# 443: BOOK OF THE WEEK — “Pastrix”
Story behind the Book Choice
This morning I woke up completely in wet pajamas. No, I am not incontinent. It was sweat. But we have winter. And I am not overheating my place that much. Whenever I wake up like that, I feel like newly born in a sense. It is like cleansing. My body only does that if some things are falling into place; if I let go of certain things in order to make room for others. I know I should not be writing about stuff like this on a public blog. But maybe this is exactly the reason why I should be writing about it. After all, even though I worry a lot about ego, I do not have much ego left. I do not care if others call me crazy. I do not care if I make myself vulnerable because I am writing about personal stuff. Nadia Bolz-Weber shows how you can combine both — personal storytelling and theology in a very fine and not at all egoistic or suicidal way.
The thought that I had gone to bed with last night was one that I have almost every day: “Who am I? Where can I best use my talents? God, please tell me my calling NOW.” Of course, God or whoever you believe in does not answer prayers like this immediately. So, I go to bed every night and not much happens. But last night, I had this underlying feeling that I had been running away from my “true” calling all along. And what made me realize this was a reading of Jona which we did in a theology seminar yesterday. That was breatktaking. It changed my life in some way I cannot clearly forecast yet. It made me see that running away from instead of moving towards my calling is the biggest problem. And my body confirmed this finding by sweating like hell last night and by letting go of false notions of self. Or, to put it in other words: What I never wanted to be, I have already become — not in a bad way, in a really good way. I just never had the guts to admit it to myself.
What is this quote again?
“Some people change the world. And some people change the people who change the world.” Kij Johnson
The problem is — or the beauty of it — speaking in professional terms, many occupations represent teaching roles. And being a professor is not very different from being a pastor, except for the tiny issue of God at the center of the latter, obviously. You cannot do without the “Jesus business” in church, as Bolz-Weber repeatedly states. Of course not. But you can integrate God in other teaching roles. That is where the question mark still appears. What hit me yesterday is that I can still teach about God without being a preacher. I can even “preach” in a metaphorical sense without being a preacher. As long as I can ethically agree with what I do, there is no limit to what I research and teach. There is no limit to how much I learn and how much of that I pass on to the students. And that is exactly the big realization I had (among the others I had yesterday): My biggest motivation to learn anything new is not just personal growth. It is to pass on my knowledge and growth to others.
That is really powerful.
I wish the Jesus business would work on demand.
But Bolz-Weber beautifully describes that God does not work that way over and over again…
- Truth
Truth is a concept that you can discuss for ages, especially among academic folks. There, of course, everyone comes up with really “smart” and convoluted definitions of what he/she thinks truth or any other sophisticated and abstract concept means. The point is: For me, truth is not something to be thought — it must be felt. Whenever someone says something and you immediately FEEL, “yes, damnit, right,” then this is truth. And truth usually comes to you through people in one way or the other. Either they say something to you or you observe something about other people or you realize something with some time delay because someone else triggered something in you. Whatever it is — you KNOW when truth has been spoken. And this is exactly what Bolz-Weber is referring to here.
The kind of smashing truth she talks about in this passage can hurt a lot. I guess, it has to hurt in order to be felt. The truth is something we usually run away from. This is why this corresponds so much with Jona in the Bible story. Jona knows from the beginning that he should obey God’s calling but he cannot accept this “truth.” Instead, he builds up his own truth with only temporary success. But back to Bolz-Weber: The fact that someone is basically telling her to throw her own self-lies over board is God calling — God yelling at you. And I do agree that these moments often happen when you especially want other people to say this or that because you basically know the truth but you are not able to swallow it, to embrace it and to finally do something with it.
I feel blessed that I have people like this around me. And I can say that I am trying hard to be a person like this for others — someone speaking the “truth” to people who seek it in all honesty and with the willingness of being hurt. That does not mean we should all play Jesus. That does not work anyways. The truth, when you finally realize it, is powerful and therefore feels godly. But the most important thing is that it indeed liberates you. It takes away all the nice little lies and the façade you have built up. All these things that supposedly help you end up hurting you a lot more than you could possibly imagine. And having someone tell you that you basically need to deal with your life is so simple that you recognize how difficult it has been to face the truth and to take action.
Yes, faith is about action, I believe.
And Bolz-Weber stresses that “just believing” does not do the trick.
I am really happy to have her as a “role model.”
Even though I will probably never be a pastor.
God knows…
2. “Strangers”
This passage really made me feel caught. This is so much me! I always talk about diversity and mixed people and weirdos. I talk derogatively about the “mainstream,” about “normal” people. Even worse, I enjoy playing the hero for those who count as the most neglected and misunderstood of society. The truth is, and that is what Bolz-Weber works out beautifully when she describes how she was trying to attract new members to her church, that these stereotypes are just as bad as saying “we only serve communion to middle-class snobs in their Sunday gown.” Even these people bring their stories of brokenness to the church service and they deserve to be heard. And they also deserve to live their punk and weirdo life “under cover.” Who knows — maybe we, the tattoed and supposedly cool people, are the most boring of all the broken ones?
3. Personality
What I like so much about Bolz-Weber’s books is that you can and should keep on reading till the very end and you do not get bored. It is not one of these books where you read the first chapters and then you basically feel like the remaining 150+ pages are a waste of time. It is not like this with Pastrix. Pastrix is a derogative term for female pastors, as the author reveals on the first page. And Bolz-Weber in her writing makes it very clear in how far she violates the conventional understanding of being a pastor. And the most important thing is that she never pretends to be a better human being than she ever was. That is the tricky part. If we are bloody honest, we do recognize who we are deep down inside. And we do know that, even after making so many efforts towards changing this towards the better, we are failing.
For me, this passage really got me. This is my life struggle. I know how much I fucked up. And fuck-ups (also called “sins”) always result in self-hatred, not only among Christians. If you are a thinking human being and you reflect on your actions, you will always find things that could/should be done “better.” The beautiful thing about Lutheranism, and Bolzw-Weber, despite all craziness, has a very strong and clear Lutheran theology, is that you are saved anyways by God’s grace. God says, it is ok. And he also knows that he was not completely nuts when he gave you all the talents you got from him. That is probably why this “me” has to be so stubbornly strong. It needs to remain unaltered at the core because this makes you unique. And this is the message of Jesus: You are fine the way you are.
I just pray that I will never stop changing without changing.
I think, that is a humble goal.
And that brings us back to the beginning.
Good teachers change things all the time.
But they remain “the same” — stable individuals whom others can rely on.
Boy, pastor Nadia, I wish we had more of you in Germany!
I do not think that I will be one of those bringing fresh spirit to the church.
My church is the university —
so far, so good?
Reflection Questions
1) Do you have friends/people close to you who always tell you the “truth” they see in you, no matter how much this might hurt at first? Are you such a person to others?
2) Which group of people do you particularly dislike? Could it be that this group might be just the opposite of what you are seeing from the outside?
3) Would you say that you have changed tremendously in the course of your life so far? Which characteristics form the core of who you are who might not have changed, no matter how hard you might have tried to get rid of them?