Laughing at Patriarchy
In honor of women’s history month
I have a friend who always makes me laugh every time I am with her. It is laughter so genuinely hilarious because Brooke has learned through deep pain and sorrow how to chuckle.
She cracks up at the ridiculousness of the narrow-minded thinking so prevalent in the Church. I have never met anyone like that, and I gotta tell you, it is refreshing. She helps me see the comedy in it all when I tend to feel anger.
Just recently, between fits of giggles, Brooke told me a story of a pastor being caught out in his patronizing ways. One day, she and her husband were visiting a church, and the pastor, with his arms on their shoulders (“he was so stuck in the 50s, bless him!”) kept turning to her husband and asking him questions about theology, about Bible translation, etc. At one point, the pastor turned to her and said, “Sorry, (little lady), this must be really boring to you.”
Her husband, remembering this story interjected, “Oh! He shouldn’t have said that! He had NO idea!” They are both missionaries with Wycliffe, a Christian organization that translates the Bible into tribal languages. First, it requires learning a new unwritten language then translating the Bible into that language.
