Retaining Honour--Post 10

There’s something joyful about just BEING, about knowing who you are and what you are, and about having gender be framework and foundation and context, rather than something you have to prove to yourself and others.

If your identity is solid, you can get on with life.

If you grow up Amish, there are times when you would really, really like to not only be something besides Amish, but to have others think you are, too.

My friend Cathy worked as a waitress in the Amish paradise of Sarasota, Florida.  Every so often a group of young guys would come in.  Short haircuts.  Tight t-shirts.  Fashionable jeans.  English-speaking.  Just doing their best to mist the air with the intoxicating scent of Cool.

Cathy would go to their table and start talking in Pennsylvania Dutch.

Sorry, guys.  Nice try.

I will always see the world through Amish lenses.  Cows make me happy.  Bare legs bother me.  I will eat the last bites off your plate rather than see you throw food away.  I will always have an ear for languages.

It would be a waste of time for me to try to BE something or someone else.  I might as well accept it and learn to laugh at myself.

However, I can admire and learn from many others.  I can study Spanish, read Jewish stories, and learn to make chai and chapatis like Kenyans.  I can listen to other perspectives.

That is very different from trying to be something I’m not.

The same applies to who you are as male or female.

If a child is loved for who they are, they don’t have to obsess about it.  Their parents’ love becomes a foundation for their lives and they don’t have to constantly prove that it’s there.  They can launch off of that platform.

If you know deep in your soul that God made you like you are –looks, emotions, interests, gender, weaknesses, strengths, and tastes—and he loves you completely, then, instead of staying stuck on any of those features, you can go marching on with your life and be someone who gives and blesses out of your own abundance.

You can experience joy.

Maybe you’re a woman who loves floral dresses and cooking big suppers.  That’s ok.  Or maybe you’d rather be crunching numbers or reading about the Civil War.  That’s ok too.  Or you might enjoy all the above.  If you know who you are as a woman, it doesn’t matter.  Your foundation is solid.

I find something sad and desperate about people who feel they have to prove their gender.  Young men who wear cowboy boots and spit and cuss for no good reason except to convince us that they’re men.  Young women who show off their bodies as though proving their femininity.

There’s joy in just being who you are--fully a woman or man.

A woman who isn’t afraid to be seen as “motherly.”

Men who open doors for women, and women who thank them.

A man who does his work and follows his interests, macho or not, without worrying about labels.

Women who recognize how much power they have and use it wisely.

A big farmer rocking a small child to sleep.

There’s a purpose for you and for everything that you are.  If you know God made you and loves you, you can just Be.  You don’t have to feel constantly compelled to Do or to Prove.

My friend Ella Boss was a jolly woman with a large family who got enormous satisfaction out of taking care of them.  She also made me feel like, oh, yeeeess, of COURSE, I would do just FINE as a new mom!  Despite being a traditional Mennonite woman in pretty much every way, Ella loved to chop wood.  One time the family went camping, she told me, and she wanted to split the kindling wood, so the others indulged her.  She was squatting down and whacking away with the hatchet having a great time when a neighboring camper marched over and reamed out all those big strapping sons standing around.  Disgusting--how they made their poor mother split the firewood while they just stood around being lazy!  Ella tried to explain but the neighbor didn’t want an explanation.  Ella laughed and laughed, telling me about it years later.

Now I think: maybe Ella was someone who could just BE.

And she was always smiling.

Tomorrow: a few final thoughts from me and comments from you