Who I am Meant to Be

I was reminded yesterday of how very much I love litigation.  In my honours colloquium, Women and the Law, we posed as fake lawyers and Supreme Court Justices alternatively and argued a real Supreme Court case.  We had to prepare briefs and be aware of the inquiry style of the Justice to whom we were assigned.  It has been so long since I have been in a fake litigation setting that I entirely forgot what it felt like: the exhilarating anxiety, the feeling of my brain finding the central issue at hand and articulating it, the heart-pounding feeling of not having the answer, the amazing ability to bullshit something that somehow manages to be convincing.

I find it very strange.  I really hate speaking extemporaneously.  My brain seems to always freeze and I can't remember what I wanted to talk about.  I especially don't like to be forced to talk when I'm not highly versed in the field.

Now with that last statement in mind, I'm in no way claiming to be highly versed in the law, or even in any specific area of the law.  But somehow, for some reason, when I get up to the podium and begin to articulate a legal argument, and then a panel of "justices" inquires, interrogates, and attacks everything that I say, I get this incredible high and I find a way to combat and to redirect and to figure out what the central issue is.  And I somehow manage to focus on that central point, and hopefully manage to get my point across.

I'm going to get to do it again a week from today in my Con Law class, and I'm beyond excited.  Not because I have some lofty idea that I'm somehow amazing at it.  But because it reminds and affirms that this is what I was meant to do.  Even if I fumble, and falter, and fail, I still have this feeling inside that I can't even begin to describe.  It's just this feeling, this high, this invigorating voice which whispers in my heart and in my soul: "you were meant for this."

And I needed this affirmation.  I'm facing the prospect of LSATs and law school applications and all of these overwhelming things which seem to try and discourage me from pursuing this long-standing goal.  So I'm just so grateful that right when I needed it most, God gave me this affirmation of everything that I am striving to be.

Rejecting Jesus

My roommate recently told me about a class discussion which she had to participate in which was essentially a very frank and open discussion about the class members' personal religious beliefs.  Of those in the class with religious beliefs, there were several Roman Catholics, one culturally protestant Christian who openly admitted to not actually believing in God (not entirely sure how that works), one protestant Christian who didn't say much other than that she was a protestant Christian, and my roommate, a very passionate, outspoken, and charismatic protestant Christian.  The rest of the members of the class were either agnostic or atheist.

As the discussion progressed, much of the attention became focused on my roommate, as she was the only regularly active and devoutly outspoken religious person in the room.  Furthermore, her beliefs seemed radical to most of the rest of the class.  Much scrutiny was paid to the fact that my roommate believes that whether or not one goes to heaven is not based upon the good or bad things which one does in his/her life.  Instead, it is based upon one's belief and faith in Jesus.  Serial killers and child molesters, if they truly believe and accept that Jesus died on their behalf, will go to heaven; likewise, if Gandhi or Mother Theresa never came to believe and accept Jesus' sacrifice for them, they will go to hell.  To everyone (or at least every one who spoke up) in the room, this was an entirely novel concept.

Now, I have no clue who all reads this blog or what your respective backgrounds are, but I grew up in a devoutly protestant Christian home in which we went to church more than once a week, I went to a Christian highschool, and even here at American U., my closest friends tend to share at least my most basic religious beliefs.  So, to me, the idea that someone wouldn't understand the most basic tenant of my faith made no sense.  We live in a supposedly Christian nation, and while I know AU is very unique in its frequent rejection of devout Christianity, it never really dawned on me that some people here (or really anywhere in America for that matter) might not understand at least the very basic tenants of my faith.

So I'm going to lay it out.  Not to try and convince anyone of anything.  That's not the point, and beyond that, it would never work.  Believing in this requires both knowledge and faith.  Knowledge alone will never lead one to believe.  But I digress.  I'm only sharing this because I don't want to keep talking about being a Christian and about having faith, without people understanding what it is I mean by that.  It was my own naivety, personal comfort bubble, and cowardice that has kept me from doing this thus far, and I really am sorry for that.

This is what I believe to be true to the core of my being.  It is my statement of faith, and my declaration of love for this crazy radical man and son of God named Jesus:

I believe that this world is broken, and that everyone in it is entirely screwed up.  There's something terribly wrong with this place and these people.  We weren't meant to be like this.  We were made by a sovereign and holy God who loves us completely, but who also gave us free will, because he didn't want robots.  With this free will, we screwed up, and we continue to screw up.  Because God is entirely perfect, entirely good, and entirely holy (meaning that He cannot allow Himself to be with anyone who is not entirely perfect and good as well), he can no longer be connected with us like He used  to be.  However, because God is also compassionate and loving beyond anything that we could ever imagine, He cannot stand to be away from us, and He continues to help us and even show Himself to us, even though it hurts his holiness.  So God had to somehow find a way to reconcile His need to not be with imperfect beings and his need to embrace us with His unceasing love.  Well, God has a Son, and that Son agreed to come to this earth over 2,000 years ago to show us the extend of God's crazy radical, heart-wrenchingly awesome love for us.  Jesus didn't come here to condemn us, but simply to love us.  He also came here to show us what it's like to love those around us.  He wasn't here to set up some great moral code, but instead to be a radical, crazy example of what it's like to love those who are absolutely least in this world.  The culmination of this radical life of love was to agree to be tortured and brutally killed, accepting the ultimate punishment for every crappy thing which every human being to walk this earth has ever done so that no one else has to.  Jesus died for everyone, because He loves us all so God damn much that He couldn't stand the thought of any of us spending an eternal afterlife of total separation from all things good, including and especially God Himself.  God doesn't want anyone to experience what that total lack of Him is like, so he offered His son to die on our behalf.  The even more amazing thing about it all, though, is that, because Jesus never actually did anything wrong while on earth, death had no power over Him, so after three days in the grave, He rose from the dead, having conquered all disease, every horrible thing any human being has ever thought or done, and death itself, both physical and spiritual.

I don't fully understand it all, and it makes no sense to me why Jesus would do what He did, but what I do know is that if I simply believe it to be true and accept and truly accept that Jesus died in my place, and I will be able to spend eternity being completely connected to Jesus and everything that is good and amazing in this world and the next.

What I think that I like most about what Jesus did for me (and everyone else) is that he lived out this crazy radical life, basically just showing us how it's done.  He was entirely radical.  I know that I've said it already, but he really, truly was.  He declared the entire legal and moral code obsolete.  He advocated socialism.  He was a total feminist.

That last one's my favourite, and I love how much evidence there is to support it.

During the time of Jesus, women were not allowed to learn the Torah or address men in public (or even in private depending on the relationship).  Yet many of Jesus' good friends were women, during a time when women were viewed as essentially less than maggots. He allowed women to be His disciples.  In fact, Jesus' female followers were the only ones to stay with Him throughout His whole trial and execution; all of His male followers deserted Him, though they eventually returned.  He listened to women and showed them respect.  He refused to condemn and therefore saved the life of a woman with the worst reputation imaginable (she kept sleeping with other people's husbands).  Many scholars believe that Mary Magdalene was one of Jesus' closest friends, yet she was a former prostitute.

And yet over the past years, decades, even centuries, the organized Christian church has chosen to reject this Jesus whom I have come to love so much.  The church tends to pay lip-service to Christ, and then immediately launch into its impossible laundry list of moral and political expectations for "good" Christians.

The Church has forgotten about Jesus, about his radicalism, and his socialism, about His feminism, about all of the crazy stuff which He did for the sole purpose of showing how radical His love is.  In fact, it's worse than a mere forgetting.  I believe that, in so many ways, the modern church has rejected this Jesus.  Instead of focusing on the most broken and hurting populations in our society in order to love them radically, the church seeks out these populations in order to condemn them and tell them how to change.  Instead of picking up Jesus' feminist mantle and advocating for female equality, the church lectures young women about their proper place in the church, in society, and in the home.  Instead of rejecting the legalism of the religious leaders which Jesus condemned so harshly (the only people whom Jesus condemned were the religious leaders, ironically), the church has created its own hierarchical list of morality.

By embracing the gospel of fear, the gospel of capitalism (aka the "Prosperity Gospel"), and the gospel of the Religious Right, the modern church has utterly rejected the radical, all-inclusive, even socialist message of Jesus.  This is why I have such a problem with the modern Church, and yet I still love Jesus so much.  But like St. Augustine says, "The Church is a whore, but she's my mother."  As much as I can't stand how the church has distorted and utterly rejected my Jesus, I still must love her, even though it hurts.

This is what I believe.  I'm not trying to convince anyone of anything.  That's not the point.  Jesus didn't sit around arguing and cajoling people into finally conceding that He was the Son of God.  No, half the time He didn't even want it to be said out loud.  Instead, He just lived his life, let his radical actions and ideas speak for themselves, and then asked His followers to live radical lives too, and to simply tell His story.  So that's what I'm trying to do.

I refuse to reject this amazing man named Jesus, no matter how crazy radical He seems.  He is my salvation, my reason for living, my everything.  And a long time ago, I said to him, "Yes, Here I am.  Send me."  And so I go, knowing full well that where thus life may lead may be crazy and radical and uncomfortable.  But that's ok, because the Jesus that I know will give me exactly what I need to live this life.  I will not reject Him, and I even will not reject the modern church, but I will reject what they've done to my Jesus.

Another feminist rant. What else did you expect?

So it really annoys me when people (male or female) make references to a specific piece of the male anatomy as a dysphemism for courage of some kind.  It's another one of those cultural slip of the tongues that most people say without even thinking.  It permeates our airwaves and our movies and our every expression.  And yet it serves as a constant reminder to women that they are less than, that they are incapable of achieving the same level of courage, audacity, or toughness that a "real man" can.

A friend's recent facebook status update used the phrase "...maybe one day I'll have the balls to [do the same thing which someone I respect does now]."  He was talking about a man of God and the courage which he had to talk about the true meaning of sex, as well as calling out men's improper and even violent treatment of women.  The message of the video my friend was promoting is absolutely fantastic, but I almost didn't even want to watch it due to the off-handed "balls" comment.

In one of my favourite movies, Whip It, the main character's best friend, Pash, tells Bliss that she doesn't have the "balls" to try out for the Austin all-girls roller derby team.  The movie is about a bunch of kick-ass, rough-and-tumble, anti-establishment women who basically say a big "F-you" to society's view of the proper place of women by wearing slutty clothing, having tons of very visible tattoos, and obsessively competing in the hard core game of Roller Derby.  And yet, by saying that she will "grow the balls" to learn how to play Roller Derby, she basically infers that this all-female sport really requires some form of maleness.

I've never understood why this anatomical reference is necessary.  I'm very aware that the people who say it rarely mean anything by it, but there is a very clear subtext behind the phrase.  That subtext goes something like this: "I am less than a true man because I can't do [whatever it is that he/she is trying to do]; furthermore, a true woman would never be able to do this thing."  However, what most people who are using this phrase truly means is "I don't have the courage/toughness to be able to do this thing, but I wish I did."

I'm gonna state the obvious here, because it apparently isn't so obvious to some people:

Men are not inherently more capable of courage or toughness.  Nor do men who lack said qualities become less than a true man.
Women do not inherently lack courage or toughness, and they don't have to become like a man in order to gain these qualities.

The phrase "grow some balls" (and its variations) is just one of the phrases which permeates our society which inherently degrade women.  "Man-up," "who wears the pants in that family?" and "Is it that time of the month?"  All of these phrases tell women that, due to their sex, they are somehow less than men.  Womanhood is negative.  Our two little tiny X-shaped chromosomes determine our lesser place in society and in the world.

Speaking of which, I find it incredibly strange that at a University which is 70% female, women very rarely run for student government positions and are even more rarely actually elected.  For this reason, I'm considering applying for an SG cabinet position for next fall.  Not sure though.  I've never really thought about getting officially involved in politics, but I figured, if I'm going to complain about a lack of women in the Student Government, I might as well do something about it.  Because at a majority female institution, we deserve to have female representation.  Because I am woman enough, and no actual balls are required.