Sisterhood Around the Table
This may sound a little crazy, because I'm an introvert through and through. What I've craved most the past few months, what I've felt desperate to find, is community. I spend most of my days surrounded by people, and, yes, we make little connections here and there. But in my free time I find myself daydreaming about cups of coffee around a table filled with women. Different women. Unique women. Women who may look or sound or act or be completely unlike me. That's the kind of community I'm craving.
Years ago, when Cora was barely old enough to talk, I wrote about this kind of sisterhood. I wanted her to experience that instant connection I've felt a thousand times with a thousand different women.
I imagined us sitting at the table together, nibbling our cookies and nursing our drinks, talking. There's never a shortage of conversation with [Cora]. At two, it normally revolves around whose birthday we should celebrate, what toys she likes best, or what animals she's spotted from the windows. But it's conversation. And something about sitting around a table, cups in hand, pouring out our hearts to each other regardless of what's on them, made me think. This is womanhood. This is what we do as women. It's a universal experience, I think. We gather, often over drinks, often in the most casual settings. We gather and we share our hearts. We meet each other wherever we are in life, and we do our living together. I can find several points at which to connect with almost any woman I encounter, and the bond is something that is deeper than our demographic or life circumstances. This is what it means to be a woman, to be a sister in this global community. This is the kind of woman I want to raise.
It's women, often gathered around a kitchen table over cups of coffee, who have sat with me through some of the biggest moments in my life. First my mother and my sister, later my mother- and sisters-in-law. Friends, co-workers, teachers, mentors. They've had words of wisdom when I've needed them most. They've had comfort when my world was turned upside down. They've rejoiced with me in the good times. They've laughed when there was nothing else we could do. They've listened as I've shared my struggles, my victories, my hard-won wisdom. They've had voices I've needed to hear, and they've let me know that my voice was worth hearing. And that's what I want Cora to learn. That she is a part of this community--this community that stretches across the generations, the centuries, the cultures. There are things for her to learn from these women who surround her, and she will have things to teach them. Even at two, she has a voice, and it is worth listening to. Even at two, there are things she can learn from these women, and she needs to be listening. Some of the greatest growth in her life may well come from those moments, gathered around kitchen tables, sipping coffee with other women (August 2013).
What I crave is the chance to sit down, to set aside the things that make us different, to find common ground. I want to hear other women's stories: what has their life been like? what are their dreams? what are their fears? how are they like mine? how are they different? There's nothing in the world like conversation over coffee with someone who speaks your heart in one breath and opens your mind to another world in the next. I want to celebrate both the similarities and the differences, and not draw boundaries because of the different choices we've made.
This kind of fellowship is what I've been desperate to experience. But it hasn't always been that way.
I've spent a lot of time in the past few years thinking, talking, even praying for "those people," or "those women." The ones--over there-- who were different than me. My heart went out to them, like I was somehow standing on one side of a line in the sand and they were on the other. The refugee woman. The woman battling substance use disorder. The woman who worked full-time. The woman who worked part-time. The woman who had chosen to breastfeed, cloth diaper, feed only organic foods, homeschool--done anything differently from what I had done. Bless her heart. She was so different from me.
Lately I've been reading a lot about the life of Jesus. He was vastly different from me. So much so that it would be hard to find more than a few commonalities between us. Surely his contemporaries felt the same way. And yet when I read about him, what strikes me is that he spent most of his time just being with people. He ate with tax collectors. He ate with Jewish leaders. He ate with women of ill repute. He ate with respectable women. He ate with his disciples. He ate with foreigners.
He sat around the table, literally, with people who were different from him.
He didn't condescend to spend time with them. He didn't bestow his attention on them in some patronizing act. He was just with them, in community, in mind and in spirit. Not because they were the same. Not because they were different. But because they were people.
It's taken me some time to recognize the pride that's lurked under a heart that was in the right place. Praying for the "other," the woman who is different from me, is certainly noble and good. But not if in doing so I somehow assume I'm better, that I'm right and she's wrong. I've examined my own thoughts as I've read about Jesus, and I've discovered that more often than I like, that was exactly my assumption. It hasn't always looked like pride. Sometimes it was a thought that went something along the lines of, Well, we would have been good friends, except that she's so determined to send her kids to that school. I just can't agree. Sometimes it was judgment of a life choice she'd made, like If she'd only stop spending so much money, she wouldn't have to work so much and be away from her kids. Sometimes it was more subtle still, I'd love to talk to her, but I'm not sure we could communicate in English, and I wouldn't want her to feel embarrassed.
Lines in the sand. Distinctions. Disconnection.
Call it pride, call it discomfort, call it whatever you want. But it cannot be called community. The Jesus I've begun to see paid no attention at all to the distinctions: he saw the person at their core. He never presumed to be better (though he was, vastly). He just sat with them. He gathered with them around a table.
One of the names given to God, Emmanuel, took on new meaning in this context. Emmanuel, God with us. I had always assumed this meant God's holy presence, his guiding hand, his Holy Spirit. Some great, elevated, glorified version of God being revealed to us. And it absolutely does. But God with us also means God right here, in the dirt and the mud and the mistakes. God right here, in the things that we've done and the things that were done to us. God right here in our differences and our similarities. God with us. And if God can be with us like that, can't I be with others?
How much better would I be if I did the same? How much richer would my life be, filled with the influences and experiences of so many different women? How much better would my daughter be for having been welcomed into that kind of community, that kind of embrace? Because that's how I see sisterhood when it's at its best: it's an embrace. It's a warm, safe place to rest our hearts; to lay down our weary thoughts; to set aside the things that have divided us. It's a place to put on the pot of coffee and pull up the chairs and just be with each other.
My kitchen table is cleared. The coffee is always on. I hope the days and weeks and years ahead are filled with the sisterhood around the table. My door is always open if you need it too.
Years ago, when Cora was barely old enough to talk, I wrote about this kind of sisterhood. I wanted her to experience that instant connection I've felt a thousand times with a thousand different women.
I imagined us sitting at the table together, nibbling our cookies and nursing our drinks, talking. There's never a shortage of conversation with [Cora]. At two, it normally revolves around whose birthday we should celebrate, what toys she likes best, or what animals she's spotted from the windows. But it's conversation. And something about sitting around a table, cups in hand, pouring out our hearts to each other regardless of what's on them, made me think. This is womanhood. This is what we do as women. It's a universal experience, I think. We gather, often over drinks, often in the most casual settings. We gather and we share our hearts. We meet each other wherever we are in life, and we do our living together. I can find several points at which to connect with almost any woman I encounter, and the bond is something that is deeper than our demographic or life circumstances. This is what it means to be a woman, to be a sister in this global community. This is the kind of woman I want to raise.
It's women, often gathered around a kitchen table over cups of coffee, who have sat with me through some of the biggest moments in my life. First my mother and my sister, later my mother- and sisters-in-law. Friends, co-workers, teachers, mentors. They've had words of wisdom when I've needed them most. They've had comfort when my world was turned upside down. They've rejoiced with me in the good times. They've laughed when there was nothing else we could do. They've listened as I've shared my struggles, my victories, my hard-won wisdom. They've had voices I've needed to hear, and they've let me know that my voice was worth hearing. And that's what I want Cora to learn. That she is a part of this community--this community that stretches across the generations, the centuries, the cultures. There are things for her to learn from these women who surround her, and she will have things to teach them. Even at two, she has a voice, and it is worth listening to. Even at two, there are things she can learn from these women, and she needs to be listening. Some of the greatest growth in her life may well come from those moments, gathered around kitchen tables, sipping coffee with other women (August 2013).
What I crave is the chance to sit down, to set aside the things that make us different, to find common ground. I want to hear other women's stories: what has their life been like? what are their dreams? what are their fears? how are they like mine? how are they different? There's nothing in the world like conversation over coffee with someone who speaks your heart in one breath and opens your mind to another world in the next. I want to celebrate both the similarities and the differences, and not draw boundaries because of the different choices we've made.
This kind of fellowship is what I've been desperate to experience. But it hasn't always been that way.
I've spent a lot of time in the past few years thinking, talking, even praying for "those people," or "those women." The ones--over there-- who were different than me. My heart went out to them, like I was somehow standing on one side of a line in the sand and they were on the other. The refugee woman. The woman battling substance use disorder. The woman who worked full-time. The woman who worked part-time. The woman who had chosen to breastfeed, cloth diaper, feed only organic foods, homeschool--done anything differently from what I had done. Bless her heart. She was so different from me.
Lately I've been reading a lot about the life of Jesus. He was vastly different from me. So much so that it would be hard to find more than a few commonalities between us. Surely his contemporaries felt the same way. And yet when I read about him, what strikes me is that he spent most of his time just being with people. He ate with tax collectors. He ate with Jewish leaders. He ate with women of ill repute. He ate with respectable women. He ate with his disciples. He ate with foreigners.
He sat around the table, literally, with people who were different from him.
He didn't condescend to spend time with them. He didn't bestow his attention on them in some patronizing act. He was just with them, in community, in mind and in spirit. Not because they were the same. Not because they were different. But because they were people.
It's taken me some time to recognize the pride that's lurked under a heart that was in the right place. Praying for the "other," the woman who is different from me, is certainly noble and good. But not if in doing so I somehow assume I'm better, that I'm right and she's wrong. I've examined my own thoughts as I've read about Jesus, and I've discovered that more often than I like, that was exactly my assumption. It hasn't always looked like pride. Sometimes it was a thought that went something along the lines of, Well, we would have been good friends, except that she's so determined to send her kids to that school. I just can't agree. Sometimes it was judgment of a life choice she'd made, like If she'd only stop spending so much money, she wouldn't have to work so much and be away from her kids. Sometimes it was more subtle still, I'd love to talk to her, but I'm not sure we could communicate in English, and I wouldn't want her to feel embarrassed.
Lines in the sand. Distinctions. Disconnection.
Call it pride, call it discomfort, call it whatever you want. But it cannot be called community. The Jesus I've begun to see paid no attention at all to the distinctions: he saw the person at their core. He never presumed to be better (though he was, vastly). He just sat with them. He gathered with them around a table.
One of the names given to God, Emmanuel, took on new meaning in this context. Emmanuel, God with us. I had always assumed this meant God's holy presence, his guiding hand, his Holy Spirit. Some great, elevated, glorified version of God being revealed to us. And it absolutely does. But God with us also means God right here, in the dirt and the mud and the mistakes. God right here, in the things that we've done and the things that were done to us. God right here in our differences and our similarities. God with us. And if God can be with us like that, can't I be with others?
How much better would I be if I did the same? How much richer would my life be, filled with the influences and experiences of so many different women? How much better would my daughter be for having been welcomed into that kind of community, that kind of embrace? Because that's how I see sisterhood when it's at its best: it's an embrace. It's a warm, safe place to rest our hearts; to lay down our weary thoughts; to set aside the things that have divided us. It's a place to put on the pot of coffee and pull up the chairs and just be with each other.
My kitchen table is cleared. The coffee is always on. I hope the days and weeks and years ahead are filled with the sisterhood around the table. My door is always open if you need it too.
