It's been three years since we've gone home for Christmas to be with my extended family, Covid. You know. And I anticipate warm wood-burning fires and fabulous food. Cause we are all foodies. My younger siblings have young kids --- you know it's the kiddos that make Christmas; their excitement and wonder are contagious. So I'm excited to be with them. But I'd be remiss if I left you with this Norman Rockwell image of my family. Because well, like most of you, my family’s got stuff and it can blow up, on Christmas. So there's that too. Isn't this the accurate picture of life, Tov and Ra, good and bad all mixed in?

Today I’m talking with Rob Dixon about ten attributes that create flourishing relationships between men and women.

Rob’s work speaks specifically to mixed-gender relationships in ministry and the workplace, but I have to tell you, I highlighted some things for Steve and me to discuss when he gets home from Africa.

^{The holiday season is upon us. And many of you have shared your angst about what could happen around the table; there’s potential for explosive conversations that could harm the relationships. Or maybe for some of you, the time around the table is just, well, boring. No one ever really says anything, just a lot of small talk, and you usually leave feeling like it was a waste of time.}

^{So I thought, what if this year we got intentional about our time around the table.}

^{What is this year we showed up?}

Abraham and Sarah and Hagar is a crazy story from the Bible that pastors often use as biblical support for telling women to go back and submit to their abusive husbands.

Does this familiar passage ask women to submit to their abusive husband’s authority? Hmm, well, perhaps it doesn’t. Are we really seeing what our Bible says?

I’m learning a new skill when reading the bible; it’s a skill teaching me to look for women.

For example, I’ll ask my students to turn to a familiar passage like Luke 10, the story of Mary and Martha. And I ask them what they learned about this passage. Usually, they tell me it has something to do with having a quiet time with Jesus. I say, let’s take another look.

Today I want to talk about God’s people being condescending. Yes, condescending, not in the way we’ve come to understand that word, to be patronizing or act superior. No, not that but rather what the term used to mean.

Many of you out there have to go against the grain, transgress gendered boundaries, and in doing so, you've disappointed your parents, partner, or faith community.

What I want you to know is you have not disappointed Jesus.

It has been a year. A loooong year. More like two years. We might need to step away from all the madness and get a word from God. Just a word. Something God might want to say to you personally.

So on today's podcast, I've asked my daughter to read to you, and through that reading, I pray the Spirit speaks.

A word.

A word for you.

I have to be honest with you my faith looks different for me now. Some of the things I used to believe I don’t any longer, and I’m trying to figure out the complexities of how to love a mentally ill family member or hold on to hope when sexism continues to rain, not only in the culture but in our churches. Issues have gotten more complex and more nuanced, so what we’re gonna do is we’re going to look back on these issues faith hope & love with a whole lot of wrinkles.

I’m older, and I’m looking back in my rearview mirror, where I see a more wrinkled faith. What I thought in my younger years, you know this escalator theology that would always go onward and upward, well we’re throwing stinking thinking out the window. 

Let’s revisit this topic, it’s that important.

I've sat with many married women who have this ache to be desired by their husbands, not just sexually but in all kinds of ways. And I've heard it from my single friends and my aging friends, who worry that they will become invisible and in my kid'’ lives and my own life and marriage. And we've all experienced it in our friendships, this wanting to be wanted. The longing to be chosen, to belong.

PLUS

I have some thoughts about ableism. If you don't know what that is, welcome to the club. I didn't either until my friend, Renee, said, hey, if you're going to be doing some stuff on the body, then I highly recommended you read, Sitting Pretty. The View from my ordinary resilient disabled body by Rebekah Taussig, which I did. Now let me share some thoughts.

I’m not against thin, sexy, young, or having babies. But that story isn’t big enough, complex enough to capture what it means to walk around in our bodies. I by no means have all the answers. What I do have are more important questions. Questions that go beyond, “Are my legs long, thin, or tan enough?”

Trust me; your body needs to hear this.

Today is June 29th. Three years ago today, Steve and I were on the road, somewhere near Nashville, Tenn, when I received a call from Hampton. I will never forget the sound of my son's voice. He wailed, "Mom, Cameron killed himself." I was in shock, and suddenly it felt like I couldn't breathe. I don't even remember what I said; there are no mothering books for this one, but I know we turned around, went straight to the Nashville airport, and back to Texas. 

Think about it for a second your physical body identifies who you come from?

Now hold onto that because it sets us up for what God said in our creation story, “Let us make humans in our image, to be like ourselves, male and female.” So basically, God is saying the triune God put a splash of God within her, something that when she sees her reflection, she’ll know who she is, Who God is, where she comes from, and why she’s here.

I reached out to a bunch of guys, white male Christians between the ages of 35- 65, men who have been raised and served in the conservative evangelical church, pastors, preachers, worship leaders, lay leaders in our churches.

I hope that this conversation will lead you to have a conversation with the men you know, and together maybe we Christians, through the power of the spirit and name of Jesus Christ, might - reshape the church's view – of men and women.

I've talked to many women about their bodies, but I've never spoken with men. So today, we are changing that in our conversation with Todd Phillips. Let's see what the culture and the church are teaching about the male body image.

In today's episode of Jackie Always Unplugged, we're diving into what the church teaches us about the female body. And As I said, we should expect a better story than we get from Instagram or Tik Toc, or Netflix.

Well - let me ask you? Do we?

Take a moment and ponder, think back to Sunday school, middle school, youth group, beach camp, summer camp, bible studies, small groups, maybe you attended a Song of Solomon conference, or it was a sermon from the pulpit. What spoken or unspoken messages did you receive about your female body? What messages didn't you receive? That's also a message.

What did you learn about the female body?

It's time we discuss our bodies. Yeah, I know a very painful subject. The pandemic hasn't helped. There have been zoom calls and covid pounds and bathing suit weather is around the corner. And no, this isn't a push for you to join some beach body program. What I want us to do is talk about why we hate our bodies and how we might start to live confidently in our skin, yes, even with Zoom chins and covid pounds.

Over the next five episodes, we will work our way through 1) how our family and culture talk about our bodies, 2) what the church teaches about our bodies. Then 3) I'm talking to a male pastor about what men learn about their bodies, then 4) what God says, then we will close the series talking about desire, which may not seem like it fits but stick with me, it will.

Jackie’s I’m Enough Masterclass course on body image.

In the last podcast, I spoke with Beth Allison Barr about her book, The Making of Biblical Womanhood. The premise behind the book is simple; biblical womanhood isn’t biblical. Beth argues it’s merely a disguise for promoting patriarchy and subjugating.

So I want to share how the idea of biblical womanhood tends to show up in our faith communities. Because I think, more often than not, it’s expressed in very subtle ways.

Today we are talking with Dr. Beth Barr, author of The Making of Biblical Womanhood, which implies she is not God-designed but rather a human-idea. 

One of the things we pick up in evangelicalism is that Biblical womanhood is God's design. "It's right there in the bible," plain and simple. But in fact, it's just patriarchy in disguise. Patriarchy is present in our culture, and it was also present in Biblical times. As Carolyn Custis James reminds us, patriarchy is the background of the bible, but it's not the message.