) supposed to encourage young women to consider Christianity when THIS is the sort of thing that they get to hear at weddings?

Off Topic: Our Parsley Plant

Three years ago I brought home a parsley plant and, as I have a black thumb, I gave it to my husband to raise. This is what it looks like now:



P.S. The parsley itself is delicious.

Crazy Community IV

(Sorry for the delay in getting back to this. I finally graduated and can, for the first time in a long while, get back to writing.)

The ministry newsletter told me that Linda and Ernie were doing well, had bought a townhouse in the suburbs, and the group was still together and meeting for church on Sundays.

I was reluctant to attend meetings, given my condition, but was happily reconnected with Linda and Ernie via phone. I was invited to join them for Thanksgiving dinner (an invitation eagerly accepted) and apparently turkey has labor-inducing properties, as I, and 23 other women found ourselves in the labor and delivery ward of Lutheran General Hospital the next day.

I made the decision to place my child for adoption, and, after several weeks of recovery, headed off for college. From there we continued the ministry as best we could: Publishing a newsletter, getting together on the occasional weekend, and making plans for the future.

As so often happens, however, members of our group began to drop out. The complaints were vague, but most often had to do with the fact that we weren't like a "real" church: We had no building, elders, deacons, or somesuch. The irony of all this was, of course, that it is a bit difficult to put all this structure together without a core group of dedicated people. So in the end our crazy community was made up of Linda, Ernie and myself. And, after some poor choices on my part, I ended up also leaving the ministry, (though remaining friends with Linda and Ernie).

I recently spoke with Linda about the "old days", and as we laughed together about some of our blunders, I mentioned that I now wish that I had had more faith during that time. Linda said "Well, actually, I wish we had had more sense.". I think that we were both left a little confused and shaken by these revelations. Should we have had more sense? Did we make the stupid mistakes of the young and immature? Yes. But should we have had more faith in God, and in each other? Yes.

Here I am now, twenty years later, sitting at a desk in a downtown high-rise, wondering what happened to the zeal I had in my youth. I look back on the wasted years, damning myself for my bad choices and unfaithfulness, and wondering if I can ever manage to pick up the pieces.

Holiness

I don't think I ever really "got" holiness until recently. It seems like holiness is usually taught as a set of rules, plus the admonition to feel bad if you break them.

But in recent months, I have found myself considering what it is to be holy. I recently posted on another journal that I thought that life is what can make you holy. Not always, of course.

But sometimes life can make you holy.

I know people who are living lives that are very hard. Hard and unfair. They are doing things that they shouldn't have to do. And yet now, because of the lives that they are leading, they are holier people. Many of their character flaws have either disappeared completely, or are much softened. They responded to the horror that their lives had become, and instead of being twisted by their fate, they became holy people.

I believe now that the "rules" are only part of the holiness equation. I don’t think it is as trite as “making the right choice” but it is a matter of responding to the unjust life as if one believes that there is nothing to be gained by succumbing to indifference, bitterness, or evil.

Undermining Patriarchy

I have recently read some interesting material about the biblical figure of Joseph, the adoptive father of Jesus. The writers take pains to point out the ways in which Joseph's behavior challenges our standard notions of masculinity, and as such, these behaviors undermine patriarchy as a whole.

The male desire to preserve his DNA by controlling the sexuality of his female partner is legendary. Patriarchial customs are examples of how men flex their (social and physical) muscles in order to avoid having to support children that are not their own. Yet Joseph is a man who, even previous to angelic instruction, was determined to not utilize his power and have his betrothed (and her bastard fetus) stoned to death. As such, a man who was willing to give up his masculine perogative prevented (at least temporarily) the death of God incarnate.

In my struggle with the texts of terror, it is the Biblical narratives such as this one that remind me that patriarchy is not optimal. That self-control is a virtue and that a reliance on patriarchial power, even if seemingly codified into law, is not the way of the kingdom.