A Year of Biblical Womanhood

by Rachel Held Evans

  The Prophet Jeremiah is the last person you want to hear from at six o’clock in the morning, let me tell you.

  “Cursed be the day I was born” I found myself intoning flatly the next morning before the sun rose at Lauds. “May the day my mother bore me not be blessed. Cursed be the man who brought my father the news, who made him very glad, saying, ‘A child is born to you—a son.’ May the man be like the towns the Lord overthrew without pity. May he hear wailing in the morning, a battle cry at noon. For he did not kill me in the womb, with my mother as my grave, her womb enlarged forever. Why did I ever come out of the womb to see trouble and sorrow, to end my days in shame?”

  All of this we sang in expressionless monotone, followed by Psalm 49, where David pipes in with “For all can see that the wise die, that the foolish and the senseless also perish, leaving their wealth to others. Their tombs will remain their houses forever, their dwellings for endless generations.”

  Just the sort of thing you want to think about before you’ve even had a cup of coffee.

  Silent breakfast, on the other hand, seemed to me a marvelous idea, one that should be instituted into every God-fearing home on behalf of those of us who are decidedly not morning people. I sat next to Susan in the dining hall, lathering my bagel with creamed cheese in perfect, contented silence—absolute heaven for the introverted night owl who would rather spend her mornings with complex carbohydrates than with people.

  Poor Susan, who I suspect might be a morning person, looked ready to burst. We’d been to three prayer services and eaten two meals together without so much as a “So, what brings you to a Benedictine monastery in the Middle of Nowhere, Alabama?”

  Finally, as the monks began to file out of the dining hall on their way to work, we were able to strike up a conversation.

  Turns out Greg works for a communications company that sells important equipment to the military, and was in the area for a business meeting in Birmingham. When Susan was researching places to stay, she found St. Benedict’s and said, “I just knew it was the place for us.” She said she planned to visit Irondale, a city about sixty miles south of Cullman, the next day to get a tour of EWTN, the Catholic television network.

  “Mother Angelica is a saint living in our times,” Susan said with a sigh. “Don’t you think she’s a saint living in our times?”

  “Sure . . . I mean, definitely.”

  (I wasn’t entirely sure who Mother Angelica was, to be honest.)

  Susan seemed a little shocked to learn that I wasn’t a Catholic, but I assured her that I wasn’t the type of evangelical who thought that she and all the rest of the Catholics would burn in hell for eternity. It didn’t occur to me until later that her concern might have been over my eternal destiny.

  While Greg and Susan went to check out the gift shop, I decided to explore the Abbey Forrest. Located on the south side of the campus, the forest had a Narnia-like entrance, complete with two mossy stone pillars flanking the overgrown pathway that led through a canopy of oaks, hickories, sweet gums, and loblolly pines. I followed the path for about a quarter of a mile and came upon a clearing where a shrine to Mary had been built into a knoll. Dew still clung to the grass, so I stood there for a while, looking at the statue before which gifts of candles and rosaries had been laid, listening to the birds, and wondering what sort of prayer I ought to pray.

  Back on the main campus, I found a shaded bench advertising “Cullman Lumber” under a sprawling oak next to the monastery’s little lake. A cool morning breeze—was it really still morning?—blew over the water, which rippled peacefully in response. I started to pull my devotional books out of my bag, but then stopped. I wanted to quiet my mind for a while, to simply listen to my inner voice.

  Unfortunately, my inner voice can be a royal pain in the rear.

  An obstreperous child, impatient with questions and eager for attention, my inner voice likes to focus on the future, not the present, and already she had some rather strong opinions about lunch.

  “Quiet, quiet, quiet,” I kept telling myself. “Embrace the silence. Focus on God.”

  But nothing seemed to work. My mind kept drifting from one thing to another, and before I knew it, I was outlining an article in my head.

  Finally, I remembered something my agent told me before I left.

  “When you’re on a spiritual retreat,” she said, “don’t try too hard

  to make something mystical happen. Just go and be. If you enter with too many expectations, you’ll be disappointed.”

  So, in obedience to my spiritual guru, who doubles as my literary agent, I quit trying and just sat there in the sunlight, turning my face toward the breeze, and allowing my thoughts to travel wherever they pleased. It was then that I noticed a little water turtle poking its head out of the murky water of the lake. I liked how he paddled around with his neck stretched out and his eyes wide, like something out of Jurassic Park. He must have seen a water bug swimming around down there because he plopped back into the murky depths, and I waited for him to return. Sure enough, after about three minutes, he reappeared a few feet away, this time revealing the top of his muddy brown shell. I watched that little turtle go about his day among the cattails for what must have been an hour . . . and darned if it wasn’t the best hour I’d spent in a long time.

  A cold front must have been moving through because the breeze turned into a steady, chilly wind, and goose bumps appeared on my arms—a certifiable miracle for August in Alabama. I closed my eyes, breathed in deeply, and listened to the trees “clap their hands,” as the psalmist liked to say.

  A favorite psalm came to mind:

  O Lord, my heart is not proud, nor my eyes haughty; Nor do I involve myself in great matters, Or in things too difficult for me. Surely I have composed and quieted my soul; Like a weaned child rests against his mother, My soul is like a weaned child within me.

  (PSALM 131:1–2 NASB)

  My soul is like a child, and God is like a mother. What a strange and beautiful idea.

  I sat with these words a while longer before gathering my things and heading back to the abbey to prepare for midday prayers, which are called Sext by the Benedictines. I laughed to myself when I thought about spending my afternoon “sexting” with the monks.

  So what did God say to me in the silence that morning? I’m not sure, but I think God said something like, Don’t try so hard, little child, and, Hey, check out this cool turtle I made.

  “Silence is God’s first language; everything else is a poor translation.”15

  Quakers are pretty much the opposite of Catholics. Or at least that’s what I thought when I first walked through the meetinghouse door to join the West Knoxville Society of Friends for First Day worship.

  I found myself in a simple, unadorned room with three walls of windows opened to the surrounding woods. Folding chairs formed a square around the room. There was no pulpit and no piano, just a group of about twenty people—some young, some old—sitting in perfect silence, many with their eyes closed in meditation.

  “Have you ever been to a Quaker service before?” a white-haired lady named Judith whispered as I found a seat.

  “No, I haven’t,” I said, suddenly aware of the fact that I was significantly overdressed compared to the rest of the congregation, most of whom wore jeans and T-shirts. At least this time I’d remembered to wear flat shoes.

  “We do things a little differently,” Judith whispered before jumping out of her seat.

  She returned a few seconds later with a stash of pamphlets detailing the traditions of the Friends.

  The Religious Society of Friends, known popularly as the Quakers, is a loosely knit religious group that strongly emphasizes the apostle Peter’s concept of the “priesthood of all believers.” Established in the seventeenth century by George Fox, the Friends are known for their commitment to nonviolence and social justice, plain dress, plain speak, simple services, and refusal to swear oaths. Historically, they have played an important role in abo
lishing slavery and working for prison reform in the U.S.

  “Our chairs face each other because we all minister to each other,” the pamphlet said. “There are no prearranged prayers, readings, sermons, hymns or musical orchestration because we wait for God’s leading and power in our lives.”

  It was funny reading this just days after my trip to St. Bernard, where I’d spent three days kneeling and chanting and crossing myself with holy water.

  In contrast, the Quakers have no religious dogma, no creeds, no priests, no pastors, no liturgy, no religious imagery, no outward sacraments, no ritual, and no set worship service. Instead, they spend most of their meetings in complete silence, meditating and awaiting internal illumination from the Inner Light.

  Funny how my quest for silence brought me to such seemingly unlike places.

  “Occasionally, during Meeting for Worship, someone is moved to speak out of the silence,” the program said. “Although Friends value spoken messages which come from the heart and are promoted by the Spirit of God, we also value the silence and find that expectant worship may bring profound leadings. Friends have found that some leadings are for sharing immediately, some for sharing on another occasion, and some for our personal reflection.”

  Having grown up evangelical, where folks feel “moved to speak” pretty much all the time, I assumed the service would be something like a Sunday night sharing time or open mic night. But after thirty minutes of total silence, I realized these people were serious.

  My inner voice was having none of it.

  I’m never going to get out of that parking space. Wait. Did I leave my lights on? I bet I did. Great. And no one can come in and say that there’s a turquoise Plymouth Acclaim in the parking lot with its lights on because that would interrupt the silence. Maybe I should go check . . .

  Look at all the bare feet. Should I take my shoes off? Judith has her shoes on, but that guy who looks like a hippie has his off. Actually, most of these folks look like hippies. Why was I expecting Amish?

  No communion, huh? That seems a little fishy to me. And no water baptism? Not sure I could jibe with that. I like a good dunkin’ when it comes to baptism.

  Oh gosh. I think someone just farted.

  Okay, I need to focus on being quiet.

  Quiet, Rachel, quiet.

  The Inner Light couldn’t get a word in edgewise.

  Finally, a middle-aged gentlemen stood up and started to speak. In a thick, East Tennessee accent, he said, “At the football game Friday night, I couldn’t help but notice how many different kinds of people were there. There were elderly, being pushed in wheelchairs and helped along. There were mothers and fathers. There were tiny children, too young to walk. Everyone was talking and laughing and enjoying one another so much that I don’t think any of us were watching the action on the field. It was beautiful, and I thought to myself, What a great game.”

  That was it.

  He immediately sat down, and we sat in silence for another fifteen minutes or so before another older woman stood up and shared the words of poet and Quaker John Greenleaf Whittier:

  Drop Thy still dews of quietness,

  Till all our strivings cease;

  Take from our souls the strain and stress,

  And let our ordered lives confess

  The beauty of Thy peace.16

  Only two people spoke in the span of an hour, and yet somehow, their words lodged themselves inside of me in a way that no sermon had before.

  I mentioned this to Judith after the service, and she smiled as if I’d just learned a secret.

  “Oh yes. A few words, when carefully chosen, are so much more powerful than a lecture or a sermon,” she said. “We Quakers like to say these are ‘weighty words.’ ”

  Weighty words. That sounded exactly right, actually.

  At the beginning of the month, I confess that I feared my silent retreat would stifle me, that it would divert me from my newfound passion for advocating on behalf of women who preach and teach. But in the quietness of St. Bernard’s Abbey and among the West Knoxville Society of Friends, I encountered Something much bigger than myself, Something that assured me everything would be okay if I could just quiet myself and stop trying so hard.

  There is a big difference, after all, between being silenced and silencing oneself. And it is precisely because women like Teresa of Avila and Julian of Norwich and Catherine of Siena knew how to silence themselves before God that they gained such significant influence over the Church in times when women had little voice.

  In silence, I had found a reservoir of strength that, if I could just learn to draw from it, could make my words weightier. In silence, it seemed, I had finally found my voice.

  HULDAH, THE PROPHET

  Whoever welcomes a prophet as a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and whoever welcomes a righteous person as a righteous person will receive a righteous person’s reward.

  —JESUS, IN MATTHEW 10:41 (UPDATED NIV)

  Josiah became king of Israel when he was just eight years old. Described as Israel’s last good king, he reigned for thirty-one years during a final period of peace before the Babylonian exile. About halfway through his reign, Josiah learned that a long-lost collection of Scriptures—which may have been Deuteronomy—had been discovered in the temple. Upon hearing the words read aloud, Josiah tore his robes in repentance and summoned a prophet, for he saw how far Israel had strayed from God’s ways.

  Contemporaries of Josiah included the famed prophets Jeremiah, Zephaniah, Nahum, and Habakkuk—all of whom have books of the Bible named after them. But Josiah did not choose to ask for help from any of those men. Instead he chose Huldah, a woman and prophet who lived in Jerusalem.

  “Huldah is not chosen because no men were available,” wrote Scot McKnight. “She is chosen because she is truly exceptional among the prophets.”17

  Huldah first confirmed the scroll’s authenticity and then told Josiah that the disobedience of Israel would indeed lead to its destruction, but that Josiah himself would die in peace. Thus, Huldah not only interpreted but also authorized the document that would become a core part of Jewish and Christian Scripture. Her prophecy was fulfilled thirty-five years later (2 Kings 22).

  The Bible identifies ten such female prophets in the Old and New Testaments: Miriam, Deborah, Huldah, Noadiah, Isaiah’s wife, Anna, and the four daughters of Philip. In addition, women like Rachel, Hannah, Abigail, Elisabeth, and Mary are described as having prophetic visions about the future of their children, the destiny of nations, and the coming Messiah.

  When the Holy Spirit descended upon the first Christians at Pentecost, Peter drew from the words of the prophet Joel to describe what had happened:

  Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy.

  (ACTS 2:17–18)

  The breaking in of the new creation after Christ’s resurrection unleashed a cacophony of new prophetic voices, and apparently, prophesying among women was such a common activity in the early church that Paul had to remind women to cover their heads when they did it. While some may try to downplay biblical examples of female disciples, deacons, leaders, and apostles, no one can deny the Bible’s long tradition of prophetic feminine vision.

  And right now, we need that prophetic vision more than ever.

  Right now thirty thousand children die every day from preventable disease.18

  Right now a woman dies in childbirth every minute.19

  Right now women ages fifteen to forty-four are more likely to be maimed or to die from male violence than from cancer, malaria, traffic accidents, and war combined.20

  People who see the leadership of women like Huldah and Junia as special exceptions for times of great need are oblivious to the world in which we live. Those who think the urgency of Pentecost has passed are deluding themselves. They “have eyes to see but do not see and
ears to hear but do not hear” (Ezekiel 12:2).

  So my advice to women is this: If a man ever tries to use the Bible as a weapon against you to keep you from speaking the truth, just throw on a head covering and tell him you’re prophesying instead.

  To those who will not accept us as preachers, we will have to become prophets.

  September: Grace

  * * *

  Days of Awe

  “On the first day of the seventh month you are to have a day of rest, a sacred assembly commemorated with trumpet blasts.”

  —LEVITICUS 23:24

  TO DO THIS MONTH:

  □ Make challah from scratch using Ahava’s recipe (Numbers 15:17–21)

  □ Observe Rosh Hashanah by sounding the shofar and serving the traditional foods (Leviticus 23:23–24; Numbers 29:1–6)

  □ Make a list of New Year’s resolutions

  □ Mark the end of the year with a Tashlich ceremony

  □ Get a haircut!

  “I need to find a shofar somewhere,” I shouted to Dan from the kitchen.

  “A what?”

  “A shofar! I need to find a shofar to blow.”

  “Come again?”

  “I said, I need a shofar! I need to find a shofar to blow for Rosh Hashanah!”

  Dan hit the pause button on Stephen Hawking’s Universe, and walked into the kitchen with a perplexed look on his face.

  “You know; a ram’s horn,” I said. “I need to find a ram’s horn to blow for Rosh Hashanah.”