Midwife Theologians

When we were expecting out first child we decided to go with a midwife. Actually, there were several midwives in this particular practice. In the course of our many visits we saw each midwife so that we would be familiar with whoever happened to be on call when we arrived at the hospital. 

On the night our son was born the midwife amazed me. My wife had started induction earlier in the day and progress was slow. That night, when hard labor came, the midwife was in our room the whole time. She coached on occasion, and she waited patiently while we did what we could to make it through the contractions. When it was clear that a little more intervention was needed, she stepped right in and confidently guided my wife. 

At some point in the last few minutes the IV line pulled out of my wife’s hand. At the sight of the blood on her arm I began to panic. But the midwife looked at me with her cool face, and told me everything was fine. She was the epitome of what counselors call a non-axious presence. 

I was reminded of the work of a midwife in a conversation with my theologian, poet friend Dana. We were talking, as we usually do,  about the new energy in pockets of the church and the age old question of what a church bureaucrat is to do with old wineskins and new wine. Maybe this is the time for midwives of the church. Maybe we need those people who recognize the pain, and point to the birth of something new.

Some argue that as institutions and structures begin to crumble there are open places that emerge. These open places are the perfect place for creative and new things to take shape. What is need though, are those persons who can inhabit the fissures and work in the open space. It is a weird mix of being within the structures yet challenging old visions and dreaming new dreams. It is in this middle place of the now and not yet that the midwife is most needed.

We need coaches who know the signs of pain for pain’s sake and pain that births something new.

We need leaders who can discern what that “something new” looks like, even if it is just visible in outlines.

We need pastors who aren’t anxious and can hold the space for conflict and struggle, not taking it personally but offering counsel and guidance when those around are too mired in the structures as they are to see the possibilities. 

And we need compassionate guides who see the failures in the way things are now and can invite others into new modes of faithfulness. 

We need more midwife-theologians.

Inauthentic Me?

I recently had a great conversation with a young leader in our denomination. This person asked the right question: “Do you feel like you can’t be you since you work with the whole denomination?”

It is the question of a generation.

Authenticity is a big deal today. Are you being true to yourself? Are you being who you say you are, or are you morphing into someone everyone else what you to be? And for many today, inauthenticity is the 8th deadly sin.

To be honest, I am not one to champion authenticity. I might cry foul when someone is politicking me or putting up a front, but I don’t think that being authentic is the remedy. I just don’t think we should start making Authenticity, with a capital A, the newest Cardinal Virtue.

Simply put, sometimes the “me” I want to be isn’t the best me. Or to phrase it another way, there a lot of times I rely on a simple motto: The first thing I thought, not the first thing I said.

See, I can get angry. My frustrations often get the better of me and my repines is not the best side of my personality.

I can jump to judgements without hearing the whole story, or taking the time to understand what is going on.

In a personality survey, I test low in “Rule Consciousness.” Basically, when rules make sense to me, I follow them as best I can. When they seem superfluous or overly legalistic, I tend to work from “Ask forgiveness rather than permission.”

And quite frankly, I am naturally anxious. I get nervous about how I come across. I worry as the expectations mount, and fear failure above most everything else. The end result is that I can easily become paralyzed in my anxiety and fear. The easiest route for me is not to try, or to hide away and avoid the possibility of failure.

If I am being me, then these things come out. And sometimes, the post-modern desire for authenticity says that these come without apologies. I am who I am, and I should be me in any circumstance.

In Christian spirituality this often is categorized under “Being who God created me to be.” Or at least that is the excuse. God has made me an angry, judgmental, expedient, and anxious person. Yet, when I live there, I am not the person I most want to be. In old fashioned churchy language, I sin. I hurt others. I hide rather than witness to God’s work. And I don’t enter the doors God has called through.

Think of Moses as he hears God’s call to return to Egypt as a liberator. “God, I can’t do that … that just isn’t me.” Yet, in the presence of God’s call the true self emerges. Its funny as we read through Moses’ journey from the Sinai to Egypt he makes all the speeches. His “press secretary” Aaron, the one God appointed as Moses’ companion, doesn’t say much. The stuttering shepherd became the eloquent leader.

Our emphasis on Authenticity today has ignored the reality that we each have two selves. There is the me I project and try to maintain, what Thomas Merton often called “the false self.” In the transforming grace of Christ, however, we each discover our “true selves.” We come to know our faults, and yet live into the gifts God has given us for mission.

Unfortunately, I don’t live as my true self all the time. Occasionally the true me surfaces and good things happen, but more often than not I look back and see the parts of me that cause hurt or paralysis. To be sure, the false self can be the one that others try to force onto me. The graced me, the Josh God is helping me to become, fights that projection just as much as the one I create. Yet, authenticity doesn’t get at the True Self. It does not ask me which self I am being true to- the false one, or the one God is leading me towards.

In the light of Christ my aim is to be my True Self, the one I am called to be, not necessarily the one I am.

The better antidote to the vice of inauthenticity is better understood as humility. I am Josh, the some times angry, some times anxious and judgmental. I am the Josh who tries and stumbles and tries again. I am the Josh who has some ideas, but not all the answers. And I am the Josh that needs others to help me see the whole picture. Humility as a virtue says to all those around us that we are who we are, but we are striving towards the “me I want to be.” Humility asks those around us to join that same journey, simply because we are more ourselves when we are with others.

Some might throw up warnings that too much emphasis on “me with others” leads to stifling of my true self. Yet, I think that Rowan Williams says it best in his book Tokens of Trust: “Our peace is what it is because it is a flow of unbroken activity, the constant maintenance of relation and growth as we give into each others’ lives and receive from each other, so that we advance in trust and confidence.” (105).