L. Maristatter's Blog, page 2
July 2, 2023
TINY TIN HOUSE GIVEAWAY!
Enter the giveaway here:
https://haleythescientist.com/giveaway
And while you're at it, take a listen to our podcast. We cover a multitude of topics: from wise (female) Christian mentors, to the threat of purity culture, Christian feminism to Christian nationalism. And, of course, the book! What do YOU think of Christian feminism?
https://open.spotify.com/episode/1ank...
June 28, 2023
I'm a guest on the Divinely Modern podcast!
Check it out wherever you get your podcasts (and see Spotify link below)!
"It’s conditioning. It is psychological conditioning. It’s not just saying, 'Daddy says you can’t go to college.' It’s saying, 'Daddy says you can’t go to college, and you know what? God says that, too. And if you do, you’re going to hell.' And that is spiritual abuse." ~L Maristatter
https://open.spotify.com/episode/1ank...
May 15, 2023
You Betcha She Did!
Find out more here: https://fb.watch/kyjlnHCLNu/
March 20, 2023
Book Giveaway on Goodreads!
February 2, 2023
Book Giveaway!
November 13, 2022
My Kirkus Review!
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-re...
September 18, 2022
Hello, friends
January 1, 2021
On Being Forgot
I have no lingering affection for 2020.
I lost friends. I lost family. It was a horrid year, full of death and devastation, grifting and grief. (And much as I would like to wax political, I shall refrain from giving anyone the satisfaction, especially himself.)
And I see many, many people—myself included—looking forward at 2021 with a wild, undeserved hope, while vowing to put 2020 in mothballs: to forget. To archive the epoch and crash the drive, perhaps striking it with a hammer for good measure.
But unpopular as my sentiment may be, I think we do this at our peril.
In the 1981 film Excalibur, Merlin delivers an ominous line that has stayed with me since I first heard it in the theater some 40 years ago: “For it is the doom of men that they forget.”
In other words: We best remember the lessons we learned (or didn’t) in 2020, so as we barrel full-tilt into 2021, we’ll know better how to cope.
What did we learn?
We learned that climate change is real, and it is affecting us now. Today. The hundreds of thousands of dead koalas and wallabies in Australia, the dozens of dead people, the hundreds of thousands of acres of charred landscape in Arizona, California and around the world, the storms, the floods—Mother Nature told us in no uncertain terms that she is pissed, and she is coming for us. (Can you blame her?)
We best listen.
We learned that white privilege is a thing, and the Confederacy never did surrender. We learned that lynchings still happen, only now they’re done in broad daylight by those who wear white skin and often, badges. And hopefully, we learned well that Black, Indigenous and People of Color are over it, and it’s past time for white Americans to put our money where our mouths are with the whole “all people are created equal” thing.
We best listen.
We learned that we had a Pandemic Office in the White House for a reason. We have the CDC for a reason. We have science, by God, for a reason. And when we ignore those things, we die. In masses. And instead of listening to the scientists about how to cope with a pandemic, we now have to ask them how to cope with the bodies we don’t have room for in the morgue.
We best listen.
We learned that a pandemic makes for a great, post-carbon-fuel trial run. That when we take the cars and trucks and buses off the roads, and ground the planes, well, the air clears and the sky blues and the birds and animals return, poking cautious noses out from the places where they’ve hidden themselves from our toxic society. We learned that we don’t have to live in gray cubicles to get our work done, and when families and employers work together, both parents can maintain careers.
We best listen.
And we learned that no matter how many facts people are peppered with, and how much reason garnishes our arguments, many of our good neighbors will choose to ignore fact for fantasy, eschew truth for fable. There is no arguing this fact, no way to sweeten the stench of ignorance. And ignorance, when its fruit is allowed to ripen, bears death.
We best listen.
We learned that we had to put “normal life” on hold. That all the important business meetings, all the Tinder dates, the weddings, the funerals, the career changes, the overseas vacations, the college classes—all of it had to stop, for a time. We learned that we are not the master of our ship of fate—we are not, indeed, the captain of our destiny.
We best listen.
We learned that our civilization is but a veneer; that our food security sits on the flimsy shoulders of other humans, fallible and fall-able; that our lifesaving medicines can be stopped in midstream by the whim of an annoyed postmaster. We learned that only the wealthy thrive during a pandemic; indeed, the poor are literally kicked to the curb. We learned that American society embraces “survival of the fittest” as the only one truth on which our nation is founded, and “In God We Trust” is just an ad campaign.
We best listen.
And lest you think this is simply a cynical diatribe, I encourage you to review the year. Look at the headlines. Read the accounts. (And no, I’m not talking about Fox, that right-wing propaganda machine. I’m talking about real news, founded on facts.) And when you’ve finished reading, remember. And vow never to forget.
Because only remembering will bring change. And only change will make 2021 a better year.
Please. Listen.
May 7, 2013
On feminism, fear and the violation of silence
So I guess I’m a feminist.
Not in any kind of, “I hate men and I think they should be relegated to the back of the bus” sense, but more in a, “I love men but I don’t get why women are still marginalized” sense.
And we are, we women. If we’re all paying attention, we see it every day.
We see it in the ads that portray us as things—pretty baubles to sell products.[1]
We see it in the number of women who show up in the E.R.—or the morgue—after a dispute with a spouse or lover.
We see it in the number of women who are not rising to positions of power in business or politics, or teaching in the church, or making the same wage as a man for the same work.[2] In 2013.
We see it in the way toys are marketed to our children: how boys still get the erector sets and the science projects, and girls…well, girls get dolls. Increasingly sexy dolls. Dolls that tell them they’d better grow up to be sex objects, because that’s what boys like.[3]
If we pay a bit closer attention, we see it in how all things feminine—kindness, reconciliation, caring, collaboration—are denigrated in the workplace, and often in the home. How the “dog eat dog” rules of business still rule. How women—and men—who take time off work to care for a sick child or attend a school play can pay the price in lost career momentum. How trying to “balance” work and family often means a lower rung on the corporate ladder—or getting kicked off of it entirely.
We see it in how caring for children or making dinner or cleaning up afterward is often still considered “women’s work” and therefore is beneath the attention of the husband. Even if both spouses work full-time.[4]
More subtly, we see it in how people of faith—and here I’m speaking of more than one faith—often reinforce the “separate but equal” stereotype, maintaining that men and women were never meant to be equal in the eyes of God and certainly are not equal in the eyes of man.
What on earth are we doing? Are we nuts?
Look, if God wanted women to be of less value than men, all He had to do was make sure women had a lower IQ than men. Easy enough—He’s God, after all. All He had to do was create us with the inability to teach, to preach, to think, to reason.
He didn’t.
Often we are physically weaker than men; often we are not. Often we are emotionally stronger; often we are not. Often we are smarter; often we are not. This does not make us less than; it makes us human.
The gender roles that have been imposed on American culture seem to have a great deal to do with our paternalistic history and precious little to do with God’s design.
I could pull out all the Bible verses supporting this position, but if you’re a Bible reader, you’ve heard them all before, anyway. And yes, I’ve heard all the verses supporting the idea that a woman should be in submission to her husband. I’m not interested in Bible wars. I tend to agree with Rich Mullins:
It starts off so beautifully and then at the end of that Psalm, the last verse of that Psalm is “How very blessed is the man who dashes the little one’s heads against the rocks.” [Psalm 137] This is not the sort of scripture you read at a pro-life meeting. But it’s in there nonetheless. Which is the thing about the Bible that’s why it always cracks me up when people say ‘Well in Dududududududuh it says…’ you kinda go ‘Wow it says a lot of things in there.’ Proof texting is a very dangerous thing. I think if we were given the scriptures it was not so that we could prove that we were right about everything. If we were given the scriptures it was to humble us into realizing that God is right and the rest of us are just guessing[5].
What I’m interested in is an acknowledgment from both sides that women—and men—have an awful lot of good stuff, valuable stuff, to bring to the table. Why? Because both men and women were made in the image and likeness of God. And paying a woman less or denigrating her ideas or keeping her from a promotion or insulting her intelligence or belting her across the face with a boot or selling her body to the highest bidder simply because she is a woman is simply unacceptable. It’s unacceptable to God—it’s about darn time it became unacceptable to the rest of us.
But we tolerate it. Why?
Why?
Why do men—and some women—have such a hard time with the idea of equal value? And this raises another question: How do we raise our sons? What are we teaching them about the value of women/womanhood/home and family? If we are teaching our sons that cooking and cleaning are “women’s work”—and sadly, many of us still are—then we are teaching them to devalue who women are. We’re teaching them that women belong in the pink ghetto—and that is not a place a man should be. We’re teaching them that some lines shouldn’t be crossed.
We’re teaching them that it’s okay to “keep a woman in her place.”
We’re teaching our daughters that, too.
(We’re also raising men who are incapable of taking care of themselves in a woman’s absence, but that’s a whole nother topic. Really, moms? Do you really think your son is going to marry the moment he moves out of your house, and he’ll conveniently die before his wife? That he’ll never need to know how to roast a chicken or clean a toilet?)
Popular culture is teaching us this, too. Every ad that shows part of a woman’s body as a lure to buy clothing or perfume or motor oil or beer—every television program that buys into the myth that blondes are “dumb” or women are an emotional hot mess—every single one reinforces the stereotype that women can’t handle the tough decisions, make the difficult calls.
Tell this to any woman who has sat at her child’s bedside in an E.R., or kept her cool on the battlefield, or held her own in the boardroom or in front of a Congressional committee. Tell her this, and watch her laugh. She knows it’s a stupid and inaccurate stereotype—and so should we.
I’m not saying that men and women are the same. We’re not. (Obviously.) We have some basic, essential differences and both men and women should be aware of—and respectful of—these differences.
So what is the problem here? Why do these issues persist, decades after the women’s movement?
I don’t know. But I suspect it has to do with fear.
If women have “come a long way, baby” (according to the 1970s-era cigarette commercial), Arlie Hochschild contends that maybe some men have gotten lost along the way. Women made huge strides…and then we looked back to see most of the men giving us puzzled looks from where we left them.[6]
What do you do when you’re king of the mountain and suddenly some woman in hot climbing shoes makes it to the top and sits down beside you?
If climbing those mountains is what has defined you, this new equality throws into confusion the very essence of who you are. It questions your definition of masculinity. It challenges the very purpose of your life.
If, as Annie Oakley famously sang, “anything you can do, I can do better,” what’s the point in being a guy? Where is the difference? What can a man bring to the table, now that the roles are suddenly changing? What alternative do you have to simply holding on to what you’ve always known?
Some churches have answered that difficult question with a simple smackdown: women can’t preach, teach or serve unless they do it in the children’s ministry or the kitchen. A woman’s job is to take care of the family. She has no business in a position of authority over a man, in the church or otherwise.[7]
This is using the Bible as bludgeon. The church has a long history of this. I do not believe this was ever God’s intent.
And the church tends to demonize women who challenge this status quo.
I don’t believe that was ever God’s intent, either.
Let me repeat here what I said at the top: I love men. I love it that they have strengths I don’t and that men and women are different. I celebrate those differences (a planet full of just men or just women would be tremendously boring, not to mention quickly depopulated). And I don’t envy guys as they wrestle with this topic—it’s a difficult one for both genders. That’s why I think it’s important that we continue with this dialogue—that we all continue to learn and grow and realize that both men and women have assets to bring to every aspect of our lives together.
So what’s the big deal? Why am I so vocal about this—so passionate—so angry? And since I’m blogging about it, why do I think you should care about it, too, whether you’re a man or a woman?
Because women are dying[8] in myriad ways.
Because women often are unable to raise our children the way we would like to—the way we have a right to—because of wage inequity.[9]
Because women often are unable to save for retirement because of wage inequity.
Because women are being denied our calling—our God-given calling.
And so, we are dying.
Physically, emotionally, financially, spiritually. Dying.
Sometimes, the answer is a husband.
Sometimes, it isn’t. (And really, should it be? Must we always be rescued?)
But it is a cop-out to join hands and sing “Kum ba yah” and say that God will take care of women no matter what we do, so we can ignore the problem and shove it off on Him.
That’s like saying God will take care of the poor, no matter what we do. Anyone who’s been to a Third World country knows there’s more to it than that. God is a God of justice. He calls us as Christians to live out that justice.[10] It isn’t His job to make us fair, to make us kind, to make us do what is right. That is our job. Our job is to love one another the way God loves us. Our job is to obey (John 13:34), and to become the people He has called us to become. To not wink at injustice; to not be silent in the face of what is uncomfortable; to not ignore our sisters when they cry out for help.
This is the job we are failing. Through our petty interdenominational fights, our proof-texting and our silence, our tacit endorsement of misogyny and our ignorance of the issues, we are failing.
It’s time to step up. Because this journey we are taking, this “long way” we have come, is littered with casualties: children ignored for the sake of putting food on the table or toys in the attic (or the garage), marriages on the rocks, men alone and confused about their purpose, women who have died at the hands of those who purport to love them, women who have shelved their dreams—their future and hope—in the interest of “getting along” in society, of fitting in, not making waves. And our society is a casualty, as well: a society that is not as rich as it could be, a society that has suffered loss because its eminently capable daughters didn’t grow up to be scientists or astronauts or biologists or Bible scholars, women who might have found the cure for cancer or explored strange new worlds or led a sister (or a brother) to Christ. It is all of us who are paying the price.
And the price is just too high.
[1] Kilbourne, J. “Killing Us Softly.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTlmho_RovY
[2] http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2013/03/31/why-has-salary-parity-still-not-happened/gender-equality-is-a-casualty-of-the-one-percent
[3] http://www.apa.org/pi/women/programs/girls/report.aspx and http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-437343/The-little-girls-sexualised-age-five.html
[4] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2301956/Has-feminism-failed-Eight-married-women-STILL-housework-husbands.html
[5] http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Rich_Mullins …from his concert in Lufkin, TX, 1997.
[6] Hochschild, A., & Machung, A. (2003). The second shift. New York, NY: Penguin Books.
[7] http://www.landoverbaptist.net/showthread.php?t=18768
[8] http://www.dvrc-or.org/domestic/violence/resources/C61/
[9] http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat37.htm
[10] Read the book of James.
April 20, 2013
On trust and watching sparrows fall
The birds found my feeder again today.
I put up the feeder some time ago and filled it with millet and seeds and all kinds of things birds like, and I waited. I thought it might ease Niff’s boredom to watch the birds feed a bit. I promised myself I would keep the birds safe and I wouldn’t let Niff get too close, and I’ve kept my promise. She loves to watch them from inside the sliding glass door but sometimes they see her and quickly fly off in fear, not realizing she can’t get through the glass.
Now, my Niffy-cat is a mighty hunter before the Lord. Unlike many other cats, she does not utter an “attack cry” when she sees something she seriously wants; rather, she is rapid on approach, placing her paws with surgical precision, totally focused on her prey; she is sleek as a wisp of smoke and utterly, completely, deathly silent. She and I have played “stalk” around the apartment on occasion but I always have to stop before she is ready—more than once I have lifted my head to peek around a piece of furniture or a door frame and found her face bare inches away from mine, her eyes huge and black. Invariably I freak out, then I laugh…it’s a nervous laugh that springs from the surprise of fear. She is very, very good, my cat. She always seems terribly disappointed when I stop playing mouse.
So I bore this firmly in mind one recent cool spring afternoon when we temporarily hosted some unexpected guests. On my way down to the apartment office I noticed quite a few thin branches on the sidewalk under a tree close to my place; when I got closer, I realized a nest was on the ground, too. “Oh no,” I said, and stopped and looked down. Two tiny baby birds—one in the nest, one partly out of it, lay right on the cold concrete. “Poor little things,” I said, sorrowful. I looked up, but couldn’t see where the nest had been originally. It looked as if perhaps a cat had gone after the nest and the branches had broken under its weight. I looked back at the sidewalk, saddened at the loss.
Then I realized the nest was moving rhythmically. I bent closer. Both birds were breathing. They were alive!
I quickly grabbed a few Kleenex and carefully picked up the birds, nest and all. One of the chicks opened a woozy eye and examined me (for all the world as if he were saying, “What the heck just happened??”) and closed it again.
I ran my errand and dashed back to my apartment, birds in hand. I quickly put them in a box out on the balcony so Niffy wouldn’t get them, then went online.
After 10 minutes I knew I couldn’t keep them. The chicks were maybe an inch to an inch and a half in size—large marbles with fuzzy down and pinfeathers. Their black beaks were far too tiny for a syringe. If I tried to give them water, I’d kill them. I called a local wildlife rescue organization and left a message on their hotline, then I took the box and birds back downstairs and taped the box to the tree, hoping the mother might come back.
The kind woman at the wildlife rescue place recommended I bring the birds into my apartment so they wouldn’t perish from chill, but I explained that Niff would consider them lean but tasty hors d’oeuvres. After a few minutes of tossing around ideas, I agreed to take them to the emergency veterinary clinic across town.
I grabbed car keys and purse and went downstairs, cut the tape and checked on the chicks. One had crawled completely free of the nest and had pooped on the Kleenex, and curled up next to his nest-mate, who hadn’t left the nest. He looked at me again and cheeped. He seemed to have recovered somewhat from his precipitous fall. “You’re a brave one,” I murmured. “I’m taking you to someone who can take care of you. Hang in there, little ones.” I covered them carefully with a clean Kleenex to keep them warm, with enough of a “tent” so they could breathe.
I tried to avoid bumps while driving across town. (As if the nest hadn’t been bobbing and swaying in wind for days.) The brave chick started cheeping at me from under the Kleenex. I didn’t know if he was calling for his mother or just making conversation, but I spoke soothingly to him and told him he would be safe soon. He seemed to like that and after a few minutes he quieted.
The receptionist at the vet clinic was knowledgeable and sympathetic. She said they keep wild birds warm in an incubator until the wildlife rescue people come fetch them. Apparently baby birds can rally quickly if they’re not badly injured, and my two seemed to be in good shape. We chatted for awhile and, reassured, I headed home, the sun’s dying glow leading me west.
I’m a softy when it comes to just about anything living and helpless; I just can’t stand any waste of life. Life—all life—is a miracle. Each one of God’s creatures is formed with exquisite care and it is always a rare privilege to see any of them up close. (Okay, with the possible exception of scorpions, but I figure those are a product of the Fall.) I found myself thanking God that I was there just when the chicks needed me and that the wildlife rescue place was there to answer my questions and provide a place for the chicks. I thanked Him that it was a Saturday and I was home and had the time.
“Thank You, Lord,” I said. “You truly do see every sparrow fall. Or in this case, baby doves.”
I was silent for a moment as I drove through the gathering dark, and then it seemed as if He spoke quietly to me: If I provided a rescue and a home for those two baby birds, can I not also provide a rescue and a home for you, oh child of little faith? Do you have any more control over your life than those babies do? If I caught them, can I not also catch you?
I laughed softly. Of course. The enemy may prowl around me like a lion, like my cat on the stalk; the storms of this world may shake my tiny place of safety, and branches may fail; but God will catch me. He does, He has, and He will again. It may not be in the way I would like. It may not be comfortable. But He never promised me a life of comfort; He promised me Him. I am in the palm of His hand, and no one can remove me from that sacred space. My only comfort comes from staying there, close to Him. My belief or trust in anything else is what Ann Voskamp calls “practical atheism.”[1] Either I trust God, or I don’t. There is no half-trust. There is no partial faith. And if I don’t trust God, how can I say I believe Him?
Oh, how I wish this were easy.
I cry with Thomas, “Lord, I believe! Help my unbelief.” And sometimes, that simple, passionate prayer is enough.
That night, I prayed for the birds. And I slept on the softest cushion of trust.
[1] Voskamp, A. (2010) One thousand gifts: A dare to live fully right where you are. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.
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