Dear Reader,
I love it when women come together to support and encourage each other.
I just led a workshop on “Encouraging Courage” for a women’s conference. Thirty women and I dug into Susan Nelson’s article, “The Sin of Hiding: A Feminist Critique of Reinhold Niebuhr’s Account of the Sin of Pride.” I LOVED the energy in the room as women shared where they were in life and in what ways they were seeking courage.
First, we reviewed our understanding of human beings as imago dei, made in the image of God. Imago dei means humans are both bound and unbound. We are both limited in our mortality and free to grow more into God’s likeness—to develop our potential, our God-given gifts and talents. We cannot be God. Only God is infinite. But we can stretch towards that infinite in our freedom.
Reinhold Niebuhr highlights the sin of pride as the over expression of our freedom—thinking one’s own power, intellect, morality is boundless. The sin of pride keeps us from recognizing or honoring our limits.
But Susan Nelson critiques Niebuhr for not developing the under expression of our freedom, when humans don’t stretch towards more, when we don’t develop our gifts and talents, when we don’t live into our potential as imago dei. Nelson names this under expression of our freedom the sin of hiding, and the primary sin of woman.
In my book Necessary Risks, I write about the fear and anxiety that kept me in hiding and share this quote of Nelson’s:
By confessing the sin of hiding, woman stands exposed in her insecurities and self-doubts, revealed in her true vulnerability, so she can learn how to cope either with her own shortcomings, or with her talents and gifts. The woman is on the record; she is given a forum, and arena, a life to lived.
My workshop group then turned to the “hiding strategies” Tara Mohr writes about in Playing Big: Practical Wisdom for Women Who Want to Speak Up, Create, and Lead, including:
· Creating in isolation; never sharing our work to get feedback from others.
· Expecting perfection and overcomplicating the creative process with endless polishing.
· Telling ourselves we can’t try something new because we don’t have the degree, or the experience, or the training certificate, or, or, or…
It’s amazing how God can place the right book in your hands at the right time. Playing Big inspired me to apply to be the editor of the Presbyterian Outlook. I didn’t think I’d get the job. But Mohr convinced me to try.
What are your hiding strategies? How do they show up in your life? What might you try in order to “play bigger”?
Recent writing:
After reading Priya Parker’s The Art of Gathering, I threw a party with a purpose—read about it here.
For the Presbyterian Outlook’s special issue on gun violence, I write about walking into a local gun store and holding a gun for the first time in my life.
Books I’m loving:
The Marrow Thieves, by Indigenous writer Cherie Dimaline, is a harrowing tale of a post-climate change future. On a devastated earth, “schools” are once again being built by White people desperate to get back what Indigenous people kept—the ability to dream.
Reading The Marrow Thieves led me to contemplate the way our dreams contribute to our hope and our humanity. Dreaming protects us from fatalism, or a paralyzing cynicism. It encourages us to keep living and keep moving, no matter the circumstance of our current reality. With its emphasis on Indigenous communities, The Marrow Thieves also reveals the power of a dream to bring people together—a bigger dream that holds us all.
Eric Liu’s, You’re More Powerful Than You Think, is an encouraging read, sharing examples of people organizing to create positive societal change. Liu defines power as “the capacity to ensure that others do as you would want them to do.” But, Liu writes, power is “no more inherently good or evil than fire or physics. The only question is whether we will try to understand and harness it.”
Liu’s three laws of power gave me a lot to contemplate. 1) Power concentrates. 2) Power justifies itself. 3) Power is infinite. Working through Liu’s breakdown of these three laws, and the new understanding of power it will give you, is worth buying and reading the book.
Upcoming speaking:
Saturday, September 9: Preacher and workshop leader, Shenandoah Presbytery’s Big Event “Faithful Decisions in Difficult Times,” at Massanetta Springs Camp and Conference Center.
Saturday, October 28: Preacher and Keynoter for Grace Presbytery’s gathering at Austin College in Sherman, Texas.
January 2-5, 2024, Keynote speaker for College Conference at Montreat Conference Center, Montreat, NC. The theme for this conference is “Necessary Risks.”
Let’s connect!
Is your book club or church reading Necessary Risks? Are you planning an educational event for your church, presbytery or synod that aligns with the theme of Necessary Risks: Challenges Privileged People Need to Face? I’d love to get you and your group on my schedule—just hit reply to start talking or contact me by clicking here.