reconciling things

When I’m sitting by my very own fire, reading the newspaper, and sipping cardamom coffee, I often feel heavy hearted. The news is so disheartening and if I let it go too deeply it can make me despondent. When I close the paper I want to gather my loved ones close and squeeze them tightly. I want to kiss them all over and tell them they are loved. I want to pray. I want to sit in silence and commune with the Holy Spirit. After I read the news I want to bake some bread and take it to a friend and say, “Just so you know that the world is not ending today.”

Never once while reading the paper have I thought, “You know what would fix this? An increased power struggle.” I have never thought, “I need to participate in the world’s corrupt structures.”

Yet, it is every where you look these days, on every news channel, in every paper, on every social media account, and endless memes. A woman is running for president. This could be our chance, ladies, to grab power. 

Women issues at the forefront of the debates.

Vote with your lady parts.

Girl boss energy. 

Liberation via domination. 

Female empowerment. 

It grieves me to my core to see women participating in their own extinction. We are losing the power of our own symbol in the mad dash to seize power from men. The incomparable intellectual and poet Gertrude von le Fort wrote, “The woman…who recklessly and unconditionally allows herself to become part of such a culture, basically affirms only her own exclusion. Her presence is nothing more than a pretense.”

I will state here and now, without reservation: I don’t want men’s power; I want softness.  

I don’t want a hammer to break a glass ceiling; I want tenderness—to both give it and receive it. 

There is no desire in me to use the instruments of warfare to wrest exploitive powers from others. I do not wish to dominate. I wish to opt out of the corrupt power struggles, fueled by the prince of the power of the air.

It’s ignorant at best to believe that the visible things are more important or more powerful than the invisible. Von le Fort writes in her book The Eternal Woman, “The profound consolation that women can give to mankind today is her faith in the immeasurable efficacy also of forces that are hidden, the unshakable certainty that not only a visible but also an invisible pillar supports the world. When all the earthly potencies shall have exhausted themselves in vain, and this in the present distress of the world is nearly the case, then, even for a humanity largely grown godless, the hour of the other world will strive again.”

I can hear people dismiss my perspective even now. Perhaps they will say that I only have this perspective because I already have wealth or power or privilege or money. Truth is, I have none of those things. I’m a single ethnic minority mom of nine, working multiple jobs. 

Some others might say I have this perspective because I’ve never been exploited by men and I am lucky to only know the good ones. Truth is I have certainly felt my femininity undervalued. My life has been marked by violence and sexual exploitation. I know the ugly receiving end of oppression.

It is precisely because of this, that I have no desire to be the one exercising dominance. When glass ceilings shatter those shards pierce tender flesh like swords, sometimes remaining invisible wounds for ages to come. No one can run barefoot and carefree over shards of broken glass.

The truth is encapsulated by Edith Stein who wrote “The world doesn’t need what women have. It needs what they are.”

If I had my way, I would invite women to sit down with me over a cup of tea. I would serve them cakes and delicate berries dipped in cream. We would take a collective deep breath and reflect on what we really want.

Understanding

Gentleness

The space to be soft, to let our guard down, to exhale.

The safety to be creative and to experience wonder.

To weave tradition and friendship and tenderness and ritual into every daily interaction. 

Solitude

Connection

The feminine impulse to reverence

Alas, the world is so dark and foreboding, full of dangers—visible and invisible, seen and felt. We have an imperative to participate in the healing of the world! How can we do that without seizing power from corrupt elites?!

What I am going to tell you will sound too simple and you will be tempted to say “That’s not enough!” But remember that it is the corrupt power structures of the world that have been forming your perception of what is enough and of what is important. Perhaps the powers that be have a vested interest in us running around exhausted and ineffectual. Mute the media. Listen to the Still Small Voice.

Here is how we heal the world: we lean into our hidden influence, our femininity, the ministering charism of our very natures.

“… the unpretentious is preeminently proper to woman, which means all that belongs to the domain of love, of goodness, of compassion, everything that has to do with the care and protection, the hidden, the betrayed things of the earth.” (Gertrud von le Fort)

We get to know our neighbors and invite them over for a bonfire or dinner. We bake a casserole for the mom with the new baby. We say our prayers faithfully and teach our children to pray. We plant gardens and share its abundance. We volunteer at the soup kitchen. We talk to strangers and look them in the eye. We step out of our echo chambers and see the dignity in others—this includes the preborn, the immigrant, the disabled, the restless, the confused, the opposite political affiliation, the one with the different religion, the one you are tempted to label a bigot. 

We read more books and watch fewer TikToks. We write more letters and fewer angry tweets. We walk barefoot on the grass and look for butterflies.

We show up to work on time and do our best. We smile at people who would formerly bring out our worst—that is before we realized that he, too, is a child of God. 

We speak the truth as we see it, even if it puts us in the minority. We don’t do the work of the tyrant for him by censoring ourselves.

We fast when the days call for fasting. We feast when the season is the feast. We drink wine when we are happy and extra water when we are sad. 

We stop saying things like “I hate people/kids/old people/mean people/Massachusetts drivers.” We choose to love. We choose to share. We choose to listen. We choose to reach across the messy aisle of our embedded ideologies and grab someone’s hand.

This is what it means to be women. It is to be softness when the world is harsh. It is to take the fragmented ends of things and weave them into meaning and purpose. Women have a unique ability to receive life into emptiness and grow dreams. To be a woman is to be a place where life can expand in the secret places. It is to be the embodiment of hospitality and protection. This spiritual reality is revealed in our biology. That is a truth I will die for.

“The presence of the feminine impetus means, as we have seen, that of a hidden influence, helpful, cooperating, a ministering one. The impulse of reverence belongs to woman. To determine the boundaries of a living culture by the presence of the mystery of charity means to do so by the quality of reverence…” (Gertrud von le Fort)

So, as I fold my paper this morning and I put down my coffee, my agenda is to share joy and hope and to stay in my lane, as it were. I don’t mind being a hidden refuge in a world of chaos. Someone has to do it. I volunteer. Let the world burn if it insists on doing so, I will offer a haven from the madness, a cup of tea at my table, a piece of pie, and a listening ear. I will strive to live the immortal words of Victor Hugo who wrote, “There is in this world no function more important than that of being charming. The forest glade would be incomplete without the humming-bird. To shed joy around, to radiate happiness, to cast light upon dark days, to be the golden thread of our destiny, and the very spirit of grace and harmony, is not this to render a service?”