This afternoon I was the guest speaker at a WELCA conference in Ander, Texas. (In case you're wondering, Ander is a tiny little town just north of Goliad and west of Victoria; I'm fairly certain the church I visited today constitutes the entirety of Ander.) I arrived just in time for an excellent lunch, then started off my presentation by noting how ironic I found it that I, of all people--the woman who's constantly driving to and from, trying to get people where they need to be with everything they need to have--was there to talk about living a balanced life.
In the 1980's, when I was in college, I remember seeing a film called Koyaanisqatsi. The title is a Hopi word meaning "a state of life that calls for another way of living" or, more simply, "life out of balance." The film itself is visually stunning; mostly it consists of time-lapse photography accompanied by music. I remember being impressed by what I saw, but the word and its meaning are what I remember most clearly.
That word came back to me today while I was talking to the women in Ander about living with integrity. That's certainly a word we over-simplify too readily; it doesn't only mean living with high standards, but also living in a way that allows our lives to be whole and undiminished--to experience the fullness of our own human experience. For women, especially, there are so many forces working to diminish us. We're constantly told what we lack--we're not pretty enough, or not charming enough, or not selfless enough. If we spend too much time thinking about ourselves, we're vain; too little and we've let ourselves go. Today I pointed out how a recent cover of Women's Day magazine (the one I'm sure you've seen every time you stand in line at the checkout stand at the grocery store) draws women into a vicious circle by encouraging them to eat healthy--then transforms that message, ever so slightly, to encourage them to "drop a size" in short order--then offers up a beautiful picture of the cupcakes those same women are apparently being encouraged to make. For whom? Not for themselves, if they're trying to drop a size. But who makes cupcakes without eating them? If we eat the cupcakes, of course, we're left feeling guilty for our lack of willpower--which drives us to resolve to eat healthy and lose weight.
And so the vicious circle continues, largely because we don't even realize we're caught up in the whirlpool. This afternoon we talked about strategies for making smart changes, tools for deciding when to put yourself first. That's such a difficult thing for most women to do, and it felt really important to me to help everyone in that room realize that, sometimes, it really is OK. I almost missed out on my first Ragdale experience because I was so worried about disappointing people by leaving home for two weeks. But if I hadn't gone to Ragdale--if I hadn't put myself first--I'm fairly certain my novel just wouldn't exist. Given that my son doesn't even remember me missing his birthday that year, I think that sacrifice turned out to be manageable for everyone.
Many women, at least occasionally, find themselves in "a state of life that calls for another way of living." I'm a big believer that God puts us where we need to be, so I'm confident there was someone in that audience today who needed to hear what I was saying. Whoever you are, I hope I spoke the words you needed to hear and gave you the tools you needed to make a change.
