Mrs. Smucker Grapples With Hard Questions About Fiction Writing

The transition from writing nonfiction to writing fiction is like when someone goes from being Beachy Amish to being Englisch, and they want to put an outfit together.

The Beachy Amish woman has specific parameters. Solid color cape dresses. White covering. Pullover sweaters or cardigans, depending where she’s from. However, she can get creative with the details within those restrictions, maybe putting little pleats at the end of a sleeve or combining a black sweater with a summer-pink dress for a new look.

That’s like non-fiction. You work only with facts and your interpretation of them. That's it. You can't make stuff up, but you can get creative with structure and organization and message.

Now that I’m experimenting with fiction, I feel like the Beachy woman gone worldly. Anything is possible—tank tops, sweatshirts, blouses. Long skirts, pencil skirts, mini skirts. Leggings, jeans, shorts. Solids, florals, stripes. Endless options! I sit down to write and realize I can make up anything I want. Anything! 

It’s a whole new way of thinking—fun but also terrifying.

I’m facing a question that I’ve always faced with nonfiction, but not quite to this degree: How “real” can I be?

Maybe I’ll never get a solid answer that I can seal in a canning jar and leave on the shelf, settled for all time. Maybe this is something I’ll always wrestle with.

After a year and a half in a fiction writing group, I finally finished a story that I was actually happy with. Not a book, let me clarify, but a story. I had fun writing it, the group loved it, and Emily the editing daughter felt that it could go places.

Well, I was happy with it, except for one thing. “But it’s whipped cream,” I sighed. “All fluff and froth and sugar. Not deep. Not about the Hard Realities of Life that I was hoping to address in my stories."

“Yes and no,” countered the critique group. “It’s wholesome. It’s refreshing. And it’s not all fluff! Look, the main character is this single woman who’s made a life for herself. She’s not sleeping around, she’s not bitter. That’s not fluff.”

“Hmmm,” I said.

Soon after I joined the group last year, lacking specific direction, I decided to plunge into a book-length project. A woman I know has a difficult marriage, so I decided to write about her and fix her life. I would also mix in a mystery—my friend “Sara’s” missing pies a few years ago—and solve that while I was at it.

My goodness. That got deep and dark real fast.

The book characters and action veered from real life real fast too, which I found interesting. Ok, so Carol the character was in this tough place. What was it like? Well, her husband and kids didn’t respect or appreciate her. Why not? Hmmm. Probably she didn’t respect herself! And why not? Pretty soon there was a nasty family in her background and a bit of molestation happening in school.

I was hauling this story through mud up to the axles by then, and finally I quit. My group was rooting for Carol, but I was tired of her and her complicated life. I took a break and read one of Lucy Maud Montgomery’s collections of short stories.

It was lovely. Story after story of quirky characters and romances that ended in marriage.

Why not copy her, just for fun? With shocking speed and ease, the fluffy story of a Mennonite romance took shape.
As I said, the group loved it.

And I feel torn. Carol’s life is how some real-life people actually live. Part of me wants to dig in there and grapple with those tough issues, writing them out to offer voice and hope to women stuck in shame, blame, and regret.

But when I read a book, do I want that level of painful subjects or do I want a sweet escape from real life?

What is the purpose of fiction writing, for me? That’s what I’m wondering.

Then there’s the delicate matter of discretion. Which topics and details are appropriate? Should I write so that a child can pick up my book and safely read it, as my friend Hope’s little granddaughter likes to do with Fragrant Whiffs of Joy?

Yesterday a woman told me, “Your books take me to a wholesome place where there’s no swear words and no sex.”

“Hmmm,” I said, because honestly, what do you say to such a statement? Also, in the story about Carol, I illustrate the rift in the marriage in one scene by having Carol resist her husband’s advances.

“Is this allowed in Christian fiction?” I asked my group.

“Yes,” said Pat, who hosts the group. “Because they’re married.”

They’re married, it’s realistic, it illustrates a point. But I wouldn’t be comfortable with Hope’s little granddaughter reading it. 

Then there’s the scene where two moms are talking about Jane being pregnant again, so soon, and isn’t she still nursing Hayley? Well, we know how that works, they say, and laugh.

You know that conversation happens in real life. Yes, I could find another illustration, but in that scene, that conversation told you a lot in a few words.

I have no desire to get as “real” as the woman walking into Home Depot ahead of me yesterday. She wore flesh-colored leggings and, in the nature of leggings, ripply, bouncy things were clearly outlined. I thought, “That is far more than I need or want to see. Some things are meant to stay private," and I tried to look elsewhere without tripping over curbs.

At the same time, I'm not interested in the sort of story that wears a mask of perfection—tight smile, every hair in place, perfect outfit in a long coat, with only manicured hands showing.

Where and what is the balance that connects with the reader?

Another question I’m facing is how much I can pull from real life people and situations. I consider my imagination above average, but I have a surprisingly hard time making up characters and stories out of nothing. Why work so hard to make up people when the world is bursting all around with unique personalities, free for the describing?

Yesterday I spent the afternoon at the annual Author and Artist Fair in Eugene, a fundraiser for rural library programs. If not many customers show up at these events, you get to talk with other authors, so it’s always a winning situation. Yesterday was a good mix of readers who came by to talk and breaks in the traffic long enough to dash over to a fellow author and catch up.

I seized the opportunity to get advice from the fiction writers around me. To my left was none other than Melody Carlson who has written some 200 books and is well-known in the Christian book world and beyond.  Across the aisle was Carola Dunn, who is now retired but wrote over 60 books in her day, mostly the Daisy Dalrymple mysteries.

“How much do you draw from real life?” I asked Melody Carlson who, just so you know, is nice and approachable despite having sold seven million books, and the collar on her dress was turned up wonkily in back, which made me really happy.

She draws from broad themes, she said, but not too many specifics. For example, she had a family member with schizophrenia, so she wrote a book about it, but changed all the characters and such, so that the mental illness and the family’s feelings about it were the only elements from real life.

She also mentioned that if Hallmark adapts a book into a movie, it’s not ok to have a divorced mom. She has to be edited into a widow.

Of course Hallmark shows are all about escaping from real life, but still, I wondered about that. There are lots of divorced moms in this world. When is it ok to be realistic about this in our stories? I’m not faulting Hallmark. They know they want happy fantasies in the falling snow, so they can do that all they want.

I’m just not sure if it’s what I want for me.

When I asked Carola Dunn for advice, she said to keep asking "Why?" "Why are your characters doing this? What's behind it?" She also said she pulls characters from real life all the time. The funny thing is, people say they find themselves in her stories, but they never name the actual character Carola based on them. It’s very odd. But it works out well.

Lucy Maud Montgomery, I am told, had a difficult life. Her diaries confirm that she encountered levels of frustration and loss that you’d never guess from her hopeful writings. However, notes of loneliness, regret, sadness, and even abuse show up in her stories if you look for them. But things almost always turn out in the end and I can close the book with a happy sigh and return to my complicated life feeling like everything will come out right in the end for us as well.

Montgomery's books endure a hundred years later. A child can safely pick them up and read them. Is that my answer that I can seal in a jar and cease to reckon with?

I doubt it. I think I’ll be wrestling with these questions as long as I keep writing. Maybe the wrestling is more important, in the long term, than the stories themselves.

Full and Empty: A Thanksgiving Poem

Empty oven.
Empty pans.
Empty roasters.
Empty plans.

Make a list of
Fifty goals
Write a guest list:
Fifteen souls.

Empty crock pots.
Empty case.
Clean the fridge and
Clear the space.

Make a menu.
Time to start.
Fill the WinCo
Shopping cart.

Peel potatoes.
Celery chop.
Fill the piecrusts 
To the top.

Crank the pressure
Cooker's vent.
Fill the kitchen 
With the scent

Fill the crock pots.
Whip the cream.
Work together
As a team.

Empty table
Stretch it long
Set the plates where
They belong.

Fold the napkins
Set the spoons
Guests will be 
Arriving soon.

Family, strangers
Covered miles.
Here they come with
Cautious smiles.

Empty stomachs.
Hard to wait.
Smells that make us
Salivate.

Bustling kitchen.
Joyful hugs.
Cream and coffee
In the mugs.

Pull the turkey.
Slice the meat.
It is almost 
Time to eat.

Stir the gravy.
Warm the rolls.
Unplug crock pots.
Fill the bowls.

Fill the table.
Fill the chairs.
Join the hands and
Offer prayers.

Pass potatoes.
Stuffing, dip.
Don't let the turkey
Platter slip.

Pass ideas.
Questions, ask.
Discussion is a
Worthy task.

Make connections.
Comprehend.
Laugh together. 
Be a friend.

Groaning stomachs.
Drooping eyes.
Pass the coffee.
Cut the pies.

Empty dishes.
Stack the plates.
Can't believe how
Much we ate.

Fill the empty
Tupperware.
Wash the china
With great care.

Fill the couch and
Comfy chairs
Nap like hibernating 
Bears.

Pass the party mix
And yawn.
Bring on Settlers
Of Catan.

Hug the guests and 
Say goodbye.
House feels empty.
Night is nigh.

Hearts are full as
At this day's
End we whisper
Thanks and praise.

Mom No Longer Knows Everything

I used to toss around the phrase "Moms know everything," as an only-half-joking way to end arguments, protracted questionings, and suspicions about my credibility.

https://twitter.com/calvinn_hobbes/status/754874327196012545


I'm sure the children always thought I invented it myself, but it came from one of the many people who invested in my kids. When we lived in Dryden, Ontario, one of the single staff ladies at the camp where we lived wanted to give my children a Christmas gift. Like all the other voluntary service people, she didn't have much money. So she bought two secondhand children's books and read them aloud into a cassette recorder, clanging a spoon on a metal bowl when it was time to turn the page.

Then she gave the children the books and the tapes. I still think it was one of the cleverest low-cost gifts ever. The kids practically memorized those stories.

I can still see this young lady in my mind--round face, glasses, smiling--but I can't bring up her name. Something Coblentz, maybe.

[Later: Brenda Coblentz! That's who it was!]

One part of one of the stories had a list of weather-related words like meteorology, hygrometer, and anemometer.  Miss Coblentz slowly sounded them out and then added, aside, "If you don't know what those are, ask your mom. Moms know everything."

What a handy phrase. I ended up using it a lot.

It came up again this morning.

Steven is home, briefly. He just finished an intense 3-month paramedic course at a community college in McCook, Nebraska. Next week he heads to Las Vegas for his internship. "Las Vegas is good because there's lots of gunshot wounds, heart attacks, that kind of thing."

I went into the guest room this morning to get some books to fill an order. Steven was still in bed and on his phone. "I'm reading about drugs," he said.  "Ketoralac." He explained further complicated things about Ketoralac that I can't remember.

"I was wondering," I said, "what you do when you come on the scene and someone is unconscious. Let's say you know they need a certain drug, but you don't know their medical history, and you don't know if they're on a drug that will react with what you need to give them."

He explained that if someone's unconscious, you check their blood sugar and their pupils. Dilated pupils could indicate an overdose of a benzo drug. Pinpoint pupils indicate narcotics. He casually went on to explain processes, symptoms, solutions, and if-then scenarios, all peppered with multi-syllable medical words that slipped into one of my ears and out the other without registering in my brain.

I said, "You know, the days when I knew more than my kids are long gone."

He laughed. "Moms know everything?"

"Yes. But not any more."

Those were good days, when they came to me wondering why are leaves green, how old is Grandma Yoder, and who is that new family in church? When will it be my birthday, why do we pray before we eat, and where is the shampoo? Why do tigers have stripes, is this rope strong enough for a swing, and what are we having for supper?

I knew everything.

That is no longer the case.

Last week, I was twirling a fidget spinner and noted the pressure on my fingers when I tilted it back and forth. "Oh!" said Jenny and Amy. "Conservation of angular momentum."

Seriously, who pulls up those words as casually as I recall how to spell mayonnaise?

Among the six of them, they know vastly more than me about rocket fuel, pop bands, Narcan, the Thai language, the combustion rate of lignin, space travel, politics, cooking, fashion, coffee, farming, culture, chemistry, teaching, sports, directing drama, and much much more.

That is as it ought to be. I picture a little splash in a pool, and the ripples radiate outward, into faraway river systems and oceans.

"As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man, so are children of the youth," says Psalms 127:4.

Off they go. Outward from the center.

1 Chronicles 4:10 says, "Jabez cried out to the God of Israel, 'Oh, that you would bless me and enlarge my territory! Let your hand be with me, and keep me from harm so that I will be free from pain.' And God granted his request."

I don't pray Jabez's prayer for myself, because I already have more options and opportunities than I can handle, but I pray it for my children, that their influence for good would radiate steadily outward into a world that needs kindness, knowledge, Jesus, wisdom, humor, literacy, joy, clean water, and rescue.

I know as much as I did back then, and lots more besides, but it's no longer everything. It's only a tiny bit, in comparison.

That's ok. I am happy to be here at home, sending and praying, nudging and encouraging, ever outward. Here at the center, where it all began, is a good place to be. 

A Story About a Boy and a Girl from Oregon

Once upon a time there was a red-haired boy growing up near Harrisburg, Oregon. He liked to research animals, do dangerous things, and take mechanical things apart.

His name was Matt.

His mom, Dorcas, wrote for the newspaper in town, the Register-Guard.

Seven miles away a little dark-haired girl was growing up. Her name was Phoebe. She was creative and liked science.

Phoebe's dad was named Tom. He also worked for the Register-Guard newspaper, as a graphic designer. He would design the page where Matt's mom's articles appeared.

Tom and Dorcas didn't know each other, but in 2012 Dorcas wanted to self-publish a bunch of her articles. She asked her friend Bob, another RG columnist, who he'd recommend to help design the cover and inside pages.

Bob said, "I always ask my friend Tom."

Tom was willing to help. He found an artist who drew pretty teapots, and he set up the cover and inside pages of Tea and Trouble Brewing. He found a special font that could be used for future books as well. "Your signature font," he said.

Meanwhile, Matt finished up his engineering studies at Oregon State University and moved to Washington, DC, to work for the Navy. 

But first he rescued his mom's manuscript.

A few years later, Dorcas wanted to publish another book. Again, she called on Tom. He came out to their farmhouse to discuss it. They sat at the kitchen table along with Dorcas's dad, Amos, who frowned at Tom with his bristly eyebrows and demanded, "So, are you British??"

Tom was gracious. Yes, he has some English ancestry, he said.

This book was to be called Footprints on the Ceiling. Dorcas wanted a picture on the cover of old barn boards with a big footprint. Tom said he could do that, and again he did all the layout and design, and served as a liaison with the printer, Friesens, in Manitoba.

When the time came for another book, Tom was doing the work of at least two people at the Register-Guard, since the newspaper was cutting staff in an effort to stay alive, so Dorcas kept the same font and the teapot artist but hired someone else to take care of the design.

Meanwhile, Matt kept working in DC and Phoebe finished college in Oregon. Matt enrolled at the University of Maryland and studied aerospace engineering while working full time.

In June of 2018, Dorcas wrote an article for Fathers Day. She mentioned that when her son Matt comes home from Washington, DC, he and his dad talk about work and politics, while she and he discuss life, feelings, nice girls, church, friends, and such things.

Tom set up the column, as usual. When he read it, he had an idea. His mother always read the column when it came out on Sundays, and she had the same idea. The two of them discussed it. The grandma was sure this idea came from the Holy Spirit.

Tom sent Dorcas an email. Did she realize, he wondered, that his daughter Phoebe was working in DC? Did Dorcas think her son and Tom's daughter would enjoy meeting for coffee?

Now Dorcas had tried her hand at matchmaking and it had been a dismal failure, so she didn't let herself go into that mode in this situation. Besides, she had never met Phoebe and didn't know if she passed her strict standards. But she knew Matt would enjoy seeing someone from back home, since he always enjoyed Oregon connections, including figuring out that there was exactly one other Oregon license plate in the big parking lot at the Navy Yard.

Phone numbers were exchanged all around.

They met for coffee.

Matt texted a short, nonchalant message to his mom.

A week later, word filtered back home that they had met again.

"Oh!" said Dorcas.

Matt said they went to the Air and Space Museum for three hours.

The Smuckers discussed this at length. Matt's brother Ben said, "Any girl that can listen to Matt at the Air and Space Museum for three hours is something special."

Matt and Phoebe continued to meet. Phoebe's friends at the ladies' boarding house where she lived were deeply invested in the story. "But Phoebe, is he a Calvinist? You can't date someone who's not a Calvinist!"

The two families back in Oregon were deeply invested as well.

By August, Matt and Phoebe decided they were officially dating.

Phoebe spent time with his family at Christmas. Matt went to Phoebe's grandpa's birthday party. The families were delighted all around, and it was so convenient to have the families living only a few miles apart.

By the following September, everyone was anxiously waiting for Matt to propose. To help him out, his mom and sister bought a little unicorn ring from a vending machine. He considered using it when he and Phoebe were by a lake in Minnesota one evening after his grandpa's funeral, especially when a lovely shooting star blazed by, but somehow it didn't seem right to propose right after a funeral.

In October, they came to Oregon again because her grandpa was turning 100 years old. Matt took Phoebe out to the coast one day. When they returned, Phoebe had a pretty ring on her finger--a real diamond ring. Dorcas was so happy she burst into tears.

Her daughter Emily wrote about it here.

They discussed dates, and Dorcas and Phoebe looked at wedding dress patterns.

"Wait. Is this real?" thought Dorcas. It was.

She gave thanks.

As for the "Is he a Calvinist?" question, Emily wrote: “But it’s even funnier now,” Matt says, “because our whole relationship seems predestined.”

For one thing, Tom first emailed his idea only two weeks after Matt had finished getting his master's degree in aerospace engineering. He would never have had time for a relationship while he was in grad school, he said.

And in the most goose-bumpy coincidence of all, it turned out that way back when Tom needed a footprint for the cover of Dorcas's book, he asked his daughters for help. Phoebe painted the bottom of her foot and printed it on a piece of paper. "We have a picture of it," she said. "I was in pajamas and laughing hysterically."

So for the last four or five years, while Dorcas was praying for Matt's future wife, that mystical faceless woman, 2000 copies of that same young lady's footprint were right in front of Dorcas as she sent out orders or arranged her books on a table at book events.

That is how God works.

They all plan to live happily ever after. 

And, in case you're wondering, Phoebe says they're Calminian.

Soft-soled Shoes and Clicking Heels

Every week, new controversies flare up in the Christian subculture. Every month or so, one of them generates enough degrees to pop up in flaming Facebook and blog posts. Ann Voskamp weighs in poetically, the Facebook regulars claim to know what's really behind the event, and someone posts a clever meme.

I deliberately try to stay out of those conversations, since I don't do well with debate and seldom feel like I'm given enough information to form a solid opinion.

A recent event was different. It unearthed and replayed old tapes of angry, disgusted voices, and it triggered that familiar sense of instantly curling up tight inside, terrified, frozen solid, tiny and silent.

John MacArthur made some controversial comments about Beth Moore.

If you don't know: both are well-known evangelical American teachers and authors. MacArthur is a preacher. Beth Moore talks and gestures like a preacher but doesn't claim to be one, I don't believe. Here's a summary of what happened, pulled from this source.

Last week during the Truth Matters Conference at Grace Community Church, MacArthur took part in a panel discussion and was asked to give a “pithy” response to a word mentioned by the moderator. The word given was “Beth Moore,” to which MacArthur replied, “Go home.”

He then elaborated and said, “There is no case that can be made biblically for a woman preacher. Period. Paragraph. End of discussion.”

Later, MacArthur added, “Just because you have the skill to sell jewelry on the TV sales channel doesn't mean you should be preaching.”

I watched the video. The joking, laughter, and applause told me that this was about far more than it pretended to be.

What I heard, to Beth Moore and also to me, was not only "Go home," but: "Will you just shut up?!"

It was the same message the old tapes were playing in my mind.

I talked to Paul and whichever offsprings were in the kitchen, trying to process my reaction. They pointed out that the entire exercise was a bad idea. "Putting these guys on the platform and playing a word association game is like teenagers playing Truth or Dare. There's no way this will end well."

"Even if he thought it he didn't have to say it out loud," I said.

Paul said, "If it were me, I would feel an obligation to actually say whatever popped in my head first. I would feel like I didn't have a choice."

I was surprised by that. He is not a rule-follower.

We agreed that whoever organized the "game" was extremely foolish, and that it was deeply disrespectful to use Beth Moore's name in this context, as a target for derision and laughter.

My family affirmed my gut reaction without fully understanding it. This is a good thing. It means they never heard those angry voices themselves.

I love to stay home, I don't want to preach, and I would rather pick up a live garter snake than be a pastor. I think it's scriptural for men to be leaders, especially in the church and home.

So why did I gasp and flinch at MacArthur's words?

The choice of words, the tone, and the laughter told me this had very little to do with women preaching and much more to do with women having thoughts and words.

---

I think the closest I came to preaching a sermon in a church was at the NEF [Native Evangelical Fellowship] church in Weagamow Lake, Ontario, maybe 30 years ago, and that wasn't very close.

Church on the reserve was not like church at Brownsville Mennonite. Starting times were more flexible, for one thing. Sometimes the service was all in Oji-Cree. Children freely wandered about. People didn't dress very formally. I usually tried to dress our family up, but I realized what an American Mennonite exercise that was whenever Tommy Kakekayash was late starting the fire in the stove and we wore our parkas and hats all through the service.

Paul wasn't a preacher then, only a principal and teacher at the Christian school, but once in a while they asked him to speak at a Sunday evening service. He didn't think of it as preaching, but I did, at least a little, because I thought he was that good and important.

In winter, he'd get up on the platform wearing his suit and his thick, knee-high Sorel boots with the wild green, blue and white print—not an unusual combination for that setting. He would talk and our friend Gary would translate.

Paul was scheduled to speak one Sunday, but he got really sick the week before, and he doubted he'd recover enough to go to church.

"Maybe I should take your place," I said impulsively. When it's your second year in a mission setting, there's a lot you'd like to tell people about how they ought to live.

"All right," said Paul.

"Really??"

"Sure."

What an opportunity. I debated about this, but in the end didn't have the nerve to actually do it, so Paul got someone else to take his place.

The NEF church would have been ok with it, I'm quite sure, because things weren't very conventional there, as I said, and Rhoda Tait, whose husband had been a well-known preacher in the North, would sometimes go up front and talk for a while.

We also note that Paul was only about ten years removed from his high school and college years among the Allegheny Wesleyan Methodists. They will affirm a woman's call to preach, which surprises people because they are a conservative bunch and the women look like Mennonites who forgot to wear their coverings. So it wasn't such a bizarre idea to Paul to have me speak in his place.

I've spoken to many different groups, but that was the closest I came to even considering anything I might call a sermon, and we see that I was still a long way away. I've never had any desire to be a church leader or pastor, and that has steadily dropped from zero to about minus-515 in the 25 years that Paul has been a pastor.

Yet MacArthur's words seemed directed not only at Beth Moore, who speaks before thousands, but also to women like me.

---

One time I spoke at a conference and wasn't given much warning what sort of Mennonites would be present. I was told ahead of time that my veil was fine as it was, but I should be sure to wear a dress, rather than a skirt and blouse. Those were easy guidelines to comply with, but I wished later they would have mentioned shoes as well. I completed my outfit with a pair of black pumps with 2-inch heels, because pumps with heels make me feel more competent.

It turned out that most of the audience were much more conservative than me. The women all wore black shoes with soft soles. On the hard tile floors their shoes made, at most, soft whispery sounds, and mine went click click click, up the aisle to the podium, click click click, handing out papers, click click click clickclickclickclick, back down the aisle when I was finished.

Everyone in the audience was kind, engaging, attentive, encouraging. But I got the feeling that because they were so quiet they were essentially good, and because I was so noisy there was something flagrant, conspicuous, and bad about me, as though I should have known the rules but chose to ignore them.

Silence is good, you know.

---

Sometimes when I speak to women I tell them about Pilate's wife.

We meet her in Matthew 27. She is back in the palace, but she knows her husband is in an awful spot. Jesus is on trial. The crowd is yelling and demanding. Rome is going to be watching how this is handled. And the decision is Pilate's. Her husband's. It all comes down to him, there at the center of this drama.

She falls asleep and has a dream. That man on trial is innocent! He must not be condemned! What is she to do?

She must do something.

I am guessing it was neither common nor remotely ok for her to influence Pilate's official decisions, but she is desperate.  She sends a message. I picture a note, but it may have been a servant's word.

“Don’t have anything to do with that innocent man, for I have suffered a great deal today in a dream because of him.”

Then she waits in terrible suspense, and eventually finds out her husband washed his hands in a pathetic attempt to proclaim his own innocence and then handed Jesus over to be crucified.

Think about this.

The decision is Pilate's. The power is his, the weight, the responsibility.

The dream is hers. The knowledge, the awareness, the desperation.

Why was she given the information if she had absolutely no power to decide or judge?

Why didn't Pilate have the dream or the insights?

I don't know the answer, I tell women, but I know from this story that her voice and her insights mattered. Who else spoke up for Jesus that terrible night?  No one.

The Eastern Orthodox Church called her Procula and gave her sainthood. She spoke truth.

---

"Tell your husbands clearly what you think and feel," I told the women at the retreat in Texas. "No hinting. If he's like a big old hippo, he won't listen to a mosquito buzzing around. You need to talk like a hippo, or maybe an elephant."

"I'm afraid of getting it all wrong," one woman said. "I used to think submission meant silence, and now I don't know how to speak."

That word always pops up in these contexts: submission.

It's in the Bible. My understanding is that it means letting your husband lead, provide, and protect and also supporting and helping him.

I am sure it doesn't mean not saying anything, but we hear the voices from our conflicted pasts. Submission equals silence, the voices say, and silence is good. If we would just shut up, we would finally be good, and everything would be ok. We would know our place. That would be good too.

"Our teaching on submission has made us into good manipulators," says a young friend.

Mennonite women are learning to speak, to chill the sloshing thoughts into solid jello words that can be scooped out and served. "I think this." "I feel this." "Could you please do this?" "I need help." "This happened to me."

Sometimes it comes out all wrong. Miscommunication happens, even arguments. "Maybe silence is better after all," they say.

"No," I tell them. They admit their husbands say the same thing.

"He wants to know what I think about things. He likes when I say it instead of hinting."

The women look surprised as they tell me, and I bless those husbands, finally erasing the voices that shamed and silenced in the past.

"Speaking takes practice," I say. "It's hard to put thoughts and feelings into words. You won't get good at it if you never talk. You're allowed to make mistakes. That's how you learn."

When you were told to shut up, that your only chance at being good was being quiet, it's an unbelievably long and rocky road to opening your mouth and expressing what's going on inside.

---

Both men and women tried to shush some of us over the years, when we spoke the truth out loud. But there is something uniquely devastating about a man with spiritual authority accusing, condemning, and silencing, especially if you are the only woman in the room.

"You talk too much," they said. "It was actually your fault." "You were out of place." "Stop talking about this." "Do not write about this."

We shriveled and grew smaller before their intimidating gaze. If they were God's anointed, then this had to be the voice of God, confirming all we feared. We must never speak again.

No wonder we reacted to John MacArthur.

Women came to Jesus, weeping, wiping his feet, pouring precious ointment. He found them sinful, sick, bent double for 18 years. He called their names, healed them, and valued them.

"What a waste," said the men with religious authority. "He ought to know she's a sinner." "He violated the Sabbath."

The women didn't have to deal with these men because Jesus did it for them.

"Why do you bother her?" he said.

"Leave her alone."

"Her story will always be told."

"You don't understand love and forgiveness."

To the women he said, "You are set free.” 

"Go and sin no more."

"Go in peace."

The "young man" (we assume an angel) that the women discovered in Jesus's tomb told them not to be alarmed and to go and tell the men what had just happened.

So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, and ran to tell his disciples. Suddenly Jesus met them. “Greetings,” he said. They came to him, clasped his feet and worshiped him.

---

When we meet Jesus, he becomes both voice and message to us, truth and Word, restorer and sender.

The old tapes playing in our heads slowly turn silent in His presence. We learn to ignore the current clamor as well, telling us a thousand conflicting messages of what we ought to be and do and say, and even more what we ought not to be and do and say.

We listen to Him.

"Go and tell," he says.

"Really?" we say.

"Sure!"

"All right then. We will."

When Your Blessings Involve Hard Work and a Bit of Misery

I often have flashbacks, when the current moment triggers a memory of something similar.

My dad got a stroke and died in September, which will be a future blog post after I get the pictures and video organized. Ever since his death, I have been mentally and physically exhausted, operating on maybe a third of my normal energy.

I was scheduled to fly to Texas on October 16 to speak at a ladies' retreat. I was excited about going until Dad's death put me into such a dysfunctional state that I was taking two naps a day and carefully choosing the three or four most important tasks to do every day before my half cup of octane was all used up.

I figured I could handle a Texas trip if I conserved my resources, because it felt irresponsible and inconsiderate to bail a month before their retreat. Thankfully I had a team of people praying, and their prayers lifted my stranded canoe off the rocks and got it floating downriver, so to speak.

On Wednesday morning, I was at the kitchen counter sipping tea and eating a big breakfast. With all my heart and soul I wanted to go back to bed and stay there instead of getting dressed, hauling suitcases to the car, and going to meet the shuttle in Albany to take me to Portland to the airport.

So I felt sorry for myself. Poor little me, wearily schlepping heavy books to the car in the morning chill while other people got to sip a cup of coffee in their jammies.

I had a sudden flashback.

When I was a teenager, I read Ann Kiemel's bubbly inspirational books about her and Jesus changing the world. Ann was so lucky. Not only did Jesus actually answer her prayers and stuff, but her books were bestsellers, and she got to go all over and speak to people.

Well. In one of her books, Ann told how she woke up in a motel room and was lonely. She was in yet another city, and pretty soon she would go before a thousand people and speak to them. But she was realizing it was a hard and lonely life.

At the time I thought, Oh you poor little famous successful pookie-wookie, getting to do what most writers only dream of and hope for, and you have the audacity to fuss that you don't like parts of it.

Yet there I was, on Wednesday morning, myself a poor little pookie-wookie, who got to go fly to exotic places and speak to women who were willing to sit there and listen, and I was all fussy and whiny because it meant actually getting up early and catching a plane. 17-year-old me reached forward through the years and slapped my face. "I didn't have the faith to dream of half the life you have now!" she scolded.

When you finally reach a dream, a goal, a longed-for event, is it ever right to be honest about the hard things it entails?

If babies are a gift and a blessing, and you know that Angela down the street would love to have one but is infertile, is it right to admit that mothering is extremely hard for you? Maybe you know better than to complain to Angela, but is it right to admit it to anyone?

The same with your husband, although our daughter Emily notes that it's not an exact parallel. "All babies are blessings, but not all husbands are," she said.

"Indeed," we said. "Well then."

Either way, you finally get what some people will never have, and you find out that it's a blessing, yes, but it's also like the rest of life: hard work, challenging, and sometimes monotonous, with ample obstacles to test your maturity and selflessness.

Life is challenging for us all, and saying this out loud helps us find perspective and a path forward. Maybe it's all about saying it to the right person to get it out of your system. And then to laugh at your silly self, brush your teeth, and head for Texas full of wonder and gratitude that you actually lead this wildly adventuresome life.

The retreat was at the True Grit Ranch, about an hour from Dallas, a truly Texan place with cowhide rugs on the floors, two big glowering bulls across the fence, and forty fun ladies who listened to all my talks like they mattered. The time there was actually restful, which doesn't usually happen when I'm speaking somewhere.

Coming home involved long flights, sitting outside in the cold so I wouldn't miss the shuttle, and walking in the back door at 1:00 this morning. My friend Jean felt sorry for me when I told her about this at church today. "Go home and sleep for a week," she said. 

Our blessings are part of life, and sometimes life is overwhelming, exhausting and miserable, but that doesn't make the blessings any less blessed. It's always good to get a full night's sleep and remember just how incredibly fortunate I am to have this life, these gifts, and those astonishing opportunities.