'Mean Girls' in Ministry

I finally got around to watching the movie 'Mean Girls,' which I've been meaning to do for a couple years now since it was made. I had a feeling it would help me come to terms with a few things.

'Mean Girls' chronicles a year in the life of a high school girl who's new and doesn't know how the typical social caste works. She ends up in the circle of the 'mean girls,' who are always cruel, humiliating, and manipulative towards everyone else, but still people look up to them as cool. Once she sees them for what they are, she tries to destroy them, but is herself destroyed in the process. So she has to find a way to seek healing for herself as well as the whole school.

I wanted to watch this because of the things which I've seen in seminary and ministry among women that I simply do not like. No, that's not strong enough. I am totally disillusioned by some of the things I see going on among women in power, in ministry and in seminary education, that only serve to hurt--other women in particular, sometimes to the point of forcing more vulnerable students out of the schools altogether. I have been hurt by these power games, and I've had plenty of friends hurt too. It would be easy to run away. It's harder to know how to work for change. And I don't want to become like that either, to have myself changed for the worse. There's a long list of women in ministry and women teaching in seminaries that I frankly don't want to be like, 'when I grow up.'

I don't do very well in challenging cruel and humiliating words, or manipulation, or any of the 'soft abuses,' such as verbal, emotional, or psychological abuse, or any of the other ways a person can use an institution to crush another person. Maybe it is because the seminary is the place where the institutions of religion and academy combine that it is a place vulnerable to such abuses.

Now, if I haven't said it before, I'm not talking about my female classmates, or even women who are newly colleagues in ministry, regardless of their age. The women in my seminary classes I've known, on the whole, have been wonderful sources of support. I think this is because we are all brought into the same place as students, facing the same challenges--at least in this one part of our lives. I don't know if I could say it of every seminary, but for now, this is what I see.

I've theorized here before, and elsewhere, that women in power, even at the height of their careers, still face the glass ceiling of tradition above them, still desire the esteem of their male colleagues and admiration of their male subordinates, but feel the advance of age and death that claims us all; in the process, female subordinates can only appear to them as threats until they find contentment with their own lives' work, and choose to prepare the next generation to carry on. I try to remember this when I am recovering from the latest blows. It doesn't always help.

I do worry that I will become like this also, that any step I make to lead others will somehow unwittingly cause me to treat 'subordinates' the way I've been treated. It makes me not want to hire anyone or ask volunteers for help. I don't want to give orders, and really, I don't want to lead at all. I'm still less afraid of having someone lead me than of stepping out and causing harm.

But no, there have to be other ways, ways of leading through healing. Or healing through leading. I think it'll be hard work. And as with many things, I don't know that I'll succeed. I do know I want to lash out sometimes, okay, many times, and make life as hard for them as they've made it for me. I also know that will only make things worse. I hope I can resist the temptation.

At least 'Mean Girls' has a happy ending. Relationships are restored, and even transformed. It doesn't have to be the way it was. Sometimes I think that if we let another generation of women pass, things will mellow out, but there's no guarantee of that. Some intervention is probably needed.

I hope happy endings in this situation won't end up only a thing of the movies.

Charlie Wilson's War

I went out to see Charlie Wilson's War at the cineplex this evening in Mason City (incidentally, where the cineplex seemed to be doing a brisk business on Christmas afternoon. This is perhaps how we Iowans survive the holidays).

It was a movie that hit a bit close to home, or one such adopted home of mine as Afghanistan. I trust that those of you reading this will know history and therefore I can't really spoil the ending of this movie about the Americans--Soviets--Mujaheddin in Afghanistan in the 70s. Still, skip the next paragraph if you really need to:

The end of the movie, though victorious in a billion-dollar battle to push back the Soviets, is that once the battle is won, Congress won't even approve a mere million to rebuild the schools in a country where half the population is under 14 years old. The character who knows the situation best says, you mustlisten, the crazies are already coming in and setting up camp. The rest, as we know, is history. Charlie Wilson, though honored for his service to the country, later says, "These things happened and they were glorious. Trouble is, we F***'d up the end game."

We forgot to clean up our mess, and we undid any good we might have done. Human rights plunged to even worse conditions than they had previously. Sound familiar? And so goes Iraq in '91, Afghanistan again in 2001, and Iraq in 2007. What have we done and what misery have we brought on these poor people? And, having abandoned them or neglected them, how can we blame them when they turn to the extremists?

When I was in Afghanistan in 2005, the civil society leaders from all different backgrounds said the same thing--that Americans had abandoned them 25 years ago, and terrible things resulted. We cannot abandon them again, without rebuilding schools and hospitals and roads and the things that make daily life and survival possible. And yet we dashed off to the next war, and perhaps even yet the next.

The movie theater was nearly silent when the film finished. Everyone it seemed took the lesson to heart, at least in that moment. I wonder if it might change hearts for good.