Do You Believe in Transformation?

The Christian life is often compared to second birth, or transformation. We've all heard the caterpillar to butterfly analogy, and of course Jesus spoke about being reborn.

Paul in his letter to Romans wrote about the transformed life and renewed mind. 

What does that look like?

As a former staunch evangelical woman, I felt it necessary to be devoted to a lifetime plan of transformation. If I'm not constantly changing, growing, improving, then aren't I stagnating?  At least spiritually?

Are Christ followers meant to be a permanent curve of conforming to the image of Jesus?

If I'm not changing anymore, then what could that mean? 

What is true spiritual transformation and how has they looked in your life?  I really want to know. 

The Funniest Person I've Ever Known

My son Jeremy, snarky at 12 and a budding agnostic, makes me laugh almost everyday. His wit and timing send me over the edge howling with side-splitting laughter on a regular basis. If laughter is good medicine, then I am well medicated thanks to Jeremy.

Like on his birthday in March. I was driving him to school when he asked me, "So, what did you get me for my birthday?"

"It's me. I'm what you get," I quipped feeling pleased with my quick one-liner.  But Jeremy  up'ed me.

"Well, then can I regift you?"

Or the other day, he was negotiating with me about a new X-Box game. I felt uncertain about it due to the violence in the game. But my argument was stopped cold in it's tracks when he countered,  "What about The Sopranos?  You watch that violent show don't you Mom?"  He won that round.

Recently I was remarking to Jeremy how tired my muscles were from some of my cleaning jobs lately. "It's like working out," I told him.

"Oh, c'mon Mom, it is not like working out. It's cleaning." 

And then he began to mockingly demonstrate what a work out for a cleaning lady could look like. 

Bending over and pretending to be mopping he said, "Ok, work it, work it, where's my mop, I"m working out..." Then he stood upright and began to go through the motions of vacuuming. "Ok, girls, let's work those arms, forward and back, forward and back..." 

I was laughing so hard that my belly began to hurt. But he wasn't finished yet.

"Ok, where's my feather duster?" he asked with a totally overloaded accent sounding like a cross between a gay butler and a metrosexual home designer. "Flick that wrist, to the right, now to the left. No pain no gain, girls, keep it moving!"

Jeremy has been cracking jokes since he began talking before age two. Highly verbal from day one, Jeremy began to create his own comedy routines as young as eight. Close friends remember him putting on shows in the living room or on top of picnic tables on camping trips. By age ten he performed his first comedy gig at his school's talent show. And took the house down. 

He has performed twice on Sunday morning for our church. All original material that he conjured up in that impish mind of his. I keep asking him to please do another comedy set for our church, but he is at that awkward self-conscious age and refuses to perform for others. I hope he outgrows this phase quickly. His gift of humor and comedy is too amazing to be confined to shows just for mom in the kitchen and mini-van.

His wit often interferes with my parenting. He'll be having a conflict with his older sister Rose and while I'm trying to referee the situation, he will typically start firing off one-liners that completely slay me.  It's hard to discipline him when he has me cracking up. His sister, though, does not find it amusing. 

Like a few months ago. Rose had labeled the last soda in the fridge with her name, claiming it before anyone else (um, Jeremy) could drink it. Jeremy appealed to me about how unfair this was. I denied his request to take her label off the soda and told him, "She got dibs. That's the way it goes."  Without hesitating, Jeremy fired back, "Fine. I call dibs on the refrigerator." 

How do you argue with that?  I laughed my head off and told Rose, No more calling dibs. Jeremy once again negotiated his way through humor and logic. What a powerful combination. It has served him well. 

He is the funniest person I know.  His best jokes are connected to passing gas. (remember, he's 12!)  He once devised what he called a classification system for farts. He came up with names for the different kinds of farts he has experienced, names like the Steamer fart, the Hunky fart, the Silent but Deadly fart, the Baby fart, and so on. And nearly every night for at least three years, as I said good-night to him, he would pause and say, "Hey Mom."  "Yes Jeremy?"  Silence. Then, after several seconds, the sound of a trumpet would erupt across his darkened bedroom and he would say, "That one was for you." 

He's snarky kid. Ask him sometime what he thinks about God farting and thunder storms. He had a humoreous theory about that.

If I Were a Man...

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to walk in the skin of the opposite gender of what you were born? Have you daydreamed about what kind of man or woman you could have become had you had that one little chromosomal shift while being knit together in your mother's womb?

I have.

I have wondered at times what path my life might have taken had I been born a Patrick instead of a Pamela.  If I were a man, I have quietly asked myself, would I have an advantage in life?

In some cultures this undoubtedly would be a resounding yes, and as unfair as it might sound, in evangelical culture it is most definitely a yes. A great, big loud praise the Lord yes. 

Men in evangelical circles, particularly male leaders, are given the great and noble task of leading the church, their communities, and their homes. They are called to be pastors and teachers and elders and heads of households. Men are given the best places of honor and prestige; they earn the highest accolades of respect and receive the grandest seats at the banquet table. Evangelical men are kingly in their assessment of one another, of those who are admired for their biblical prowess and church leadership abilities. It is a man's world in the halls of Christendom.

Male preachers get the best television shows, while their women quietly sit, demure, hands folded upon their petite laps while their leaderly men preach and teach and roar and howl. My sister, the agnostic, observed and said to me, "There are no women pastors with their own tv shows." A woman who has the good fortune to preach and teach might rise to some level of respect within her own small sphere of influence, but in the general population of evangelicalism, women will not be permitted to exercise spiritual authority, such as teaching, over men. They rule the courts, and they rule it because God made it so. They know. Just ask them.

I am not anti-man. I love men. I admire the way men think and create and build and protect. The bent in men for war and territorial conflict (in all kinds of arenas of life) is the stuff of page-turning novels and action-packed films. Without men in the world, or the church, things would certainly be much less interesting. Men bring a kind of energy, a vitality, that is thrilling. My life would be much more dull  if it were not for the men, young and old, who rev it up with their testosterone presence. Men totally rock. 

And yet men, without women, are not nearly as capable as they can be when they are shoulder to shoulder with the other gender of humankind. Not in a subserviant way, like woman as helper to man as leader. This is a very popular concept in Christianity and is openly taught and embraced as a God given model. I do not dispute that many couples are happy with this philosophy. To each their own. But it is the notion that this is the true order of creation, men lead and women serve and follow, that this is the God ordained order of human life, that I do not subscribe to. I think it is an insidious idea that needs to be confronted and taken hostage. 

Men and women are at their most powerful when they are side by side in the trenches of life and the frontlines of faith. Men suffer when they keep their women from leading along side them. And women suffer when they insist on not answering that smoldering fire of leadership inside of them because they are conditioned to believe it is a strange fire, a fire that is not of God and so it must be ignored, quenched. Extinguished. There is a spirit of resignation upon many tribes of women within Christendom who have accepted that they must quietly follow their men and endure their role in life as the silent partner. 

It is to their shame, and also to the shame of their men. Without one another, we are each weaker and less than what we can be together. 

There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.  (Galatians 3:28-29 NIV)

In Christ's family there can be no division into Jew and non-Jew, slave and free, male and female. Among us you are all equal. That is, we are all in a common relationship with Jesus Christ. Also, since you are Christ's family, then you are Abraham's famous "descendant," heirs according to the covenant promises. (The Message)