Dancing While Persisting

 One of my favorite pictures of my mom is one of her dancing in our living room.  She is wearing a shirt that my dad gave her.  It said, “A woman’s place is in in the house.  And in the Senate.”  I’ve seen that shirt resurface recently, but she had the original one from the 70s, when it was a more radical statement.  I don’t remember what music was playing while she was dancing.  Maybe it was Fats Domino or Debby Boone (you light up my life) on 8 track.  Maybe it was the Free to Be You and Me album.  These were the soundtracks of my childhood.  I just remember thinking how cool it was, watching my mom dance and thinking about the  possibility that I could be anything I wanted to be (my dad played a huge role in that as well…but that deserves its own blog post).  I was thinking about that picture on the eve of the 2016 election.  I even shared that with one of you.  And then the shock settled in.  My last post to this blog was right after that.  It's just been too overwhelming.

Fast forward to January 2017. The woman who danced in her living room in the 70s, marched in Washington, DC with hundreds of thousands of other women.  The stories she told of the women she met were nothing less than inspiring.  She’s always been my hero.  I’ve been thinking about this post for over a year now. How to express that gratitude…how to tell her how grateful I am that she did that.

So here we are, a year later.  What a year.  Women marched once again.  I feel as though I’ve been marching, figuratively, every day this year.  I’m tired.  And, yet, I’m inspired.  This year no less than last year.  But….but,  I got up this morning to see the same name calling and shaming of the women who marched yesterday that I saw last year.  I was disappointed.  I was hurt. And, thanks to one of the women I will mention below, I realized it made me angry.  My mom and I, we aren’t any of those names people were using.  Neither are the dozens of women I know who marched.  Before you say, I didn’t mean that about YOU or your mom, just the OTHERS, let me say this:  those others…I stand in solidarity with them, as well…I march for them, as well.  Instead of debating this here or in the comments, I’d rather invite you to come sit with me on my porch and have a real conversation.  I’ll make tea. Or we can eat some really good cheese.  Proximity to one another makes the name calling harder. When you see my face, and I see yours, the divide becomes a little smaller. 

I pushed aside what I thought was disappointment and headed to church.  Sunday School for the next few weeks is being taught by a woman whose teaching and preaching skills I admire.  The title of the class is “’Nevertheless, she persisted.’ Brave women who shaped the American church.” At the beginning of class she asked us to turn to our neighbor and talk about people who had helped us in our faith formation.  I found myself telling a story about how we came to be Presbyterian in the first place.  A story I had told many times before, but, in that moment, for some reason struck me as different this time. I realized it was a turning point (later in the morning when our pastor talked about turning points in her sermon, I thought, wow, now I HAVE to write about this).  For most of my childhood we had been members of the Lutheran church (ELCA).  When we made a cross country move during the middle of my 6^th grade year, my parents began looking for a new church home.  The only Lutheran church near our new home was part of the Missouri Synod. My mom had experienced that synod growing up.  Women were not allowed to hold positions of leadership in the church.  She did not want that for her children.  So, we found our way to the newly merged PCUSA and have been here ever since.  Today, when I told that story, I realized that most of the women whose leadership I have admired and faith I have valued, I know because of that single decision.  I hesitate to make a list because I’m going to unintentionally leave someone out (and you all know how I feel about exclusion), but I’m going to attempt to make that list (in no particular order) so that you can get a feel for the enormity of that decision:

 Jackie, Beth, Kathleen, Bonnie,  Ann, Anne (there are several Anns and Annes, and I admire a Virginia because I know one of those Anns), Betsy, Ruth, Betsy, Martha Ann, Izzy, Megan, Michelle, Sandy, Mary Frances, Carol, Jeanne, Donna, Robin, Sterling, Eleanor, Beverly, Dawn, Carla, April, Elizabeth, Ellen, Diane, Claire, Loretta, Sarah, Erin, Laura, Noell. Kate, Catherine, Marcia, Sherry, Sally, Amy…if I stop here, I’m already to over 40 when I count multiple people with the same names.  I’d have been lucky to have known just one of them, but over 40, probably closer to 50, that is because my mom persisted. All of these women have shaped the church. Not all of these women marched or would have marched, but I march because of them.  I persist because of them.  They would do the same for me.  Not one of them would call me a name, nor I them.  We don’t have to agree about everything for you to come hang out on my porch. Come on over.  I’ve downloaded the Free to Be You and Me album to my phone.  Come on over, come listen to the soundtrack of my childhood and let me tell you about my mom and how she danced and persisted (and still persists).  You’d love her.