Violet Voices

God speaks many languages4 Comments. Your turn!

by Vasthi Acosta

In the hustle and bustle of living in the city, where I am surrounded by glaring neon lights, gigantic televised screens, concrete skyscrapers and blaring car horns, it is easy to become deafen to God’s voice.

And then He surprises me.

Driving down Park Avenue, in the spring, I see a promenade of yellow tulips and hear God’s whisper. Walking down Broadway, I stop at an intersection, turn west and glimpse the swaying green of tree branches in Riverside Park, and again I hear God’s voice. Just last night, as I crossed the George Washington bridge, suspended between the silver steel arches, I savored the beauty of an orange harvest moon. God spoke to me once again.

And in each of these moments, I heard the same message. “I love you. These flowers are a kiss. These trees a hug. This moon, my promise that I will never leave nor forsake you.”

God speaks many languages. Lately I’ve heard him most through his creation. For His Word says,

The heavens tell the glory of God. The skies show that his hands created them. Day after day they speak about it. Night after night they make it known. But they don’t speak or use words. No sound is heard from them. At the same time their voice goes out into the whole earth. Their words go out from one end of the world to the other. Psalm 19:1-4.

Written By: Vasthi Acosta
Posted under: Women's Voices .  Email This Post

Rest in Peace . . .2 Comments. Your turn!

by Barbara
(originally posted at my blog)

Lance Corporal Michael H. Laskey of Soldotna died while conducting combat operations in Al Anbar provice. No additional details . . .

Today’s (Sunday, November 5) issue of the local newspaper is not online yet, but I will give you the link if you care to check later - Peninsula Clarion. (you will need to sign in - it is free)

Mike was a member of the local unit of Young Marines. He and his unit, with his mother being the CO, volunteer each year at my agency’s largest awareness activity. Their help has been invaluable to us.

Two summers ago his then very pregnant wife, also a member of the unit, came along to help. My first sight of her that day was her bending down, then lying down on the ground, to look under her car. I was, gramma that I am, worried that she was either in labor or going to go into labor due to this exertion. She, just like I would have 30+ years ago, laughed off my worries.

Their little girl, Liberty Lynn, was born two months later. Daddy didn’t get to come home for her birth, but did get to come shortly afterwards for a short leave to meet her. His tour was over the following summer.

He signed up for another hitch in March. He called his Mom Wednesday to tell her he loved her. He was killed Thursday.

This is happening all over the United States. And, now it has happened in tiny Soldotna, Alaska. We all grieve with the family.

but let me quote what his mother Carol said to the reporter:

“He knew his chance of being killed over there was very possible, but he felt because he was doing something for his country, he would die for his country.”

“My son wanted to be a Marine. The day 9-11 hit he went and signed on the dotted line.”

Mike will be buried in Arlington National Cemetery at his request. He has asked not to be taken there in a hearse, but in his favorite conveyence - a beach-truck covered in mud. I trust he will get his wish.

And, in 2008 when my granddaughter and I visit Washington D.C. with her eighth grade class, we will look for his gravesite to leave a memorial there.

Rest in peace, Mike. I’m glad to have known you.

Written By: barbara
Posted under: On Being a Parent, Women's Voices .  Email This Post

Ironing it out1 Comment. Be next.

by Barbara

There is something satisfying about standing over an ironing board taking the wrinkles out of a favorite blouse. I realize that in this day and age when permanent press/no iron clothing is a must and the norm, I am an oddball for thinking so.

I can still remember the very first time my mother allowed me to iron a basket of clothes. I was only four years old and I loved to watch her. It looked like great fun, even though the irons we used were called sad irons. Unlike today’s sleek, lightweight beauties, these were heavy, cast iron, solid metal irons. Mom had a row of them heating up on top of our stove to be used by turn until they cooled too much to be effective.

There is nothing like the smell of iron-hot, starched cotton. Sounds play a part in the memory, too. There was that particular sizzle as we would wet our fingers with our tongues, then test the heat of the iron by pressing, briefly, that finger to the iron. HISSSST - yup, still warm enough to work well.

I was taken back in time today as I set up my ironing board – and isn’t it something that today’s boards still have that grating squeak as you set them up? I dampened a basketful of blouses using a spray bottle. Memories washed over me as I remembered that when I was small we used a glass Coca-Cola bottle with a metal-headed sprinkler corked into the neck.

On washing days we would have spent the majority of the day hanging laundry on the backyard clothesline and praying that the clouds overhead had no rain in them. Many were the times we would have to run into the yard to rescue nearly dry laundry from a late afternoon thunderstorm.

Sheets were folded and stacked onto shelves, while pillowcases and other things were set aside for the iron. The basket would soon be full of my sister’s and my school blouses, my mother’s work uniforms, hankies and pillowcases. The sprinkler bottle was put to good work then as each piece received its baptism and was rolled and placed back into the basket.

Ever wise, my mother set me up with a basket of handkerchiefs and pillowcases. This was “back in the day” when men carried large white handkerchiefs and ladies carried smaller, yet still substantial, hankies at all times. I was delighted to press and fold, press and fold again each piece. Even now I can remember the sense of pride I felt as my stack of finished work grew taller while the basket grew empty.

Mom praised me abundantly and I went to my room that night with a great feeling of accomplishment. I’m sure she had to re-iron everything, but she never made me feel less than adequate in what I had done.

Many might see ironing as drudgework. But I sort of miss it and I found it emotionally healing this week.

Written By: barbara
Posted under: On Being a Parent, Women's Voices .  Email This Post

An Angry Evangelical Speaks8 Comments. Your turn!

by Meredith Efken

I haven’t posted anything in a week. It’s strictly been because I just haven’t had the heart. Frankly, this whole thing with Ted Haggard made me so angry that I didn’t trust myself anywhere near my blog until I calmed down a bit.

I’m not mad so much at Haggard, except for his refusal to be honest and candid about his marital unfaithfulness and drug use. If he was truly sorry and wanting to change (aka “repentant”), then he would have ‘fessed up. The fact that he is dragging his feet on it makes me angry.

But what angers me the most is something beyond just this one person. I’m angry that the evangelical community has created a culture that sets up sexual immorality, and especially homosexuality, as the ultimate sin. I’m angry that our leaders–with our support and encouragement–have made things like gay marriage such a key battle that we destroyed any opportunities to reach out to the gay community and build friendships and open honest communication with them. And then when one of our own is struggling with his sexual identity, he had no safe place to turn, no network of support.

Yes, he made rotten decisions. Yes, he lied. But the evangelical community contributed by setting up a system that places leaders on an impossibly high pedestal where they are isolated from their congregations, where admitting sexual struggles will ruin their careers, where the appearance of having it all together is paramount.

This past week, I’ve wondered…how many other evangelical leaders are in their own private hell, living a double life, battling all by themselves against things in their lives that would ruin them if revealed? How many other families are hurting beneath their Jesus-loves-me smiles?

A friend of mine made the observation that we need to stop making celebrities out of our pastors. I think she’s right. Shepherding a church was never supposed to be a multi-million dollar industry with lights, cameras, and 6-figure advances on book deals.

It was never supposed to turn into political activism. Pastoring is supposed to be a process of encouraging a group of people to walk with Jesus, to love Him. It’s supposed to be a service to the people, something done behind the scenes, in humility and gentleness.

When we force our precious pastors to become Hollywood stars, we set them up for failure because we remove them from the security of being accountable to their own community. We place before them every single temptation that this world has to offer–wealth, power, influence, admiration, and fame–and then expect them to resist those temptations almost completely on their own. And when they fall, we fire them and tell them they need counseling.

That’s why I’m angry. And deeply embarrassed for our evangelical culture. We have lost so much credibility with the rest of the world. It’s hypocrisy of the worst kind. We have become what we claim to stand against. I’m not talking about anti-gay marriage pastors being outed as homosexuals–though that’s the most obvious example at the moment.

I’m talking about what the entire culture has become (at least the part of the culture on display for the rest of the world to observe):  instead of humble servants, we’ve become wealthy, uncompassionate masters who spend much more money on our own gratification and pet projects than we do on offering justice to the oppressed. Instead of being subjects of the Kingdom of God, we have courted the political powers of this world. Instead of being the mouthpieces of God’s gentle, abiding wisdom, we’ve spouted shrill, sometimes hateful, foolishness.

What happened to Ted Haggard is only the latest symptom of a systemic problem. As the evangelical community, we need to sit down, shut up, and spend some time in deep, somber self-reflection. We could use some long-term repentence–as a community. We need to examine our own community and find our way back to what it means to follow Jesus before we say another word to the world beyond our own church doors.

So, I’m sorry I didn’t post last week. This is why. Even though I’m angry at evangelical-dom right now, I love my Christian community very, very much. And I know that individually, there are many evangelicals loving and serving Jesus. There are many about whom Jesus would say, “I’m so proud of you!” But we still have to look at our culture as a whole, at the overall direction of the evangelical community, and accept responsibility for what we’ve allowed it to become. And we must work for change, starting with repentence. It’s got to be a change that begins in the heart.

And since I’m the one ranting here, I’ll go first. I’m sorry. I repent for having blindly supported a system that doesn’t represent what I believe it means to follow Jesus. I repent for not speaking up sooner, for going along in order to not rock the boat. I repent for having, in the past, agreed with many of the excesses and majoring-on-the-minors that our evangelical leadership has engaged in. For being ignorant and apathetic about the wrongs being committed in the name of Jesus and in the name of Christianity. I repent of not caring. I have contributed to the problem, and I am sorry. I must change. Lord, please forgive me for the part I have played in this whole mess.

Please, God, help us to change. Help us be truly more like you, because we fall so short. We need You so much.

Written By: Meredith Efken
Posted under: Women's Voices .  Email This Post

Family4 Comments. Your turn!

By Vasthi Acosta

As a Latina, as I’m sure is true for many of you, family is really a clan or tribe. It includes every cousin, uncle, aunt, even twice removed. It looks a lot like My Big Fat Greek Wedding; boisterous, chaotic, happy, confusing, embarassing, troubled, confining, belonging, defining.