Woman from the Bible #2: Abigail

I took a quiz on Buzzfeed a couple days ago called “Which Bible heroine are you?” and I got Abigail. At first, I didn’t recognize the name, so I had to look her up. Once I found her, I discovered that 1) I had read her story recently and 2) the comparison is quite apt.

Unless his stupidity is about to get you all killed. (Photo Credit)

Abigail appears in 1 Samuel Chapter 25. Her husband is a stubborn man. When David and his men are coming through his land, they ask for food and lodging. He refuses to help them. This makes David angry and he makes plans to burn the man’s property down and kill everyone in his household. His wife, Abigail, catches wind of this and she makes a feast of the finest things that her farm has to offer and she brings it to David and his men. She apologizes profusely for her husband, asking David to have mercy on him because "he can’t help it, he’s just a jerk" (my paraphrase). David grants his mercy. A few days later, when her husband dies, David brings Abigail into his household as one of his wives.

Lately, I have found myself needing to clean up a lot of other people’s messes. And I’m not just talking about diapers. There are college students that I work with that sometimes do foolish things or neglect things and I have to pick up the pieces. There are household messes to clean up. My son has taken to having an accident in our bed a couple times a week, so the bedding needs to be changed. Sometimes I'm lucky to get to do the dishes once a week. And if I'm really lucky, I get to go to the bathroom and close the door.

I have gotten into a position where I’ve had to learn a lot of people skills the hard way and quickly. And that’s what Abigail uses in her story, people skills. She shows intelligence, initiative and courage to go behind her husband’s back and appease the King. Remember, this is still a very strictly patriarchal society. She could have gotten in big trouble for going behind her husband’s back. The King could have refused to see her or hear her request. But, like the honey badger, she didn’t care.* She did what she had to in hopes of saving her family and livelihood. May we all show such courage and initiative in our lives. 

*Pardon the language in the link. I just wanted to explain the reference. 

Woman Saint of the Week #2: St. Margaret of Cortona

Here is saint whose story could be found anywhere in the United States in 2014.

In the thirteenth century, she was born to farmers in central Italy. Her mother died when she was young. Her father remarried. She got along with her step-mother like oil and water. The situation got so intense, she ran away with a wealthy young man who showered her with attention. She lived as his mistress for nine years. They had a son out of wedlock. One day, her lover was killed by thieves. Like many young people in a bad situation, seeing a friend killed served as a wake up call.

She tried to go back home, but her father and step-mother didn't want anything to do with her and her son. In despair as a homeless single mom, she heard a voice tell her to go to a nearby Franciscan monastery. They had pity and took her and her son in. She became a Secular Franciscan and earned her keep by caring for the sick and begging. She founded an order devoted to Our Lady of Mercy that worked with the poor and suffering.

She lived a life of severe penances. She felt so horrible about all of the things she had done when she was younger, she lived without even the most reasonable of comforts. One biographer notes that she needed a confessor to look after her and make sure that she at least treated herself like a human being.

She was still a very attractive woman. She would always spurn the attention men gave her, but she was regularly falsely accused of having affairs. At one point, she had to be stopped from mutilating herself. She wanted to destroy her face so that the advances would stop.

She had many mystical experiences. Toward the end of her life she had a couple notable ones featuring St. Mary Magdalene. She has been called the "Second Magdalene." Reportedly, Jesus referred to her as "povervella"(little poor thing) in her visions of Him.

Her feast day is February 22. Surprise, surprise, she's the patron saint of: the falsely accused, the homeless, the insane, the orphaned, the mentally ill, penitents, single mothers, reformed prostitutes, and stepchildren (all of which, besides maybe the prostitute, were roles she played during her lifetime). 

St. Margaret of Cortona, please pray for us 

that all women learn that their dignity and worth come from God alone, not from man. 

Help us to learn of and accept the mercy that God offers us. 

To realize that no matter what we do, God will always take us back. 

To learn more:

Catholic Online

Wikipedia

EWTN

New Advent

East of Eden

Franciscan-Anglican.com

PS: Am I the only one who wonders about her son in all of this? What was it like being the son of such a woman doing severe penances? To basically grow up in a monastery? It says eventually he became a friar. I'd like to read a biography about him. 

Be Easy On Yourself

I've been pretty high strung lately. The smallest of inconveniences have royally hacked me off. My voice has become shrill with every little move my toddler makes. I don't know why. It's probably a combination of things. Being stretched too thin, my time of the month, cabin fever, my toddler becoming a real toddler...

Parenting is hard. There is no doubt about that. Some days we just want to give up and then we feel guilty about it. But we need to be easier on ourselves, we can't be happy and supportive every second of the day. We're human.

I remember when James was really little and I'd feel guilty about crying in front of him. Postpartum depression was really hard for me and it was only compounded by the fact that I hated the fact James came when he did and how he did. Looking back, it was kind of funny. I'd cry and then I'd cry about the fact I was crying. Yup, parenthood sucks.

But just the fact we can say that means we aren't terrible parents. Comedian Jim Gaffigan in his book Dad is Fat puts it much more succinctly:

"If you complain about how you spend your Saturdays taking your kids to birthday parties, that means you are taking your kid to birthday parties. If you complain about how hard it is to get your kid to read, it means you are trying to get your kid to read. If you are complaining about your kid not helping around the house, that means you have a fat, lazy kid. You joke about it. That's how you deal. If parents don't like being a parent, they don't talk about being a parent. They are absent. And probably having a great time out having a great time somewhere."

It isn't an easy job, but it is one of the most important jobs in the world. These are tomorrow's leaders, helpers, voters, artists, scientists...and parents! All this pressure needs to be dealt with somehow. So, you'll joke, you'll cry, you might even have the occasional irrational angry outburst.* It happens. You're still a fallible human being. To use another quote from Dad is Fat:

"Failing and laughing at your own shortcomings are the hallmarks of a sane parent."

Wait a second, she gets to close the door when she goes to the bathroom. I'm jealous. Credit: http://www.glasbergen.com

*but physically lashing out is inexcusable. Yelling is to be expected. Getting angry for no good reason is to be expected. But never physically attack your child.

Feminist Bake Sale

This morning, this was all over my Facebook news feed. I looked around online and, yes, it's real. In fact, more than one activist group has done it. There are even variations of it that also cover disparity in wages between ethnic groups.

This was not even a liberal group. This was a Young Conservatives of Texas group trying to make a very different point.

As a former student activist, I have to applaud their creativity. I'm sure these bake sales get a lot of buzz and get people talking about the issues. That's the whole point of provocative displays like this.

Where to start with the sign? I guess with the biggest point.

The soundbite, "Women make 77 cents to every dollar a man makes," is a lot more complicated than that.

The thing that strikes me the most is that the professions that pay the least (professionals like teachers and social workers) are dominated by women. Meanwhile, men dominate the fields that pay the most.

Yes, you can see where this is going.

Many women gravitate to the helping professions. Call it whatever you want (our innate God-given femininity or something society made up), but we want to help people. We want to form young minds. We want to take care of the sick, the orphan, the immigrant, and the disenfranchised everywhere. We want to take care of those who no one else cares about.

The amount that society pays a position indicates, among other things, the value that society places on those jobs. I can't think of a much more important job than nurturing the next generation. All people possess a dignity simply due to the fact they are human. These low paying jobs uphold that dignity. Why don't we hold these jobs on a higher pedestal?

Some people mock this street theater bake sale as only buying into stereotypes. Only a woman would bake to make a point. That's exactly right. We get to feed people and make them think. And this move would be particularly attention-grabbing on a college campus where, let's face it, all of the students are looking for a cheap or free bite to eat.

The statistic is simplistic and may mask some of the real issues, but the bake sale certainly has everyone's attention. I don't even know which school this particular sign comes from, but it showed up all over my Facebook newsfeed and I'm not even friends with any traditional college students anymore. Good job, student activists! Now, fill-in the blanks that the soundbite leaves.

Mary the Riveter. Not my best work, but I still love the sentiment. Maybe I should go back and make a better one someday. (Originally posted in my first blog)

7 Quick Takes #1: Welcome to the New Blog

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Welcome. I used to blog semi-regularly at The Syrophoenician Woman. I'll probably still post there from time to time if I'm struck with something that is not topically appropriate for this blog. The mission for this blog is to emphasize the dignity of women. I'll talk about Natural Family Planning, women saints and women in the Bible, whatever it is I'm reading, and I'll give a pro-life Catholic woman perspective on the news.

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So, about me: I'm a work-at-home mom with a rambunctious toddler (I dare you to find a toddler that is not rambunctious). I help with social media for a organization called John Paul II Center for Women. I'm the Campus Outreach Coordinator for Feminists for Life. I volunteer at a number of things for church, including Confirmation class, Adult Religious Ed., Parish Council, and making the weekly e-bulletin. 

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The toddler:

I swear, I don't share that many pictures of him and I typically don't talk about myself as much as I'm doing in this post. 

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Happy Valentine's Day! Here is a funny, thought-provoking look at what Valentine's Day would be like if men and women switched their traditional roles (very minor language warning):

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So, what does the above video make me think about?

1. The materialism of Valentine's Day. The average person celebrating Valentine's Day will spend almost $134 on their loved one. Why do we need so much stuff?
2. All women want to be pursued. I'm not sure how much I agree with that statement, but it is an idea found all over Christian literature. It's a recurring theme: women want to be pursued, they want to be courted, and God is always pursuing us. Maybe I'll develop this idea later.

What does it make you think about?

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Woman Saint of the Week: I'll admit it, I'm a little biased this week. Yesterday was the feast day for a fairly well-known Dominican saint, Catherine de Ricci. She was very religious from a very early age, having a particular devotion to the Passion of Christ. She was a mystic and she was known for her strict penances, especially for the souls in purgatory. She was a lot like her namesake, Catherine of Siena. Very powerful men turned to her for advice and guidance. She has a several miracles to her name, including bilocation and her body has been found incorruptible.

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Biblical Woman of the Week: For this I'm going to pick one of the very few women prophets mentioned by name in the Old Testament: Huldah. Good king and ancestor of Christ, Josiah, renovated the temple and tried to breathe new life into the religious life of his people. During the renovations, some old scrolls were found. He called the prophetess, Huldah, to determine what the scrolls were. She confirmed that they were the word of God and that if they were not followed, there would be dire consequences. Josiah went to work being faithful to God's word. Scholars believe that those scrolls were an early form of our book of Deuteronomy.

She is mentioned only twice (2 Kings 22:13-20 and 2 Chronicles 34:22-28) very briefly in the Bible, but there is substantial information about her outside of the Bible in the Talmud and the Midrash (two authoritative collections of Jewish teachings and reflections on Scripture). There is also some archaeological evidence of her life in the Huldah Gates located in the southern wall of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. It is believed that she used to prophesy there and some believe she was buried there as well.

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!

#whatwomenneed

Right now, Women Speak for Themselves have a great idea.

Earlier this week, the president of Planned Parenthood tweeted a video

#WhatWomenNeed for Valentine's Day: http://t.co/6oQu28YZMa

— Cecile Richards (@CecileRichards) February 10, 2014

>
As you can see, she lists all of the things she thinks women need for Valentine's Day, including birth control and "safe and legal abortion."

Women Speak for Themselves is an organization for women who are tired of people like Cecile Richards claiming to speak for all women. They stared back in 2012 when issues surrounding Obamacare and the HHS Mandate really started heating up. Their main push is an open letter to President Obama and Kathleen Sebelius, the Secretary for Health and Human Services stating that:

Those currently invoking "women's health" in an attempt to shout down anyone who disagrees with forcing religious institutions or individuals to violate deeply held beliefs are more than a little mistaken, and more than a little dishonest. Even setting aside their simplistic equation of "costless" birth control with "equality," note that they have never responded to the large body of scholarly research indicating that many forms of contraception have serious side effects, or that some forms act at some times to destroy embryos, or that government contraceptive programs inevitably change the sex, dating and marriage markets in ways that lead to more empty sex, more non-marital births and more abortions. It is women who suffer disproportionately when these things happen. 

You can sign the letter and get involved here.

Their newest idea, however, is for pro-life women all over the internet to take pictures of themselves holding signs saying what women really need.

This is a sample taken from their Facebook page.

They ask that we post our pictures on their Facebook page or e-mail it to Helen@chiaroscuroInstitute.org. Please share it on your own website, Facebook page, or blog. Tweet it and please use their handle @womenspeak2012. 

Here are mine:

Attempt #1

Attempt #2

Attempt #3

Attempt #4 (The one I think I'm going to post on Facebook and Twitter)

Tell me which attempt you think I should use.