Spice of Life

 For the past few days I have been participating in a virtual Pastor's Wives Conference.  It's been interesting.  I have been encouraged, I have cringed, I have ugly cried.  One of the workshops that I signed up for was titled "When Churches Wound".  Now we're all very well aware of how the Church has wounded many over thousands of years (very literally but also emotionally and psychologically).  We have heard the more recent stories of hate directed at the LGBTQ community or others that the Church might view as "wrong".  What might shock you are the countless stories of wounding right there within the Church, directed at the very people leading it.  I have heard pastor's wives give tearful testimony on how they were deeply hurt by a church they served, how they were "pushed" out.  There's actually this thing I've recently learned about (because I'm not the one who went to Seminary) called Article 17.  It's basically like a ...

 I had a dream that I was in labor.  I remember thinking, " wait I'm going to have five kids ?"...okaaaaay.  There were two midwives there with me and as I felt the pain coming harder I started to have doubts come into my mind.  I can't do this, I don't want to do this.  Then I breathed and told myself, you have to do this, you will do this.  The labor slowed down and stalled and suddenly I was in a room full of people that were dancing and bumping into me.  I said, "Hey!  Watch the belly!"  A man started to grab me and force me out of the room as I yelled "get off me!" That's all I remember. I woke up and realized the baby I was trying to birth was myself.  The more I think about it I realize that my dear friend Sami was one of the midwives which makes sense because she is playing a huge part in this feminist journey I'm on.  She recommended that I read Dance of the Dissident Daughter in which the writer tells the story of a dream...