1.2 Preview of Model

Today, I can understand that what goes on in the Big Room of my Madwoman story, what we hear in the sermons of men, began as a way to mitigate the distance between human and divine. In women’s lives we find other meanings and messages, still within the story of the Evangelical Christian faith, by which to know Christian truth in human lives. How do we bring the Madwoman out of the attic? How do we carry the magic of the attic – the feminine, mystery, calling, immanent presence, creativity, the paradoxes of mercy and justice, of powerful and powerless, and more – into our congregations, communities, and theology? How do we honor the divine as made known in women’s lives?

One way to approach bringing the Madwoman out of the attic is through women’s experiences of evangelical Christian faith. How can women’s experience of “otherness”* in the Evangelical Christian church be leveraged for change in that community? Through many of the courses during the Whole Systems Design (WSD) Master’s program I have been exploring women’s spirituality and reflecting on my own experience of the evangelical Christian church. I applied to the program with a desire to learn how story can be used for change. At the time, I was particularly interested in the written word, however my studies attended more to the words spoken in a group. This shift strongly shaped my response to the question.

First, it reminded me of the significance of storytelling in a women’s group I participated in as an undergraduate studying at an evangelical Christian college. This influenced the first part of my model – inviting women to form intimate groups where they can share personal stories about their evangelical Christian experience. Groups like this offer a safe and supportive space in which the story of faith can be articulated from a woman’s point of view. Here, women can engage scripture and theology beginning with their own lives. The relationships cultivated in these groups provide companions with whom to navigate the tension between the worlds women occupy and assuage the feeling of otherness.

Second, studying the power of stories told in groups prepared me to employ story differently than I had in the past. The second part of the model is to bring women and church leaders together to share stories. In addition to affirming individual experience and bonding women who share similar perceptions, storytelling bridges people who have different understandings of the same group. As women and church leaders connect personally they can mutually create a new story for the evangelical Christian church. My vision is that through this process women’s insight and understandings of the faith will reach the larger body of believers. In this way the community meets the magic of the attic as it is expressed in many voices. As the community grows to more fully know and understand its whole self it is equipped to more fully engage and embody the gospel.

* “Other” is a word often used to denote individuals and groups identified as not sharing the criteria established as the norm. This boundary setting is a means of recognizing the traits or values that characterize a given entity. (Smith & Berg, 1987, pp. 102-108) It can also be used as an expression of power, consciously or otherwise, to assert the value of one group over the other. This sense of difference is especially acute when the criteria of inclusion are not articulated but instead go unstated as if natural, regular, and the only way that could be. Sometimes the traits that compose the norm can only be identified following an experience where their opposites are normal. For example, worshiping in a spiritual tradition or community that explicitly includes the feminine can help a woman identify the language or behavior that makes masculine the norm and feminine as other.