No my blog has not been hijacked or hacked by ne’er-do-wells seeking to discredit me by slathering it with horrible words…this is actually serious. It has come to my attention that the word VAGINA is actually an offensive word…at least some would have us believe so.

Apparently it is so offensive a word (VAGINA) that using it (VAGINA) has gotten well known Christian author Rachel Held Evans’ latest book on biblical womanhood banned from LifeWay Christian bookstores. Really?

As a man who (thankfully) does not have a VAGINA I can admit that while they (VAGINAS) have held a certain enigmatic mystique they (VAGINAS) have never been downright offensive in any way. I mean even in the deepest Christian circles where, admittedly, the word VAGINA is not thrown around a lot, I never expected it (VAGINA) had the power to actually see an entire book banned from the largest Christian book retailer in the United States.

Evans references it (VAGINA) twice in her book according a Huffington Post article which states:

“Evans’ references of the currently infamous v-word are twofold: firstly in the description of a woman raped in the Congo, and second in a description of a teenaged Evans signing an abstinence pledge card as a promise “to God and my vagina.””

First of all what is she supposed to call it?

Seriously…

How can one have a serious conversation about rape or abstinence without referencing…you know…a VAGINA? Sure I suppose there are ways around it but that makes us start to sound a little silly. You know like kids in grade five learning physical terminology in health class and chuckling over how much it sounds like a certain capital (REGINA!) of a certain Canadian province (SASKATCHEWAN!).

We adults, however, are beyond such juvenile behavior of course. We are certainly no longer embarrassed by the proper anatomical name for a human body part. Right?

Admittedly I do not spend a lot of time using the word VAGINA. In fact I am guessing this post contains 98.7 percent of my total life’s usage of the word.

This level of fear does not speak well for LifeWay which for some obscure reason does not want people to know women have VAGINAS (maybe for fear that questions of usage will be asked and Lord knows where that will lead). Of course most of us are aware of this fact already so one wonders at the real reason behind the censorship here. It is censorship by the way…the fact that LifeWay would not carry the book with the word VAGINA led publisher Thomas Nelson to request it (VAGINA) be removed from the author’s book.

Does it say something about a sub-culture when the word VAGINA has become a “bad word”? Does it say something about that sub-culture’s repressed understanding of sexuality and gender when the very sight of VAGINA sends their readers (or at least their bookstores and publishers) scurrying to the hills in fear? Does it suggest anything that a female author cannot reference VAGINA in her book and have it carried by LifeWay but man’s man Christian author Mark Driscoll can write about anal sex and adult toys in his Christian book and have it carried by – you guessed it – LifeWay??

My suggestion – go here and order it: http://www.amazon.ca/Year-Biblical-Womanhood-Liberated-Covering/dp/1595553673.

This is the first time I have ever recommended a book I have yet to read but I am that offended by the treatment of it that I think it should be read. Heck the book isn’t even about VAGINAS…it’s not like VAGINAS are being cavalierly thrown around by the author for the sheer shock factor (which apparently it, VAGINA, has). It (VAGINA) is used twice and in circumstances that seem more than appropriate. The book itself sounds like a great take on A.J. Jacobs hilarious book The Year of Living Biblically and a great, worthwhile effort.

So in closing I would suggest that people who are shocked by VAGINAS get over it and come to understand that they do exist and they are not evil.

P.S. Notice I never once used the word PENIS here?

P.P.S. VAGINA!

I have been reading a lot lately about new initiatives to help the poor and those in need. New organizations and new ways people can band together and offer resources and assistance in an efficient way.

This is a good thing. How can anyone argue that it is not? Can I? I am starting to wonder if maybe they are not as good as they seem on the surface.

Umbrella organizations have been a mainstay of social and faith-based assistance for decades, possibly even centuries. They have been the source of countless people being helped. Food and clothing has been distributed, shelters opened for the homeless and more. Heck in Acts the apostles appoint seven Godly men to the task of feeding widows…was this an umbrella organization?

Don’t get me wrong, I know first hand the value of these things. Growing up with a single mother on welfare and living in government housing I came to understand the value of these programs. When she was beaten we would go to a women’s shelter – the only safe place to be. When the food ran out Christmas hampers and vouchers became available. When it came time for university, grants were made available because of how little income we had. These were all good things but one thing they were not was personal. They were not human…they were administrative.

There is one thing better than an umbrella organization – genuine, loving, relentless human relationship. Umbrellas are designed to protect certainly but as organizations they do another thing – they shelter the people in these organizations from the people they help. They create a bubble of distance between the ones offering healing and the ones being healed allowing us to feel good about healing the sick without having to actually touch them or talk to them. Umbrellas make it difficult for others to come near…they get in the way.

Food delivered to the door or in the form of a voucher feeds a family and this is good. It also ensures we do not have to invite them in to eat with us. Clothes in a hamper at Christmas warm the child, they also ensure we do not have to put the blanket on the ones who are cold.

Some would protest that there are too many needs for any one person to meet. Too many mouths to feed, too many sick to heal, too many poor to give money too, too many prisoners to visit…and I would agree…there are. Some would say that umbrella organizations mean that the most help can be given with the most efficiency.Yes, I agree.

But I would caution people that the kingdom of God does not look like an umbrella organization, it does not look like a dinner for three hundred people in the church gymnasium and it does not look like a women’s shelter or a food voucher. It looks like the hand of Christ, a hand of flesh connected to a human being, extended in genuine desire to lift another up. It looks like one family inviting another to a meal because they absolutely deeply want to feed them and know them as fellows in creation; know them as deeply as they know the members of their small group or the friends they have had since they were 5. It looks like relentless honest constant and loving hounding of the ones who make it hard to connect with for no other reason than because your heart will burst if you stop.

The most intimate word in the entire Bible is the Hebrew word Yada which means ‘know’ or ‘to know’. God ‘knows’ us…and this implies deep intimacy with us. Adam ‘knew’ Even and they begat Cain and Abel. This level of ‘knowing’ is everywhere. We desire to be known. We are wired to be known. Umbrellas prevent us from knowing one-another. Umbrellas prevent us from knowing those in need. We need to know our unknown neighbour, especially when they are struggling.

It sounds idealistic, it sounds unfair, but it is what being human was meant to be and it was modeled by the only genuine human to ever walk this earth.

We do not need umbrella organizations because there are too many hungry for one person to feed. We do not need umbrella organizations to love by-proxy because there are too many homeless to shelter. We need umbrella organizations because there are too many people who are afraid to open their homes, too many people afraid to invite the lepers into their midst and to do so because they sincerely love them with all their heart.

There are enough homes in Winnipeg to end the homeless problem…if their doors opened. There are enough family dinners being cooked that if a couple of extra seats were put around tables it would end the problem of hunger in any community. There are enough Words of God on the hearts of the communities of Christ to share one-on-one with every person in the world dozens of times over without ever expecting them to walk into a building to get it from one guy in a pulpit…but it requires more investment than a knock on a door…it requires real friendship. The purpose of church is not to create a neighbour out of an unknown…church is the natural gathering of the known to one place as an overflow of a week’s worth of worship.

I remember the hampers, the food vouchers, the shelters, the grants of my childhood…I also remember being very alone. I remember a mother who was very alone. I don’t remember a lot of people…I don’t remember community.

we hear the beat of drums
they pound the cadence
between the falling leaves
and the rising of the bloody sun
but we don’t know
if they are calling us to war
or warding us away…

yes,

yes i think they are…

i like to feel, alone
it is alone
when i feel
and
when i feel
i know
i am alive

i wish
i could spill bold beauty
from the tips of my fingers
from the end of my pencil
from my lost lips that open
to let fly a dust of a dry inside

i wish
i could free loved ones from the wasting weight
this wild spinning wasting wait
that i could pour colour into the gray lives
but every letter on the screen
every graphite gray HB stroke
leaves black shapes that make black words
they stand out stark against the white
this darkness that fills my foggy sight
reminders that
every truth, every effort at a healing aesthetic
is made of shadows

when will the lights go down
and darken this desperate diorama
that we might uproot ourselves
to step off of this stagnant stage
falling into empty possibility
leaving the ever-ache behind
freeing the busy beat of a harried heart
that won’t stop pulse-pounding
against an inner drowning dark