Gentle reader,
On Thursday, I’ll post the second part of my reflections on reframing Paul on sexual ethics. You can read the first part here. Today, I’m thinking about how we need the encouragement of looking to others for guidance in our vocations.
Sarah Coakley writes of our need for “erotic saints.”
She isn’t talking about sexuality but about people who are so attractive in their persons, their stories, and their embodied lives that others are drawn to them and want to be like them in their own embodied lives.
She sees our culture of celebrity as one in which we are constantly attracted to people who are the very opposite of saints, and she worries that the body of Christ is failing to be the kind of attractive body which offers a real alternative to this false desire (see, The New Asceticism).
Today, I’m introducing you to some of my personal saints, a group of women writers whose work is, to me, so attractive and compelling that they give me courage in my own work. By saints, here, I don’t mean that these women are all Christians (though many are); I’m using an analogy between sanctification and beautiful work.
Who is in your cloud of witnesses?
“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” —Hebrews 12:1-2
My courage board, next to my writing desk.
Also, on my dusty desk, Funko pop Rhaenyra Targaryen, because of that fabulous Byzantine headpiece, love of cake, and the unshakable belief that she is her Father’s heir.
“and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.” — Romans 8:17
My women writer mentor witnesses, the first nine.
Top row: Ursula K. Le Guin, Octavia Butler, Sarah Coakley
Middle row: Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche, Emily Dickinson, Jane Austen
Bottom row: Kathryn Tanner, Louise Erdrich, Madeleine L’Engle
Ursula K. Le Guin
teaches me to blow up my imagination, like a balloon, like dynamite.
“To learn which questions are unanswerable, and not to answer them: this skill is most needful in times of stress and darkness.” — The Left Hand of Darkness
“Have you never thought how danger must surround power as shadow does light? This sorcery is not a game we play for pleasure or for praise. Think of this: that every word, every act of our Art is said and is done either for good, or for evil. Before you speak or do you must know the price that is to pay!” — A Wizard of Earthsea
Octavia Butler
teaches me that dystopia and sci-fi are the knife’s edge of reality, but there is always hope in the dust.
“The world is full of painful stories. Sometimes it seems as though there aren't any other kind and yet I found myself thinking how beautiful that glint of water was through the trees.” — Parable of the Sower
“You are hierarchical. That’s the older and more entrenched characteristic. We saw it in your closest animal relatives and in your most distant ones. It’s a terrestrial characteristic. When human intelligence served it instead of guiding it, when human intelligence did not even acknowledge it as a problem, but took pride in it or did not notice it at all …” The rattling sounded again. “That was like ignoring cancer. I think your people did not realize what a dangerous thing they were doing.” — Dawn
Sarah Coakley
is teaching me that feminist theology is theology, and theology is feminist theology. She is teaching me prayed theology.
“‘God’, by definition, cannot be an extra item in the universe (a very big one) to be known, and so controlled, by human intellect, will, or imagination. God is, rather, that without which there would be nothing at all; God is the source and sustainer of all being, and, as such, the dizzying mystery encountered in the act of contemplation as precisely the ‘blanking’ of the human ambition to knowledge, control, and mastery. To know God is unlike any other knowledge; indeed, it is more truly to be known, and so transformed.” — God, Sexuality, and the Self: An Essay 'On The Trinity'
“The Spirit, then, is what interrupts the fallen worldly order and infuses it with the divine question, the divine lure, the divine life.” — God, Sexuality, and the Self
Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche
is teaching me about writing place and culture and time and space and the ways that all of that is wrapped up in sin and hope.
“Some people ask: “Why the word feminist? Why not just say you are a believer in human rights, or something like that?” Because that would be dishonest. Feminism is, of course, part of human rights in general—but to choose to use the vague expression human rights is to deny the specific and particular problem of gender. It would be a way of pretending that it was not women who have, for centuries, been excluded. It would be a way of denying that the problem of gender targets women.” — We Should All Be Feminists
“If you don't understand, ask questions. If you're uncomfortable about asking questions, say you are uncomfortable about asking questions and then ask anyway. It's easy to tell when a question is coming from a good place. Then listen some more. Sometimes people just want to feel heard. Here's to possibilities of friendship and connection and understanding.” — Americanah
Emily Dickinson
is teaching me how isolation in attics can be connected to the world and about the other-worldliness of words.
“Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul
And sings the tune without the words
And never stops at all.” — The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson
Jane Austen
is teaching me about playing and loving while seeing and critiquing and about writing women and for women but also for everybody.
“The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.” — Northanger Abbey
“There is a stubbornness about me that never can bear to be frightened at the will of others. My courage always rises at every attempt to intimidate me.” — Pride and Prejudice (check out this really pretty Austen boxed set).
Kathryn Tanner
is teaching me to throw intellect at the dazzling mystery of God and to come away transformed.
“In virtue of our sin, we are, in short, like perfectly well-formed creatures living in an environment that is not good for us. The oxygen-rich environment, in which we were made to live, has now been transformed by our sin into a high altitude one that asphyxiates and enervates us.” — Christ the Key
Louise Erdrich
is teaching me about connection and crossing boundaries and knowing people and how to handle stories that make us weep.
“To love another human in all of her splendor and imperfect perfection , it is a magnificent task...tremendous and foolish and human.” — The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse
“I stood there in the shadowed doorway thinking with my tears. Yes, tears can be thoughts, why not?” — The Round House
Madeleine L’Engle
is still teaching me what it means to read books when you’re young and to carry them into adulthood and about what it means to write faith with love.
“Life, with its rules, its obligations, and its freedoms, is like a sonnet: You're given the form, but you have to write the sonnet yourself. — Mrs. Whatsit in A Wrinkle in Time
“We are suspicious of grace. We are afraid of the very lavishness of the gift.” — Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art
My women writer witnesses, the second nine.
Top row: Flannery O’Connor, Charlotte Brontë, Zadie Smith
Middle row: Janet Soskice, Margaret Atwood, Louisa May Alcott
Bottom row: J.K. Rowling, Katherine Sonderegger, Toni Morrison
Want to read my notes on my second nine but don’t have a paid subscription? Click below for a special 60 day free trial of the paid version of Church Blogmatics (offer open through July 31, 2023).
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Church Blogmatics to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.