That song sounds lovely, don't you think? Sitting here around the campfire with you singing together feels right, like we were made to do such a thing.
Like our lives were made for harmonious living, like our words and freedom songs were made to float up to the sky.
Kindle the fire a bit, for the flames are low and there is yet another conversation to be had. Lean in close, love. I've got a story for you.
I loved to explore as a child. Adventurous and free, the world was my playground. My family moved to the city the summer before I began middle school, but growing up I spent my days out in the fields and backwoods of the forty acres of land we owned. It was wildly liberating, having so much space to simply roam and wander.
My mother, bless her heart, tried her best to tame me into being like every other normal little girl, the ones who enjoyed playing with dolls and getting pedicures on the weekends and wearing ribbons in their hair. I remember once she bought me a pink china tea set, but I broke it a week later while pretending to have tea in the midst of a ferocious storm aboard my pirate ship.
She stopped buying me nice things after that.
I've never been one to conform. Unity is empowering but uniformity has always felt incredibly constricting, and I've never been friends with confinements of any sort. Growing up I could only remain indoors for so long before having to respond to the urge to flee right out the door and into the great beyond, the vast unknown where I could run and fall and roll and fly, where I could lay in the grass and feel the dirt beneath my nails.
Where I could live wild and free.
One day a friend and I adventured out onto my family's land. There was a miles-long dried up riverbed that had become somewhat of my secret hideout, my creative niche reserved for imagining and dreaming and pretend-play. It was fantastical to me back then, and in fact it would likely be fantastical to me now. Because it was completely dried out and deep into the ground, the trees above ground had roots that grew down into the riverbed, molding and shaping into amazing room-like spaces perfect for an imaginative child to crawl up into and explore. Anyway, one day I decided to take my friend to my secret place, because you know, that's what you do with friends deemed worthy enough to keep your childhood secrets. We began to explore the riverbed and at one point decided to climb under the trees and up into the roots that grew down past the ground. I'd been especially excited about showing my friend this part of the riverbed, for it was my most favorite space of all. Oftentimes I would climb up into the roots and sit for hours, playing with the ladybugs and rollypollys that resided there. It was fascinating to me, to be sitting amongst the bugs and life, and I wanted my friend to experience the magic too.
As we sat up in the roots a ladybug began to crawl toward my hand, so I put out my finger and let it climb onto my skin. My friend, shocked, cried out in disgust 'Ew!! Girls aren't supposed to pick up bugs!! That's what boys do!'
I remember her vividly hitting my hand and stamping the ladybug, which had fallen from my finger, under her obnoxiously pink and purple flower-printed sandals.
Two things happened in that moment: one, I decided never to bring my friend along to my magical space again. She'd (quite literally) stomped out the magic, which is funny to think about now but I was incredibly upset when it happened. I mean come on, what did the ladybug ever do to you? Two, I became wildly insecure and confused about my personal preferences as the chains of gender stereotypes shackled their way around me.
Those words, ones of gender expectation and confinement, were ones I would have thrown my way from that point forward. Time and time again would I hear messages of conformity and cultural confinement, because 'girls would be girls' and 'boys would be boys', and apparently we're all the same. We're made to fit molds, or that was what I was taught.
When I was thirteen I was given a book on proper etiquette, because ladies were expected to be elegant and delicate and all things soft. Besides, I needed to know the tricks of the trade and how to set a proper table for whenever my husband came calling. Every girl had a knight in shining armor awaiting her.
In high school I was constantly battling expectations, because girls were supposed to love shopping (which I didn't), thrive on their emotions (because boys didn't have chemicals working on them too), and maintain a quiet and gentle spirit (I've always been one to boldly speak up).
And then in college, I finally figured it out: gender is not a one size fits all. Girls, and boys for that matter, do not have to fit a specific mold or be uniformly all the same.
On a shallow level, I think we all believe this. Especially as time progresses it is becoming more acceptable for a girl to choose a dinosaur toy over a barbie or for a boy to engage in musical theater rather than football. On the surface, perhaps progress is being made. On a deeper level though and in the grand scheme of things there are still many miles to go.
In our world and especially in the American culture gender stereotypes are alive and running. Even within the Church boys and girls, men and women are held captive to the chains of cultural confinement as a result of gender specific teachings. This is important to note on various levels, and in the coming posts I want to discuss a mere few.
In the context of the Church males and females are often typified into categories and taught to conform to cultural expectations that are disguised as 'biblical truths', and this has serious implications for men and women alike. Being a biblical woman means one list of attributes and tasks to check off while being a biblical man means an entire other list.
Before we continue, it needs to be said that these teachings are not everywhere. They are, however, prevalent and significant enough to be detrimental to the lives of human beings as well as the kingdom of God. It should also be said that, though they are not evil, cultural expectations can be harmful. They are fine for those that fit the molds, but they are incredibly lethal to those that don't. This is why I care: because too often do cultural elements become cultural confinements. Culture is beautiful, but when it becomes an outlandish device that hurts people or an exclusive barrier to the kingdom of God, it has morphed from culture to oppression.
And Jesus came to break every chain. He came to set humanity free.
Here's the thing: accuracy isn't the problem. Some men and women fit such molds, and that's all good and well for them. The problem is that not everyone fits such stereotypes, and I'd like to propose that perhaps not everyone is meant to.
How boring it would be if all men fit into one category and all women into another! When we cram men into one box and women into another, we begin to limit God's work in the lives of men and women. Additionally, when we push gender stereotypes on a physical level (how to wear one's hair, what toys to play with, what clothes to wear, etc) then those cultural expectations leak into the spiritual realm as well. Suddenly we begin to limit how men and women can serve in the kingdom solely based upon gender because gender is our basis for how any person should live so of course that principle should apply in the Church as well, and this is problematic for various reasons.
Even from a young age, cultural chains begin to clamp onto girls and boys because of gender discrimination. It's in our language, our advertising, and much else. Just this past weekend I became aware of gender stereotypes while at work. Two women were conversing about their sons and one of them, in response to her son running wild around our store, stated 'Boys are just more out of control than girls. They take longer to grow up and mature'.
Not more than an hour later was there a girl older than the previously mentioned boy screaming her head off while being chased around the store by her mother. The point here is that it all depends on the individual person. We cannot make generalizations such as 'boys will be boys' and 'girls will be girls', because not every boy is exactly the same as the next, and nor is every girl.
Gender stereotypes are all around us, and this is problematic because it is a form of marginalization. If you order a happy meal at McDonalds you will be asked the following question: boy or girl? This is because your answer will determine what sort of toy the happy meal will contain. Girls usually receive a pony or a doll while boys usually receive a truck or an action figure. Stop and ponder, though: what if a little girl, brave and adventurous, would rather have the warrior toy? What if a little boy has a deep-seated love for horses and finds no entertainment with trucks?
More importantly is this: why are we engraining gender stereotypes into our children at a young age? This is confining our children and limiting their potential, preferences, and abilities to use their full attributes to the glory of God.
The little girl who pretends to sleigh dragons is just as welcome into the kingdom of God than the one who prefers tea-parties. The little boy who likes ballet is just as loved as the one who desires to fish and shoot things.
On a spiritual level, there is an incredible amount to discuss. Those conversations could warrant a campfire of their own. We will talk about gender stereotypes within the Church in coming posts, but for now let's chew on this statement: not everyone is gifted just the same.
And that is more than okay; that's downright beautiful. It's glorious, it's diverse, it's creatively reflective of the God who weaves His varying attributes within us all.
We need to cease passing judgement on men and women simply because they do not fit into a specific mold that we have created ourselves. We need to see past cultural conformities and gender stereotypes and open our eyes to the truth that each human is uniquely made, and that each person has potential to be used in the kingdom of God.
Gender stereotypes often end up oppressing people by pushing those who do not fit them to the margins of the kingdom of God, and this is incredibly in opposition to God's plan for humanity. By demanding that people fit certain molds we are actually excluding people rather than including.
The kingdom of God is meant to draw people in, not push people away.
Once when browsing a book on gender stereotypes, I came across a question a reader had sent into the author. It said 'My little boy wants to play with his sister's dolls, and I'm incredibly worried. What should I do?'
The author responded by informing the mother to remove the doll from the child in a gentle manner and advising the father to implement a different mindset into the child with positive reinforcement. For example, the father in this case should say words along the lines of 'Hey buddy, when I was younger I loved pretending to be a safari explorer!'
This mindset is harmful at best. First of all, it confines the boy's natural preferences and makes him feel odd or out of place for having said preferences. Secondly, what about the sister? What if she wanted to be a safari explorer? Are we really going so far as to instill mindsets into our children as 'you're made for these toys and you're made for these'? How harmful, how marginalizing. This saddens me, and I hope that we can begin to shift away from such mindsets.
Here's some encouragement, and I want to end here: some girls enjoy playing with barbies, shopping, and cooking. However, some males enjoy these activities as well. Some men enjoy hunting, sports, and adventuring, but some women enjoy these activities too. It's perfectly alright for people to form communities based upon similar characteristics or to lean into preferences as men or women, but we need to be cognizant that not every person is exactly the same; we're all uniquely diverse from one another, and that's more than alright. It's beautiful.
I fit some molds of what it means to be a woman as defined often by the world (or perhaps America) and perhaps in the Church, but I also break some of those expectations. I absolutely adore romantic comedies, but I've never been a fan of excessive shopping just for the thrill of it. I like shopping for what I truly need, and that's about it. I enjoy style, but going out and having to shop for it? Can I just hire someone to buy my clothes for me? It always leaves me drained. I have male friends who love shopping, and I have others who hate it passionately. I know girls who are sensitive and I also know guys that cry at a drop of a hat.
We're all different and also the same, and no matter our preferences we are all worth celebrating.
It's freeing, loosening the chains of cultural confinements. It's humanizing when we stop forcing people into molds based upon gender stereotypes and instead inquire what sort of person 'x' is, eyes and ears wide open. When we see each person, male or female, as unique and beautifully crafted because of the potential he or she holds, then we begin to truly see a person as Jesus would. This will carry us far, this open mindset that acknowledges the diversity of choice and personal preference. A mindset such as this will take us into kingdom places, where love overwhelms and freedom reigns.
I love movies such as Brave and Mulan in which the main characters completely defy gender stereotypes and remain true to themselves. In stories such as these we see bravery, freedom, and the carrying out of amazing causes. There's something inspiring in characters such as Merida, Mulan, Katniss, and many others in which tables are overturned and confinements are broken, and I think it's because these characters and stories resonate with us. These examples are those of women, but the same is true of men. We're all made to remain true to ourselves rather than to bend over backwards for other people for the wrong reasons.
Deep down, we know that we're made to be ourselves wholly. We know that we are made for beautiful things, great things. We know we're made to overstep cultural boundaries and be brave. After all, culture is only culture, though we often confuse it with absolute truth.
I've known people to feel excluded, marginalized, and even break down and cry because of judgements that were placed upon them because of their preferences and inabilities to fit certain molds and/or expectations. When we break free of expectations and assumptions and start to see each person for who he or she is, then we begin to break chains of oppression. We begin to open wide the gates of the kingdom, for people are truly allowed to 'come as they are'.
We're made for these, such freedom songs.
