Open Letter to Baylor University

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Open Letter to Baylor University-

Who is going to make a decision to stand and do the right thing? The issue appears to be a chronic, heart condition from Baylor’s top leaders.

Everyone knows that the sound bytes we get from the media can be skewed one way or the other and sometimes one is forced to read between the lines.  First of all, most of the news coming out of Baylor over the last year has been negative. I have no doubt that it has been tough for all of those in leadership.  Let me say this as an alum from the outside looking in: the firing of a President and head football coach falls under consequences for your actions. Decisions were made, unwise decisions, and there are consequences for those actions. That is part of life. The real test starts now.

After taking decisive action in the beginning, it seems even more important now for everyone to be working even harder to do the right thing. The best thing. Even if many are just trying to save face. Save a brand. A university’s image that has already been severely tarnished.  So Baylor, why are you now not making EVERY EFFORT to move TOWARDS the women who are the survivors of bad decisions made?  It sounds as if, at the very least, you are NOT moving toward them. And after the devastating report from Pepper Hamilton, it sounds like you have been (and are continuing to be) OBSTRUCTIVE in the process.  Either way, the effort is insufficient and UNACCEPTABLE.

SHAME on you, Baylor University for perpetuating the myth that she is to blame for the sexual abuse/assault perpetrated against her.  Shame on you for persecuting an act of bravery as these women come forward to tell their story. Shame on you for not demanding justice for them. SHAME on you for not sending the strongest possible message that harm to another human being will not be tolerated. It will be justly punished. Shame on you for not deciding to protect these women even now with EVERYTHING on the line.  SHAME ON YOU, Baylor University, my alma mater.

If they thought you would listen, they might say something like this:

When learning and working are dehumanized – when you no longer see us and no longer encourage our daring, or when you only see what we produce or how we perform – we disengage and turn away from the very things that the world needs from us: our talent, our ideas, and our passion. What we ask is that you engage with us, show up beside us, and learn from us. Feedback is a function of respect.   Daring Greatly Leadership Manifesto by Brene Brown 

The best universities are the ones that bring flourishing for their students. The best universities draw out the talents, ideas and passions of their students and I felt like Baylor did this for me.  I’m horrified to see what it has done in recent years.

I made my dearest friends in the world as I traversed through Collins hall, later an apartment close to campus and lastly a quaint, somewhat dilapidated house fondly known as “813”.  I was at the historic, homecoming game in 1997 when we beat the Longhorns on our home turf and charged the field to take the goalpost down.  I ran the Bear trail, I hung out at Common Grounds, and I joined a great sorority. I even raised money for Baylor as part of “Stu Fu” (Student Foundation).

I can’t claim to be a second, third or fourth generation Baylor Bear, but I was a first.

As it stands today, I very well may be the last.  The only.

Frankly, I have not regretted my decision to go to Baylor until now.  I made a thoughtful choice over 20 years ago and turned down an acceptance letter to be a Vanderbilt Commodore.

Even in a state where football reigns, not all of us care most about the success of the football team.

What if you had led the way one whom who you will honor this weekend has led?  Might this situation have played out differently.  #preemptivelove

Could the brave leaders of Baylor University please stand up?

Bethany Lesch Grubb ’99

 

 

 

Patient, loving witnesses

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I am a little late to the game in regards to Glennon Doyle Melton (author of the blog Momastery). I just picked up her book, Love Warrior, this week and I  felt like I’d sat down and had coffee with a lifelong friend.  Oh my gosh, me too.

I explain that addictions are safe little deadly hiding places where sensitive people retreat from love and pain.

Those words resonated up from the page.  That could have been me.  I still worry on hard days that I won’t keep pressing in, but that I’ll hide.  Some days, hiding just feels easier. Hiding feels quieter and safer.

I watched the special on Elizabeth Vargas and her struggle to admit an addiction to alcohol that had soothed the overwhelming burden of anxiety in her life.  I was so struck by her description of what the first five to ten seconds as the cameras rolled looked liked in her world.  3,2,1-heart pounding, can’t breathe, her right arm reaching way out across the counter as she sits, right hand gripping the hard surface, her left thumb digging into her engagement ring on her left hand.  White knuckle fear.  We do this.  I do this.  With our kids.  With our marriages.  With the future.

“We think our job as humans is to avoid pain, people who are hurting don’t need Avoiders, Protectors, or Fixers.  What we need are patient, loving witnesses. People to sit quietly and hold space for us. People to stand in helpless vigil to our pain. I promise that I’ll be that kind of mother, that kind of friend. I’ll show up and stand humble in the face of a loved one’s pain.  I’ll admit I’m as empty-handed, dumb-struck, an out of ideas as she is.  I won’t let my discomfort with her pain keep me from witnessing it for her. I’ll never try to grab or fix her pain, because I know that for as long as it takes, her pain will also be her comfort. It will be all she has left. Grief is love’s souvenir.  The Journey of the Warrior. This is it.  The journey is learning that pain, like love, is simply something to surrender to.  I’ll be helpless and broken and still-mutual surrender.  The courage to surrender comes from knowing that the love and pain will almost kill us, but not quite.”  (my paraphrase of Glennon’s words, Chapter 12)

I texted the underlined page of this book to my sister, because I felt thankful.  She and I had just stood in our childhood home the week before and been patient, loving witnesses to one another.  We didn’t hide, we surrendered to the pain.  We put our arms around each others’ shoulders and tears streamed down our faces as  It is Well played over us.  We held each other in the unexplained infertility and in the anxiety. We said, me too.

“Through it all, through it all,  My eyes are on you, Through it all, Through it all, It is well.” The music filled the room.  Do you believe it?  Okay, me too. 

“The waves and wind still know His Name, It is well with my soul.”

I have spent so  much of my life avoiding the pain, but there is much to learn in this place. Today, I’ll dig in and not choose to hide.

It is well with my soul.

 

You Make Me Brave

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When things in life take your voice or leave you without one, it can be a journey to find it again. Sometimes the words are wonky or you don’t even recognize the sound, but you keep trying.  And it is an interesting moment when you realize, Oh, I do have a voice.  Like with many things that are lost and grieved, you are never more grateful then when you  have them back.

So, that’s where I am.  In this wonky place of realizing that I have a voice.  That it’s powerful.  That it can be used for good.  Maybe the Lord is raising up women for such a time as this.  We are uniquely created (differently than men) to LEAD our generation against the injustices in the world today.

The lyrics to the song, You Make Me Brave have stayed with me, “For you are for us, you are not against us, Champion of heaven, you made a way for all to enter in.” I had been longing to hear a language spoken that released women to be whom the Lord created us to be, his image-bearers, his warriors. I wrote this book hoping to allow space for a different kind of conversation regarding this very important place of women in the church (all of us) and within the Big “C” church.

My second daughter starts first grade in the fall. One of the most important things she learned in kindergarten was a little mantra (that included motions) she would recite before reading every book, “This is the front of the book, this is the back of the book, this is the spine of the book, this is the title, this is the author, and this is the title page.” Every time.

About a week after I had showed her the cover of my book, she said, “Mom, I can’t believe you’re an author.”  It felt like a sweet, unexpected gift.

So, that did happen.  I wrote a book.  And it’s available! You can also find it at westbowpress.com.  Let’s have the conversation together.

How do we bridge the God Gulf?

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Women do hold up “half the sky”.

This ancient Chinese proverb was captured in the title of Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn’s book and its truth reverberated in my soul.  Their book opened my eyes to many injustices, specifically to women happening across the globe and in our own backyard.  The International Justice Mission works tirelessly to end slavery and human trafficking in many countries including Kenya, the Philippines, and Turkey.  Edna Adan turned her life savings into a modern hospital in Somaliland, the only one of its kind in her country.  They combat the effects of female genital mutilation (FGM), surgically repair fistulas (devastating complication from prolonged labor), deliver babies with the lowest maternal mortality rate, and train midwives and nurses to go out and do the same.  And in America black women are three times more likely to have a preterm birth (less than 36 weeks gestation) than a white woman, the highest associated risk factor with infant mortality rate (death under one year old).  No single reason for this devastating statistic has emerged even though very smart people are investigating and researching reasons for this phenomenon.

The quote from Half the Sky that has stayed with me is “If there is to be a successful movement on behalf of women in poor countries, it will have to bridge the God Gulf. Secular bleeding hearts and religious bleeding hearts will have to forge a common cause. That’s what happened two centuries ago in the abolitionist movement, when liberal deists and conservative evangelicals joined forces to overthrow slavery.”

I clearly needed to brush up on my abolitionist movement history, because the fact that these two groups had joined forces EVER gave me hope.  Would you like to know who LED the charge?  It was women.

In the early 1830s, a small group of black and white American women came together to fight against slavery.  As you can imagine, they were met with great opposition and even when violence threatened their meetings, they carried on.

Margaret Hope Bacon wrote, “We must meet together, to strengthen ourselves to discharge our duty as the mothers of the next generation-as the wives and sisters of this. We cannot descend to bandy words with those who have no just sense of their own duty or of ours. . This is a crisis which demands of us not only mint, and annise and cummin, but also judgement, mercy and faith; and God being our helper, none of these shall be required in vain of our hands. Our sons shall not blush for those who bore them.”  More information on their little movement can be found in a book aptly named, the Abolitionist Sisterhood.

Maybe that’s one way we come together, across racial, cultural, and religious gulfs, to fight the injustices of the world.  We come together on mission.  We come together because of the things we agree on-slavery, human trafficking, and babies dying too soon-are unjust. Do we agree on that?

 

 

Scary not dangerous

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Stepping out of our comfort zones is no doubt scary, but it is not dangerous.

Inviting a new person into your home can feel scary, but it is not dangerous.  You may worry more about what your home looks like, you may work a little harder on dinner, and you may hope that your conversation flows easily.  Sometimes things don’t go according to plan, and the meat gets burned.  Maybe you are so worried about saying the wrong thing, that you say the wrong thing.  Fear creeps in and you wonder, “Why did I even take this step?”

About a month ago, a group of women gathered in my home and we shared a meal together.  One of the women said, “I’ve actually never been in the home of a white person before.” I felt shock and then grief. This is a tragedy. For me as well.

I think what is dangerous is staying in our comfort zones.  When we stay in our comfort zones we think that the outlook on this world looks pretty hopeless.  Why would it ever change?  I do not think it will, if we stay trapped in a cocoon.  The problem with a cocoon is that it is isolating and dark and only supposed to be for a period of time.  It may look safe from the outside, but it is difficult to see if there is life inside.

Even though it feels (is!) scary, let’s show our children what it looks like to be brave. There is a richness and a joy found here. The danger is if they are not given the opportunity.

 

What kind of nation will we be?

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I drove through my city today with American flags at half mast.  And in my neighborhood yellow and blue ribbons adorn trees reminding all of us of the small life we lost too soon and reminding us of the men and women who protect us everyday.

So, last night in Dallas, in a city and in a neighborhood still grieving, we gathered.  These women.  And we prayed.  We cried and we prayed.  We let the words that we are no longer a slave to fear wash over us. We stepped toward each other.

Now I sit with these words said after the  death of one of the bravest men to walk this planet and am overwhelmed by how apropos they are today.

Robert Kennedy gave the greatest speech of his life announcing the death of Martin Luther King, Jr. on the back of a flat bed truck. April 4th, 1968.

“I have some very sad news for all of you, and, I think, sad news for all of our fellow citizens, and people who love peace all over the world; and that is that Martin Luther King was shot and was killed tonight in Memphis, Tennessee.

Martin Luther King dedicated his life to love and to justice between fellow human beings. He died in the cause of that effort. In this difficult day, in this difficult time for the United States, it’s perhaps well to ask what kind of a nation we are and what direction we want to move in. For those of you who are black — considering the evidence evidently is that there were white people who were responsible — you can be filled with bitterness, and with hatred, and a desire for revenge.

We can move in that direction as a country, in greater polarization — black people amongst blacks, and white amongst whites, filled with hatred toward one another. Or we can make an effort, as Martin Luther King did, to understand, and to comprehend, and replace that violence, that stain of bloodshed that has spread across our land, with an effort to understand, compassion, and love.

For those of you who are black and are tempted to fill with — be filled with hatred and mistrust of the injustice of such an act, against all white people, I would only say that I can also feel in my own heart the same kind of feeling. I had a member of my family killed, but he was killed by a white man.

But we have to make an effort in the United States. We have to make an effort to understand, to get beyond, or go beyond these rather difficult times.

My favorite poem, my — my favorite poet was Aeschylus. And he once wrote:

Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget
falls drop by drop upon the heart,
until, in our own despair,
against our will,
comes wisdom
through the awful grace of God.

What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness, but is love, and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or whether they be black.

So I ask you tonight to return home, to say a prayer for the family of Martin Luther King — yeah, it’s true — but more importantly to say a prayer for our own country, which all of us love — a prayer for understanding and that compassion of which I spoke.

We can do well in this country. We will have difficult times. We’ve had difficult times in the past, but we — and we will have difficult times in the future. It is not the end of violence; it is not the end of lawlessness; and it’s not the end of disorder.

But the vast majority of white people and the vast majority of black people in this country want to live together, want to improve the quality of our life, and want justice for all human beings that abide in our land.

And let’s dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world. Let us dedicate ourselves to that, and say a prayer for our country and for our people. ” (emphasis added) 

That’s the choice.  What will we choose?  What kind of nation will we be?

I am going to stand. I wish in 2016 there wasn’t fear in saying I am going to stand with my brothers and sisters who are a different color than me.  I choose love and compassion.  I choose justice for all. I am going to get out of my comfort zone and reach out. I want to keep taking the next step, and love others well.

Will you join me?  We will have to stand together.

Just Say Something

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I watched Amiyrah Martin‘s video message yesterday and I cried.  Her words rang in my ear.  “We are dying out here.  Just say something.”

It’s not okay.  What’s happening in our country today is not okay.

Innocent men and women are losing their lives.  I hear mothers of toddlers fearful of what life will look like for their child in this country.  I hear mothers who are afraid for their sons-afraid for their sons who look taller, bigger, older than their age.  What if they don’t know you are only eleven?  I hear mothers who live in fear of their son’s walk, his voice or a gesture being mistaken as a threat.  What if they don’t hear how well-spoken you are? What if they don’t see the kindness on your face?  What if they don’t even give you a chance?  #blacklivesmatter

You guys, these are mothers with young, beautiful children who should not be weeping over the future of their children and yet they are, in this country.  In the home of the free and the brave. White privilege is a real thing and I sadly had not thought much about it until about 18 months ago.  Now, I can’t stop seeing it and grieving over it.

Let me just say, it’s been a beautiful first step to join with my sisters as we take steps to build a bridge.  I was so nervous before the first meeting, but you know one of the best places to connect is through the hardest bits of our lives-the pain, the things that make us vulnerable.

Take a first step towards someone who has skin of a different color. Invite them into your home.  You may be amazed.