Women are Not From Venus

I think I've found the problem--the center of sexism, not just in the church, but also outside. Patriarchy, gender battles, the glass ceiling, and snarky jokes about men--they all have one source.  And I found it in the book, Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus.

I read the book in college. I was dating the man I would marry, and I wanted to do it right.  I wanted to make sure I understood him.  And the author said true things about men and women, but he started with one big, fat problem.  Men are from Mars, women are from Venus--the claim is that we are fundamentally different. He said our problems came from assuming the other gender was like us. I can only guess he was thinking of a very limited number of problems, and not the big ones.

I am a human being. So are you.  And the "different planets" idea, as charming as it sounded, is poison in the water.

Of course, the author didn't invent the idea. The pitch worked because he was saying something we already believed.  But it's wrong.  And the reason that sexism still lives, even in presumably innocuous forms, is the belief that men and women are different kinds of creatures.

So I'm not going to be stupid here, and say men aren't different from women--experience tells us that's a load of hooey.  And I'm not going to get into the argument over whether it's in our brain chemistry or our upbringing.  It doesn't really matter how we got here.  What matters is where we think here is.  Men and women are different, and I have no ambitions to erase those differences or to deify and enforce them.  I'd rather clarify them.

The place we go wrong, is this--we differ, not in type, but in degree.  We all know that not every man you meet is taller than every woman.  Not every one is better at spatial reasoning, more interested in cars, or more bored with shopping than every woman.  Our differences are statistical, not fundamental.  When we make comparisons, we're not making it up, but we're comparing averages, not species. We couldn't be, because we're the same species, made of the same stuff.

In the book of Genesis, God creates humanity from the dust of the earth, and gives his own breath to animate him.  But the man is a single unit.  He has the company of all the creatures of the earth, he has communion with the infinite God. What he doesn't have is someone like him.

You can see this is the point in the creation of woman.  When he wakes from his sleep, in Genesis 2, verse 23, and cries out in joy over her appearance, the gender arguments are missing the point.  We waste our time arguing over whether this is an act of naming her and therefore, perhaps, an exercise of authority.*  The point is what he says about her: "This is flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone!"  He is saying, "Here is someone like me!"

She is woman, named from his name, and he is man, but they are both human.  They are not first and second, or original and derivative. They are male and female.  The man is not looking for a subordinate--he has plenty of those already.  He needs a partner.

And then the fall came.  Sin drove the first wedge between man and woman.  When they leave Eden, Adam names his wife in the way he'd named the animals.  She is Eve, the mother.  She is one step removed from what he is, and a mere form of the word "man" is no longer enough to describe her. Her identity is other now.  The name emphasizes their separation, their difference.  They are distinct now, and from this moment in history on, we see each other from the outside, as strangers.

And this is the essence of patriarchy, and of sexism.  The heart of sexism is failing to see one another as made of the same stuff.  It's only when we put half of the human race in a separate box from ours, that we feel comfortable judging them by the box.  The well-meaning 1950s husband loves his wife--he wants to support and protect her. But he considers her a different kind of creature--delicate, feeling, beautiful, sensitive.  That's why he can disregard her judgment, or laugh at her driving or her manner of speech with his friends, and still feel he's showing her honor.  It's because he believes she's a collection of different traits and skills, rather than a different arrangement of his own.

This is why, today, my facebook feed is still littered with jokes about women--usually posted by women--or about what men are like.  It's because we are still allowing ourselves to see one another as our gender, instead of so many examples of human beings.  It's why so many members of our church can still feel instinctively that pastoring is a man thing.  Behind the fistful of textual arguments, genuinely believed or not, is the fact that we've had it in the man box for so many centuries, we can't picture it in the woman box.  But we don't need to.  We need to get our heads out of the boxes relate to human beings.

We are all human. We need the right to be human beings first. Our gender is only a nuance to that identity, and it's one of many.  The secret to relating to men, or to women, is relating to human beings.  And the only way to win the gender war is by making peace with the enemy, one human being at a time.

I can't fix sexism.  I can't unravel the Curse.  Probably you can't either.  But I can choose to relate to people as themselves, and not as their boxes.  I can't kill sexism, but I can make it look ridiculous.  And maybe, if we all do that, it will be enough.

*The Hebrew text gives good reason to say that it isn't.

Why I Don't Say Jesus is Coming Soon

Church has a special language.  We learn this as kids, when we go to Sabbath School and sing about "This Little Light of Mine" which really isn't a light.  The teachers tell us to be good sheep, but then they make us walk upright and speak in words.  Most disappointing of all, they offer us swords, and then hand us the Bible.  But we learn.  Church has a different language, and words mean something a little different there.

I don't remember what age I was when I realized "soon" had more than one meaning.  There was the usual soon--as in, when I should be ready to leave for school.  And then there was the Second Coming "soon."  There's only so long you can go, expecting it to happen in a few days, or a week, before you catch on that this a different meaning for the word.  We go on believing Jesus is coming soon, we just have to change the definition a little.

For more than 150 years, our church has proclaimed that Jesus is coming soon.  It is our first doctrine, from back in Millerite times.  It's very nearly the center of our identity, people who care about getting things right, from the Bible, because Jesus is coming soon.  But we have to admit that it hasn't come as soon as we expected.

We're not the first.  At the end of the book of John, Jesus tells Peter, "If I want him (John) to remain alive until I return, what is that to you?"  The twelve expected him to return in a single lifespan.

 I've often thought, as I hear someone fear-mongering about world events signalling the end, what it would have felt like to live through WWII, to learn about the Holocaust.  Surely, the world couldn't continue any longer after those things.  But what about the fall of Jerusalem, or the collapse of the Roman empire?  US politics might be intense right now, but they're not barbarian-hordes-and-Nero-burning-Rome intense.  It's painfully possible we will have to live beyond this, too.

I have three kids, and like every Adventist parent before me, I don't expect them to grow up and have their own kids before the Second Coming.  But I don't say "soon" to them.  I say someday. It's hard enough trying to explain how long they have to wait for Campmeeting, and I'm just not ready to try explaining the other.

Someday, not soon.  How can I justify that kind of heresy?  It's because one day I quit listening to the evangelists, and listened to the teacher who sent us back to Matthew 24 with more careful eyes.*  It's because the same Jesus who said, "Yes, I am coming soon" (Revelation 22:20), also said, "see to it that you are not alarmed . . . the end is still to come." (Matthew 24:6)  In fact, look at the larger passage:

You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed.  Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.  There will be famines and earthquakes in various places.  All these are the beginning of birth pains.
                                                                                                                     --Matthew 24:6-8

The point isn't the wars or the earthquakes.  Jesus isn't trying to shake the disciples up.  He's trying to comfort them.  And the last illustration is telling--birth pains.

At 2am on January 25, 2007, I woke in labor.  It was my first child.  I didn't know how it would go, but I knew for certain now that my daughter was coming.  I took a shower.  I braided my hair so it wouldn't look awful in the new-baby photos.  I packed the last items I would need at the hospital.  I was nervous, but excited.  I didn't know how long it would take, or how bad it would be.  But I knew how it would end.

Soon isn't the most useful word, even though we get closer every day.  Soon tries too hard to tell us when, but it isn't the point.  The point about the Second Coming, is that it's certain.

After 2000 years of waiting, after seeing every sign of the end repeated ad naseum, after the public pain of the Great Disappointment, we have to answer the question of whether it's even going to happen.  Were we all fooled about this?  Was the promise false?

That's the moment we can be glad Jesus said it's not yet.  Whatever the cause of these last 2000 years, I'm glad he warned us not to be alarmed. It's still coming.

And I still believe in it.  I am a Seventh-day Adventist.  I believe my Savior is coming again.  Not because the world is falling apart, but because he promised it. This is the point.  I don't know if this is the end, or just another contraction.  But I know it will end, and I know how, and it's good news.

*Dr. Jon Paulien, to be precise, who deserves a lot more credit for this reading of Matthew 24 than I can give here.

Cleanliness, Godliness, and Sabbath Rest

Friday cleaning just doesn't happen the way I picture it these days.  Last week, I managed to clear the toys from the living room floor (multiple times), and I swept all the hardwood floors, but the vacuum never touched the carpet.  There's still clutter on the kitchen counter and I'm just not going to think about the bathrooms.

It's not that I don't love a clean house, or think it's important.  I love to bask in the marvel of clear countertops.  I find the sight of freshly-vacuumed carpet intoxicating in its beauty.  My soul is at peace when my surroundings are in order.  But I usually have to make that my immediate surroundings, because there's no way I can achieve it in the whole house at the same time.

The kids, of course, are extremely helpful.  I love the way I can get called away from cleaning apparent hurricane damage indoors, to deal with a bathroom trip that was badly timed.  And, of course, trip over Legos in the hall en route. Occasionally I get through a whole job, like scrubbing the toilet, or getting dressed after a shower.  Then I go downstairs and learn my peace and quiet was bought a the price of a mixed-media art project dripping from the kitchen table.*

Cleanliness, the old saying goes, is next to godliness.  Of course we all know that's not in the Bible, and we've managed to laugh it off for the last generation or two.  After all, who could compare sweeping to righteousness?  But I'm gong to suggest there's more to this saying than we thought.** 

Cleanliness is a spiritual thing.  Don't believe me?  Open a new tab on your browser, and start reading articles on Minimalism.  My Facebook feed gets a regular dose of them.  The point isn't just about decluttering your living room anymore, it's about decluttering your home and your soul.  It offers peace, focus, rest.  And I believe it's a good thing, although my own household will never do more than lean a bit in that direction.

Cleanliness is spiritual.  I know because of how deeply that fresh-vacuumed-carpet feeling is tied to my sense of Sabbath rest.  I know, because my Adventist heritage tells me there's a deep connection between my outer environment and my inner life.

Order effects the human spirit. Cleanliness impacts our souls. In that way, it's like nature, art, and music. These are all places where our physical world bleeds over into our souls. All of them can be powerful forces in our spiritual lives. And because of it, all of them also can be idols.

But cleanliness is different from the others, because it's something you create yourself. I remember reading, in more than one place, that no matter if we have money or talents, we can all have a clean house. You're off the hook if you don't have a flair for decor, but there is no excuse for dusty baseboards.  So get to work, Sloth, was the message implied.

And this, I am afraid, is where cleanliness actually stands next to godliness. Both of them deal with our own works.  Which means both are frighteningly vulnerable to legalism.

This is what legalism is--these are good things. We have no choice about pursuing them, if we want to feed our souls. But we aren't fed by the pursuit, by our work.  Legalism happens when we forget that.  It happens when we pursue good, instead of God.

Of course, since the legalism of cleanliness is like any other kind, it also has the same cure.  The cure for legalism is failure.  I cannot achieve godliness, and I cannot achieve cleanliness either.  And here it's only fair to acknowledge that my children are a gift from God in more than one way.  I want cleanliness, but instead I live with controlled chaos.  I can't deny my own limits, I have to look elsewhere for true order.  I can't make myself good, so I have to look for a Good that is greater than I am.  I will never find value and purpose in being successful in my home.  I need God to give that to me.

I'm going to rest this Sabbath in my little pocket of order, and I hope you will too, however small it is.  I'm not going to be weighed down by all I could not do.  Because the distance between cleanliness and godliness is really not worth arguing if you can find your joy, instead, in God.

Then Jesus said, "Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.    
                                                                                                            --Matthew 11:28, NLT

Happy Sabbath!

*I know, I know.  Someone out there is saying this is because I just haven't taught my children how to clean up after themselves.  To which I can only say, "Bingo."

**In fact, I do some of my best philosophical thinking as I spot-mop under the table.