This Saturday, Malalai Joya will be in Vancouver to launch her book A Woman Among Warlords: The Extraordinary Story of an Afghan Who Dared to Raise Her Voice.

7p.m., St. Andrew’s – Wesley Church
1022 Nelson St, at the corner of Burrard

Suggested Donation: $5-10
All proceeds will go towards Joya’s humanitarian projects.

If you haven’t seen it yet, here is Malalai Joya’s revolutionary speech at a Constitutional Assembly in Kabul in 2003.

Two years after her heroic speech, Malalai Joya became the youngest person elected to Afghanistan’s new Parliament, but then, in 2007, she was suspended from Parliament for her consistent criticism of the warlords, drug barons and their cronies. She has survived several assassination attempts. In fact, The Independent wrote this:

I am not sure how many more days I will be alive,” Malalai Joya says quietly.

The warlords who make up the new “democratic” government in Afghanistan have been sending bullets and bombs to kill this tiny 30-year-old from the refugee camps for years – and they seem to be getting closer with every attempt. Her enemies call her a “dead woman walking”. “But I don’t fear death, I fear remaining silent in the face of injustice,” she says plainly. “I am young and I want to live. But I say to those who would eliminate my voice: ‘I am ready, wherever and whenever you might strike. You can cut down the flower, but nothing can stop the coming of the spring.’”

You can read the rest of the article here. And you can check out her website here.

I can hardly wait to see and hear Malalai Joya in person.

A woman received the Word
Became Holy Spirit pregnant with the Word

She carried the Word
birthed the Word
loved the Word.

She nurtured the Word
held the Word
raised the Word.

She knew the Word.

She released the Word into the world.
She watched the Word feed crowds.
She watched the Word heal hearts.

She was there when the Word died.
She was there when the Word came alive.

Then Woman received her assignment anew:
Carry the Word to the ends of the earth.
Birth the Word–Love, Peace, Hope, Faith–into chaos and desperation.
Again and
Again.
And again.
Again.

Photo by Bas Silderhuis

Following last night’s post on Moving Beyond Stereotypes I am grateful to report this morning that a conversation towards Reconciliation has been started. A sincere apology has been offered. You can see it over at the Deadly Viper blog. This is merely the beginning, but may this be part of a process towards healing and true equality.

In light of this conversation, I cannot help but reflect this morning on 2 Corinthians 5:14-21 in The Message.

Our firm decision is to work from this focused center: One man died for everyone. That puts everyone in the same boat. He included everyone in his death so that everyone could also be included in his life, a resurrection life, a far better life than people ever lived on their own.
Because of this decision we don’t evaluate people by what they have or how they look. We looked at the Messiah that way once and got it all wrong, as you know. We certainly don’t look at him that way anymore. Now we look inside, and what we see is that anyone united with the Messiah gets a fresh start, is created new. The old life is gone; a new life burgeons! Look at it! All this comes from the God who settled the relationship between us and him, and then called us to settle our relationships with each other…

… God put the wrong on him who never did anything wrong, so we could be put right with God.
(emphasis added)

We are all the same before God. All equal. All deserving of Grace. All needy of Forgiveness.

Today I honor the Divine in each one of us, offender and offended, and I continue to pray for deep Love and a true Peace.

Namaste.

(Via Jody Wiley Fernando’s fb page.)

As I am pondering the controversy that is currently going on around the marketing campaign for Deadly Viper Character Assassin: A Kung Fu Survival Guide for Life and Leadership, I cannot help but think that this is a very important moment in this continent’s multicultural Story. It is clear from comments on Prof. Soong-Chan Rah’s blog that there is a lot of hurt and offense. It’s pretty obvious to me that the authors and Zondervan committed some serious cultural blunders.

When I first arrived in Canada (after living in Asia for nearly five years and loving every moment of it) I was pretty raw as an Afrikaner woman who still carried the sins of Apartheid. I was ashamed at what my people had done in diminishing and marginalizing “the other.” I was stunned, therefore, not very long after landing in Canada, when I encountered a moment of profound racism with a Caucasian man hurling insults at an Asian man at a gas station in Richmond, BC. It dawned on me in that moment that racism itself was alive and well on the earth, and not just in South Africa. I still remember how sad I’d been at that realization and I knew it broke God’s heart.

The controversy around this book, understandably opens up a lot of emotion and hurt, but more importantly, an opportunity for a conversation. In the midst of some chaos here then, I truly believe Jesus can be born. I pray that the parties involved will be able to meet each other and move to a place of Reconciliation. Not for the sake of individuals, but for the sake of a Kingdom that regards everyone as equal. (At my core, I always stand in Hope.)

If you’d like to know more about this conversation:

Tonight I pray for true Peace and Reconciliation in this situation that will ripple out into our societies at large. Heal this Land, Lord. May this be a Moment of Surrender for all of us. A Moment of laying down every stereotypical belief and attachment as we acknowledge and honor the Divine in the other.

A poem by Nguyen Quang Thieu, edited and translated from the Vietnamese by Martha Collins and the author.

The Women Carry River Water

Their toes are bony, with long black nails;
They spread like chicken feet.
For five, fifteen, thirty years, I’ve watched
The women go down to the river for water.

Their hair knots break in torrents
Down the backs of their soft wet shirts.
They grip their shoulder poles with one hand;
The other holds white clouds.

As the river presses against its banks to turn,
The men bring fishing poles and dreams of the sea.
The magic fish turn away and cry;
Bobbers lie still on the surface of the water.
The men, angry and sad, go far away.

For five, fifteen, thirty years, I’ve watched
The women come back from the river with water,
Crowds of naked children running behind and growing up.
The girls put poles on their shoulders and go to the river,
The boys carry fishing poles and dreams of the sea,
While the magic fish turn away and cry
Because they’ve seen the hook in the dazed bait.

On Thursday night, Dr. Catherine Clark Kroeger, founder and president of Peace and Safety in the Christian Home, will be speaking at Parkland Fellowship in Surrey. Here’s why I’ll be there.

The first time I met Dr. Kroeger, I picked her up from the Langdale ferry and escorted her to Linwood House on the Sunshine Coast. She’d traveled a long way–from the East coast of the US–for a meeting of the Task Force on Abuse Against Women of the (then) World Evangelical Fellowship. It was raining and late and yet she was kind and gracious. Always composed.

The more I get to know about Dr. Kroeger, the more I see her as a hero in the faith, a woman who has paved the way academically, so many of us can follow on a highway.

Dr. Kroeger is founder and former president of Christians for Biblical Equality (CBE). (You can read current president Mimi Haddad’s regular contributions on Sojourners’ God’s Politics blog). From there she founded and is current president of PASCH (Peace and Safety in the Christian Home).

On Thursday, Dr. Catherine Kroeger Clark will be speaking at a PASCH informational meeting in Surrey, BC. We will have the privilege to host a PASCH conference in the Lower Mainland in 2011. (The last PASCH conference I attended in Washington, DC in 2008 was life-changing.)

“I think the most amazing contribution is her life as an 85-year-old leader, going strong,” says Gwen McVicker, president of Linwood House Ministries.

Dr. Kroeger, who holds a Ph.D. in classical studies from the University of Minnesota, currently serves as adjunct associate professor of classical and ministry studies at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.

Explaining her decision to move into her particular area of study, she writes:

“As I tottered out of my dishpan and back to graduate school, one verse above all others impelled me: I Tim 2:12. In the King James Version, it reads, ‘I suffer not a woman to teach or usurp authority over a man.’”

From the writings of Katherine Bushnell, I knew that there might be other ways to translate and to interpret this Bible verse that had obstructed so many women from a full-orbed ministry. In particular, Bushnell had targeted the Greek infinitive authentein, traditionally translated “to have power or authority over.” She observed that it was a rare word, used only here in the entire New Testament; but that in other types of Greek literature, it had other meanings that could lead to quite different understandings.

Bushnell had called for women translators and interpreters who would give themselves to the task of conscientiously and faithfully examining the difficult texts that were often used to disbar women from certain types of Christian service. I determined, as God led, to enter the department of classical studies at the University of Minnesota in order to deal with many different Greek materials to examine usages of authentein in other occurrences and to understand all I could of the lives and religious practices of the women addressed by the Apostle Paul. I sought a reconciliation of the difficult Pauline passages with the clear directives empowering women to proclaim Christ.

I progressed in the confidence that the Bible is the Word of God presenting different aspects of a coherent and integrated message. I Suffer Not a Woman, the book which I produced in collaboration with my husband, seeks to set forth a new understanding of I Tim 2:11-15 in the light of linguistic, historical and archeological evidence. It was written with the prayer that God might use it to open new doors of gospel opportunity for women and men alike.”

Catherine has written, co-authored and edited a host of books and journals, including:

and

She is a hero in the faith. She is a hero in my world.

Join us on Thursday night from 7-9pm at Parkland Fellowship Church in Surrey:

I look forward to seeing you there.

“ I am deeply convinced that the Christian leader of the future is called to be completely irrelevant and to stand in this world with nothing to offer but his or her own vulnerable self. That is the way Jesus came to reveal God’s love.”
–Henri Nouwen, In The Name Of Jesus (Via Blaine Hogan)

I like this quote for the vulnerability it calls out. The willingness to lay down our ideas about what we can offer a world. It takes off some of the obnoxious, the know-it-all, the expert.

I like barefoot.

But I do think Jesus was relevant to His community and to His world. Jesus was relevant to the woman at the well. Jesus was relevant to Jairus’ daughter. Jesus was relevant to Mary.

Jesus is very relevant to me today, whether I’m a mommy under a pile of laundry or a woman looking for answers.

Whether relevant or not, today I stand, with nothing to offer but my own vulnerable self on a journey. I’m thankful Jesus meets me here.

This has seriously messed with my heart.
By Steve Breen, San Diego Tribune.
(Via Waving or Drowning.)

Just a few quick thoughts as I am digesting (ha!) some of the stuff coming from the PopTech 09 Conference

Upon first arrival in Canada, I was actually quite offended when a North American person would casually say, “I’m starving.”

Words are important to me and those words, in particular, cut at me.

It took many years of living here and pondering this, before I realized, It’s actually true. When someone here says, “I’m starving,” he might actually be stating a truth.

About 18 months ago we went organic. Our family shifted in many ways and it has made a huge difference. I actually feel good about giving my kids an apple or a grape. Or breakfast cereal. There is something true about presenting someone with real food. Something pure and it seems right with the world. Maybe, on a holistic level, that is part of what righteousness means.

I used to pick up prepackaged, convenience foods, would read the label and then would have to put it down. I just couldn’t. I still stand by that: If I can’t understand what the ingredients are, why would I put it in my body? Why would I feed it to my kids?

I am genuinely grateful for a mom who always prepared food from scratch.

Here’s an excerpt from what Michael Pollan has to say in his book: In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto:

“Food. There’s plenty of it around, and we all love to eat it. So why should anyone need to defend it?

Because most of what we’re consuming today is not food, and how we’re consuming it — in the car, in front of the TV, and increasingly alone — is not really eating. Instead of food, we’re consuming “edible foodlike substances” — no longer the products of nature but of food science. Many of them come packaged with health claims that should be our first clue they are anything but healthy. In the so-called Western diet, food has been replaced by nutrients, and common sense by confusion. The result is what Michael Pollan calls the American paradox: The more we worry about nutrition, the less healthy we seem to become.”

Added this one to my reading wishlist. Could be dangerous. Again.

I’m working on some thoughts for this week’s Gathering Eve segment at LifeWomen. We’re talking about Deborah and the question she raises in us: What will you allow? There is much here to unpack, and if you’re in the area, please join us Tuesday mornings at 9:30am. There are few things better at the moment than the girls gathering …

Meanwhile, I am sitting with the word “entitlement.” I came home yesterday from a five-day trip to Arizona. I participated in a conference/seminar by Mending the Soul Ministries and met some great people in Tucson. I hiked through the Catalina State Park with inappropriate shoes and embraced every particle of desert and heated air I could possibly take in. I got to drive on US freeways. A lot. And I saw my reaction to the unbelievable number of big box stores planted next to those same freeways. The size and the number tapped at some of my strength. I actually wished I could go to Italy for a moment, or France, and just get away from the ugly of consumerism.

Every big box seemed so devoid of beauty and grace and character and finesse. Every chain store restaurant reminded me of our willingness to settle for less, while feeding our hunger for more.

I found myself a sad, horrified spectator to a hollow pursuit of bigger and more.

I had a gut reaction to the greed. But I couldn’t deny that the same spirit exists within me. I, too, struggle with reaching in and grabbing more than is mine.

As I am working through and writing on this project of Gathering Eve, I probably shouldn’t be surprised. Eve’s core struggle came from reaching in and taking what was not hers to take.

It applies to many areas of our femininity.

It is at once a core weakness and a profound strength. It is at once our saving and our falling.

I believe it is a challenge we have to come to grips with. We have to face the ugliness of our weakness so we may turn it into the great good it is meant to produce out of us.

I keep telling the girls on Tuesdays: That same desire in Eve to reach out and take what was not hers, is what propels us to reach out and shape a different status quo. We are meant to move into unknown, unconquered territory on the earth. We are meant to reach for and shape what does not yet exist. We are meant to reach beyond our grasp.

But not when it doesn’t belong to us. Not when it’s not ours to have.

And that’s when I came up against this word “entitlement.” This idea that we can take, just because we want it. Or it seems good, or beautiful.

Merriam-Webster’s dictionary says it is a “belief that one is deserving of or entitled to certain privileges.”

(Privileged. That’s another word we can park right next to entitlement.)

I am not finding the answers my soul is looking for today in a dictionary or on google, however. Instead, I have to look for it in my own heart. In my own journey. During private tête-à-têtes with my God. We are still talking, even as we speak. Thankfully, God is patient with me.

Just a sidenote: The music that keeps playing in my head as I am walking this out, is the U2 Song “One” and specifically the line: “What you don’t have, you don’t need it now, don’t need it now …”

I came home yesterday to find my five-year-old’s wallet bursting at the seams. She had gone into my office and taken from a coin jar what was not hers to take. Her desire for more is so great, she honestly believes she is entitled to the money. She is my Christiane Amanpour daughter. My made for war zones daughter. She is meant to bust beyond boundaries. But we have to find our balance between this entitlement to take and a divine authority to create change.

It is her struggle; it is my struggle.
I am wondering: is it yours too?
Is it uniquely feminine? Or not?

The word “entitlement” only came yesterday, so I am still unpacking it on so many levels. I would love to hear what you think.