Musings on Gentleness

            I am convinced that God has a well-developed sense of humor. I’m sure He grinned when he saw the look on my face as Chapter One of A Year of Biblical Womanhood fell open and I read “October: Gentleness, Girl Gone Mild.” You see, in December, I began feeling a subtle, quiet pull towards the idea of gentleness, and I realized that there are very real parts of me that are not gentle. I, and several of my close friends, call my un-gentle character “Steamroller.”

This, unfortunately, accurately describes my actions when I act as "Steamroller."
(Photo credit: nakedpastor.com)

When I operate as Steamroller, I become wholly results oriented and tend to place results over relationships. I become blinded by my work and deadlines and my blindness often wounds my relationships with friends and coworkers. These realizations hit me, and I decided, a bit begrudgingly, that perhaps I should spend some time contemplating the meaning of the fruit of the Spirit gentleness. Not even a month later, I found myself reading a chapter on the meaning of gentleness within the context of biblical womanhood.

            It soon became apparent that Evans and I have a fair amount in common. When she told her female friends that she was working towards a gentle spirit, several laughed “in a sympathetic, knowing sort of way” because they knew what Evans was up against in her own character, and

Meet Rachel Held Evans. (Photo credit: Wikipedia))

because they had heard the “gentle and quiet heart” speech from a young age (Evans 6). When I told my friends that I wanted to learn more about gentleness, not so that I could force the fruit upon myself, but so that I could invite it into my heart, many of them nodded in affirmation, as if to subtly and respectfully say, “Yes, as your loving friend, I am so glad you are doing this.” Interestingly enough, I, unlike Evans, had never really heard the “gentle and quiet” lecture reserved for so many Christian girls. This may have had something to do with the western region in which I was brought up, but I suspect it largely had to do with the dedicated efforts of my mother, who was born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia amongst all that Southern society has to offer, including the “gentle and quiet” lectures. Talking with her has revealed that she was quite intentional in how she raised my two little sisters and myself, but that is another topic for another day.

            If I’m honest, the bulk of Evans’ recounting of her month’s gentleness journey did not have much salience in my own musings, aside from the occasional outburst of laughter. Evans is quite funny. However, towards the end of the chapter, as Evans looked back on her month, she wrote a section that rocked my world. In reflecting on her experiment with contemplative prayer, Evans wrote this impactful paragraph:

Photo credit: news.ayekoo.com

“…gentleness begins with strength, quietness with security. A great tree is both moved and unmoved, for it changes with the seasons, but its roots keep it anchored to the ground. Mastering a gentle and quiet spirit didn’t mean changing my personality, just regaining control of it, growing strong enough to hold back and secure enough to soften” (Evans 16).

In one fell swoop Evans reconciled the tension between God-given personality traits and the concept of gentleness. Being a gentle person does not mean that I must give up the parts of myself that yearn to fight for justice and right action. It does not mean that I must imprison the parts of myself that laugh loudly with glee and assert their beliefs. Gentleness does not require that I lay down every part of myself in submission to whatever may cross my path. Now, this does not mean that I do not submit to God’s teachings and will or that I allow my personality to run rampant, but rather that, in gentleness, I have permission to acknowledge the person that God has created in me, even in the strong parts of my personality.

You can find Evans’ blog post on this subject here.

This discussion reminds me of the story of Deborah in Judges. God raised Deborah up, placing her in leadership roles as a prophet and judge. In her divinely appointed assignment to assert authority over religious, political, judicial, and military aspects of Israel, Deborah was in a position that often required that she exercise a strong personality in order to fulfill her duties. I refer to the example of Deborah not to suggest that we have a duty to exercise our strong personality traits whenever we feel we have been placed in a role for a specific reason, but because it is an example that contradicts the traditional “gentle and quiet” spirit teachings directed towards females. Deborah would not have been able to act as an effective prophet or judge if she listened to the some of the Christian voices that cry out, “Be gentle and be silent always.” Instead, she acted within the appropriate boundaries of her strength and derived her strength’s authority from God.

            On the flip side, Evans also tackles the aspects of gentleness that temper the strong personality traits. When I first brought up my desire to better understand gentleness as a fruit of the Spirit, my mother immediately reminded me of what it means for a horse trainer to gentle a horse, to take them from unbridled strength and passion, to controlled strength and passion tempered by the leadership of the trainer. 

A video of one approach to gentling a wild mustang. Start at 30 second mark.

A horse that is well gentled can operate within its strengths without feeling the need to lash out and demonstrate control. It is also confident and secure in its relationship with its trainer, acknowledging his leadership and authority in its life. You can probably see where I’m going with this analogy; God is our trainer, we are the horse. When we allow God to gentle our souls, when we invite Him to soften our rough edges, when we spend time pursuing His teachings and His heart, we are reminded of our security and strength in Christ. The temptation to assert our dominance falls away and we begin to operate from within the assurance of our identity in Christ rather than a need to validate our own existence.

            I am reminded of the Gospel author Mark. His Gospel narrative is largely fact based, emphasizing the destinations and events related to Jesus’ actions on earth rather than including prose or descriptions of Jesus’ journeys from place to place. The events in the Gospel of Mark happen “immediately” after the preceding events and “immediately” before the following events. I can’t help but infer that Mark has a strong, perhaps results driven, personality. But even in Mark’s strong personality, he submits to the authority of the Jesus Christ narrative. From a literary analysis perspective, the Gospel of Mark demonstrates Mark’s strong personality and passion, but only so far as to point to the events and authority of Jesus Christ. Based on my current understanding of gentleness, I think Mark provides another interesting example of someone who is strong and yet yields his strength to God’s authority.

            Ultimately, I find gentleness to have a certain quality of liberation in its character. Evan’s writings and my own musings speak of an interaction between our personality and God’s authority that gives both ample room to breathe. This makes sense given that Jesus did not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it (Matthew 5:17). I’d like to leave this post with one final analogy related to gentleness. So what does gentleness look like? Let’s say I’m a rock. Like most rocks, I am a hard, tough fragment of matter. Like many rocks, I have rough edges; some of those edges are even quite sharp. And if I suddenly find myself on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, overwhelmed by the constant, rocking motion of the waves, eventually my rough, sharp edges will erode and soften until I am a smooth rock. Inviting gentleness is about allowing God to erode our sharp edges away. Inviting gentleness does not mean that we suddenly lose part of our personality (i.e. the hardness of the rock), but that our spirit changes in response to God’s authority and security.

A Summary of Section 4: Chapters 10-12

            Evans dedicates the month of July to considering the concept of biblical justice, specifically how it applies to women and her personal role as a consumer. Her monthly task list is as follows: “Switch to fair trade products, especially with coffee and chocolate (Isaiah 58:9-12…); Start recycling (Genesis 2:15); Read Half the Sky by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, and become a better advocate for the equality and empowerment of women worldwide (Zecharaiah 7:9-10; James 1:27); Travel to Bolivia with World Vision (Proverbs 31:20; James 1:27)” (Evans 224). She begins the chapter with a Jewish folktale championing the pursuit of developing justice within oneself as a way to make the world a better place. She then moves into describing her personal efforts to analyze her habits as a consumer. This analysis motivates her to reconsider her coffee and chocolate purchases, which results in her scaling back on her coffee intake and a subsequent string of withdrawal symptoms. Evans also recounts horrific stories of women fighting oppression and violence in the developing world included in Half the Sky, forcing the reader to confront the realities of today’s twisted world. Throughout the rest of the chapter, Evans repeats the phrase “Women aren’t the problem. They are the solution,” a testament to the stories of triumph and success brought about by the empowerment of women across the globe (Evans 237). Evans’ trip to Bolivia allows her to experience many stories of women bringing justice to their community out of their empowerment. Evans ends the chapter considering the implications of Jesus’ actions as they relate to justice: “Justice means moving beyond the dichotomy between those who need and those who supply and confronting the frightening and beautiful reality that we desperately need one another” (Evans 246).

            Evans considers silence during August, remaining silent in church, avoiding teaching, spending three days at an Abbey, and visiting a Quaker congregation in order to explore what biblical silence means as a woman. Evans tackles the two verses that are most often used to silence women: 1 Timothy 2:11-14 and 1 Corinthians 14:34. Her research and analysis related to these passages reveals that perhaps Christians have turned Paul’s epistles into a version of the Torah, when in reality, they were written to specific people in specific contexts, for specific reasons. With this view, the passages silencing women do not apply if you are not a promiscuous widow attending a church in Corinth. Evans then transitions into describing her experience with contemplative silence at St. Bernard Abbey in Cullman, Alabama. What began as an uncomfortable experience characterized by massive efforts to remain quiet and contemplative, culminated in a few, deeply quiet moments of simplicity. Evans visit to a Quaker congregation provided her a new vocabulary word, “Weighty words,” or, “a few words, when carefully chosen, [that] are so much more powerful than a lecture or sermon” (Evans 278). August began as a battle against silence, but at the end, Evans reflects that there is a significant difference between being silenced and silencing oneself, especially when one is silencing oneself before God.

            September, Evans’ last month in her biblical womanhood project, serves as a time of reflection and a time to consider grace. To foster reflection, Evans makes challah from scratch, observes Rosh Hashanah and the Taschlich ceremony, makes a list of New Year’s resolutions, and cuts her hair. Her reflections reveal that she has grown and changed as a Christian and as a woman. Nasty comments on her blogs don’t bother her has much because her experience with contemplative prayer has provided a strategy to aid in controlling her reactions. She may even enjoy cooking. To bookmark the end of her journey, Evans develops ten resolutions: “Try a new recipe every week. Eat more ethically. Identify and praise women of valor. Embrace the prospect of motherhood. Nurture the contemplative impulse. Make room for ritual and remembrance. Champion women leaders in the Church. Partner with World Vision to work for the education and empowerment of women around the world. Honor Dan. Keep loving, studying, and struggling with the Bible” (Evans 294). Ultimately, Evans reflects and concludes that there is no such thing as biblical womanhood. The Bible is full of many kinds of women, some warriors, some prostitutes, some prophets, some mothers etc. Evans asserts that biblical womanhood is not a static role, but rather, is related to one’s calling, which as a Christian is to love the Lord with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love our neighbors as ourselves. She hypothesizes that perhaps she began this project searching for permission to be herself, to be a woman, but she reached “the end of the year with the quiet and liberating certainty that [she] never had to ask for it. It had already been given” (Evans 296).

            I sat in silence for a long while after finishing this final section. Evans has given me much to consider and explore. I predict the next several weeks will be full of emotional epiphanies and a great deal of analysis paralysis as I muse on these topics for myself.