Goodbye Norman Gene
Today I kissed a lot of white guys goodbye.
I have been working with an all-female writing group for the past six months or so. This Monday, after a month long migraine-induced dry spell, I finally gathered my wits about me and returned to the group. It was my turn to submit some pieces to be work-shopped, but I hadn’t been well enough long enough to write anything new. So instead I searched my blog and printed out five or six pieces that had been filed under priestess-y things. My hope was that in this mis-mash of thoughts, ideas, and images, something might float to the top that would serve as an article.
My group said no. They said, “This is a book.”
Then Margaret, who is fiery, and silver-haired and from New York said, “But first you have to stop describing yourself as weird!”
The truth of the matter is, even now, several years out of the patriarchal evangelical church world, I still feel weird. I still have this vague concern that any day now I might be burned at the stake. Those voices who tell me to be worried are not all-the-way-bad voices. They are voices of tradition and a certain kind of hermeneutic and modernist seminaries. These voices used to sit on my shoulder. Now they’ve moved farther away, and I thought it was really far away. But when Margaret mentioned how many times I self-describe as wierd, I realized they’d only moved next door – and if I extend my arm and wiggle my fingers I can feel them right there, about two inches from my fingertips.
“I wonder what it would look like…” said Christine P. (famous first lines of any spiritual director)… “I wonder what it would look like for you to have some sort of ritual to say goodbye to those voices.” I wondered too. So today, in the two hours I suddenly found myself free from both duty and pain, I found out.
I carried up a bunch of empty boxes from the basement. I made myself caffeine free-herbal tea. I put on the CD Jennifer B. burned for me (“Songs for International Women’s Day) and to the tune of Lady Marmalade and Laura Love’s Octoroon and Three Alto’s Would You Harbor Me?, I cleaned a bunch of white guys off my bookshelves. I said goodbye to thick tomes on Biblical Interpretation, tucked Francis Shaffer in next to C.S. Lewis (I did keep out ‘Til we Have Faces.) I put no less than ten “review copies” of books by thirty-something, male, emergent church writers into a stack. I even said “thank you” and “I love you” and “I think I’ve got the gist of it now” to Stan Grenz, and Eugene Peterson (except for Working the Angles), and to the guy who kicked it all off for me, Robert Webber and his Ancient/Future Faith.
Then I re-organized my shelves. “White Guys Worth Reading.” “Novels that Show you Stuff.” “Spiritual Direction.” “Rites, Rituals and other Lil’ Bit Witch-y Things.” “Bible, Koran, and other Holy Texts.” Even halve a shelf dedicated to the High Priestess, Anne Lamott.
It feels good. Grateful. Open. There are spaces on my shelves, right there next to Anne. There are places to go
wow. thanks for sharing. honestly if I did that, besides Anne Lamont and Phyllis Tickle there would be nothing left on my nonfiction shelves (complete opposite story for my fantasy shelves though)…
So what I needed to read today.
Rachelle you inspire me! I love it. Such a breath of fresh air, it’s almost 5pm, which means it’s almost time for me to breathe in the company of friends at M.A., I need it!
On Working the Angles - is that the keeper or the one that wasn’t helpful in the first place?
pat,
Def the keeper. actually the triology on pastoring is all good… i just loaned out the other two and haven’t gotten them back. “Five Smooth Stones for Pastoral Work” and “Under the UnPredictable Plant” are the other two.
r
woohoo! this is what i want to hear!
Yeah, I love Eugene’s stuff on pastoring - he always cuffs me up side the head and says “hey, ijit - settle down”. In fact a couple months back I changed my blog title to Working the Angles, which is why tis post caught my attention.
His new one called Eat This Book is awesome. He teaches lectio divina, and also talks about biblical translation. In case you want to add another white guy book to the pile
So good to hear this Rachelle. I have the same CD — Jennifer sent me one too! I was listening to it as I walked to work today and thinking about what an eclectic, wonderful mix it is.
I add my woo-hoo!! to number one Jen’s.
and glad the cd gave you a good soundtrack for all that hard work.
It seems that I’m in the minority here, and while I understand your sense of liberation, I guess I wonder about such wholesale throwing out of all writings by men, save one of Peterson’s and one of Lewis’s. Who else is on your “white guys worth reading” shelf? I cannot help but think that were it reversed, if men were chucking almost all tomes written by women, that we’d be protesting that. It’s grand that you are receiving such wonderful affirmation of your writings by your group and it will be interesting to see what results from all this. Oh, and I think it’s Schaeffer, but at least he was boxed next to Lewis.
Xanna
oh the places you will go!! this is good, good news rachelle. as i sat in my meditation yesterday the workbook i’m doing said to pray this prayer (inhale) i am bobbie… (well, i used my real name) (exhale)thank you god…
it sounds silly but it broke through something for me - i realized that my unique-ness and how very different i am than most women i know really means something and i need to honor that. and you dear friend are unique-ier than nearly everyone i’ve ever come in contact with - so i think that means that the reason for it is that it must be embraced because only YOU can do what is necessary in the kingdom. it is not weird, it is unique - and i can’t wait to set your book next to anne’s (after reading it in one sitting) giving it that place of honor it’s unique-ness deserves. WRITE ON WOMAN!!
Oh man, I would SO rush out to a funky, independent bookstore and BUY YOUR BOOK! You really must write it, for all the rest of us “wierd” women out here who are seeking to find our place on the bookshelf. (Funny that you should mention that - I’ve always dealt with just a tad bit of guilt/wierdness, even though I’ve been quite okay with taking the path I have.)
You should know that lately, when I want to be inspired in a creative, sacred, out-of-the-box kind of way, your blog is one of the first places I go. I’ve been rooting around in some of your old stuff, and it’s been a transformative experience. If it would be in book format, it would be on the top of my shelf of “awesome spiritual women”.
To tell you the truth, I’ve got a book in me waiting to be written too. Some day soon I’ll have the time to entertain the muse.
Thanks all for your encouraging words. I can’t work on the book much yet. Still in recovery. But I know that it will “become” in the right time.
In the meantime I starting to drift towards maybe possibly kinda dreaming about the ‘Zine again.
Xanna — I very specifically made sure to mention that there are still white guys on my shelves. I didn’t “wholesale throw out” all the men on my shelves. I just made space for new voices.
Here’s to the adventure!
R
Keep Fred Buechner’s novels Lion Country, Open Heart, Love Feast, and Treasure Hunt, known collectively as The Book of Bebb. Fiction is so truthful…
Rachelle,
Yup, I included in my comments that you did keep a Peterson and a Lewis, and asked about what other white men you kept. Will you share more about who else is on your shelf? And I agree with the recommendation to keep some Buechner.
Xanna
Can you please let us know some good spiritual reading by women? My wife and I are looking for a Bible written by women but haven’t found one yet. So pointers for spiritual reading would be wonderful.
here is a new testament translated by a female greek scholar (not theologian):
http://www.godswordtowomen.org/resources/Source/source.htm
Ahh, maybe put some of them in storage. If nothing else, for citations, right? PMP (sorry, spacebar is broke)is right; fiction shows truth we can’t see otherwise. Hence the parables. Lewis’ fiction is essential for a house w/ kids as well as anyone else. By the by, the wisdom of children is an interesting thing. We were talking about going to Church of the Apostles Easter vigil/ beach bbq where there will be baptisms. My 7 year old daughter said she wanted to get baptized; I asked her if she knew what it was. “It’s getting washed by God”.
wow - I recently threw out many books of similar vein too - actually, I had a bonfire and burned them - bit radical for a booklover such as myself, but very freeing to be less cluttered
i promise you one thing, if you do write “the book” it would be one on my shelf and not one in the bonfire!
Thanks Bobby. I’ve downloaded a few books from that site, look forward to reading them.
Speaking of Anne Lamot, I hear she’s in town on the 17th. Are you going? Then maybe she’d have Q and A time and…
This is so cool. Letting go is so important. To the open shelves….may they be filled with wisdom and truth.
Great decision