Reading Rachel Held Evans

It was sometime in 2013 when my husband recommended a book to me. It was a nonfiction book by a woman whose blog he had come across; he’d read it and thought it might connect with me. I’m a huge reader, and Eric doesn’t have much time for leisure reading, and making recommendations was a rare thing, so I set it on my bedside table with every intention of reading it. However, a problem arose. While I did much of my reading in the evening in the time immediately before bed, much of that reading took place on my Kindle, so I wouldn’t wake up Eric if I was up late or if I woke in the middle of the night. It was unlikely that I would want to start a new paperback book in the time right before bed. So it sat there.

The book was The Year of Biblical Womanhood by Rachel Held Evans. The cover was yellow and had the image of a grinning Rachel with a head covering sitting cross-legged on the roof of a house.

Based on that alone, I imagined it to be a flippant book, with a trite tone. So it continued to sit on my bedside table, waiting for me to be in a lighthearted enough mood.

The summer of 2013 was our first summer in Wisconsin. Eric had been admitted to a program in St. Louis for five weeks. When he initially applied, we imagined that if he got in, all of us would relocate. When it came down to the specifics, though, I began to think that would be hard to pull off. For starters, if he went down their solo, there was housing already lined up for the participants. If we went as a family of three, we’d have to find space off campus, with convenient access to public transit and/or the college, since we’d only have one car. Furthermore, we have two cats, so we’d need to find a place that would also welcome them. Add in the fact we’d be paying rent still on our Wisconsin townhouse, and that I had a sense of Green Bay and had formed relationships already, I began to think it was best if we wished Eric well and sent him on his way solo, instead of creating more of a financial burden to move to an unfamiliar place and try to make the most of our five weeks there. We planned a couple visits to break up the time apart.

There’s more I can say about the summer, how I initially planned on making a plea on Facebook for being included, invited over for meals. But the first week was ideal, with several friends asking if this was during Eric’s time away, inviting us to accompany them to storytime and then cupcakes afterwards, to the farmer’s market and then dinner afterwards, and so on. I felt like we’d be fine, no public reminders needed. But then there were some lonely stretches.

Our tenth anniversary passed with us in separate states. The St. Louis program finished up in mid July, and we were going to celebrate our anniversary belatedly with a trip to New York City.

As I was packing for our trip, I picked up the Rachel Held Evans book; it seemed like a good choice for airplane reading, since electronics were not yet allowed on and in use during takeoff and landing.

Our early flight was supposed to be a direct flight to New York City, getting us there by 11 am. But we woke up to learn our flight had been cancelled. We ended up on a flight to Atlanta, but we spent hours on the ground there, sometimes boarding a plane only to have to disembark again. It took us a full day to get to NYC; we finally were on our way to the hotel at 11 pm at night, twelve hours after our expected arrival, now short a travel day.

During this long travel delay, with all its hiccups, I spent the time knitting and reading, beginning The Year of Biblical Womanhood. I immediately understood why Eric recommended this book to me, why he’d periodically check to see if I’d started it yet.

Rachel Held Evans writes in a way that’s accessible, intelligent, and genuine. She laid out what led her to this project. What I worried would be flippant turned out to be grounded in heartfelt searches.

At one point, we were waiting on the runway in Atlanta, trying yet again to get to New York. Eric and I were separated by a row or two since we were just lucky to get seats at all when our direct flight was cancelled.

I was reading Rachel’s insight into the miracle where Jesus healed the woman with chronic bleeding. This was a familiar story for me: a woman has been bleeding for twelve years, with no relief. She has heard of this Jesus person. In her desperation at her current state, she reaches out to touch his robe. Jesus feels the energy flow from him and wants to learn who touched him. His disciples, seemingly annoyed at this question when they’re in the midst of a bustling crowd, try to dismiss it altogether. He insists he felt the power leave, so the woman comes forward, penitent. She admits what she has done, Jesus says not only is she healed, her sins are forgiven.

In this particular chapter, Rachel’s focus is on the Jewish rules surrounding menstrual bleeding. She communicates how women were considered unclean when they were on their periods. This wasn’t new information to me -- I remember reading all the cleansing rituals in the Bible surrounding this. But Rachel spells out what this means in day-to-day realities. Since women were unclean until their period was over and they properly bathed, they couldn’t have physical contact with anyone. To do so would make others unclean, as well.

Rachel shares about how modern-day Jews behave during their periods and how she practiced the same rules for a month. Rachel, in an effort not to make every place she sat on unclean, carried around a stadium seat. Within that levity, though, she stresses how hard it was to keep her distance from her husband Dan. Until they weren’t supposed to touch, she didn’t realize how much incidental contact they had in a day; a shoulder brush here, a hand on an arm there. A hug, a kiss.

With that lens, she returns to the story of the miracle. For over a decade, this woman has been marked as unclean, as less than, as other. She has not been allowed physical contact, for to do so would cause others to also be unclean.

How long would we last in such a state? This woman, in her desperation, is determined to find healing. She has found no success with doctors, so word of Jesus must have held hope for her, one more possibility. She weaves through the crowd and touches the hem of Jesus’ robe.

When Jesus paused and insisted to know who had touched him, she must have expected censure. All of her life she has known bleeding made one unclean. To willingly touch another, to make another unclean -- and a man, at that -- shows how desperate she was; she couldn’t go on with her status quo, with her outsider status.

Jesus looks on her, knows that he has every right to judge and condemn. Instead, though, he sees her worth. And he heals and blesses her.

Every time I think of that account, I get all weepy. It particularly impacted me that first time, as I was sitting on the plane next to a businessman. I felt like I was barely holding it together; I was subtly trying to take deep breaths so I don’t collapse in sobs at the beauty of it all. At how I am getting this image of how radical Jesus truly was. That kind of a man is worth following. One who has every right to judge given the law, but one who recognizes society has failed this woman. Love, not judgment, was due.

I found myself in the pages time and again. I felt seen. That book gripped me, and I was pushing the title into friends’ hands at every opportunity; I kept finding ways to bring it up in conversation, as so many things could call it to mind.

That summer Eric was in St. Louis was after his reading of the book. When he returned home that summer, we had some wide-ranging conversations and he shared several realizations he’d had.

He thought he had a balanced, modern view of our division of labor, of our equality. But he revealed to me that it was natural, while he was in St. Louis, to take for granted that I’d stay home and care for Brennan. However, had the tables been turned, would he have been as gracious and accommodating and supportive if I had the opportunity to be away from home for five weeks, leaving him with sole parenting responsibilities? He didn’t like that answer, as he acknowledged he likely would have grumbled, would have felt like he was doing me a favor to step up like that.

It marked a concerted effort from Eric of trying to identify my passions and encourage me in them, even more than previously.

Since that pivotal summer, Rachel Held Evans became a voice I respected and followed, someone who was thoughtful and intelligent, someone who had humor and didn't shy away from defending those who were vulnerable and found in the margins.

When I learned of Rachel's hospitalization and coma last year, she was heavy on my heart. Rachel and her family were often on my mind and in my prayers that Lenten season.

One year ago today, our family was in IKEA. I was waiting in line for some Swedish meatballs. The rest of my family had been content with hot dogs and pizza downstairs, so they were at a table nearby as I queued up to order. The line was long and unmoving, so I pulled out my phone to pass the time.

I read the news that Rachel had died, and I lost my breath and my appetite. I put away my empty tray, letting Eric know I was no longer hungry and didn't want lunch after all. He thought it was due to me feeling bad about making them wait when they'd already eaten and was trying to reassure me they were fine. I tried to relay the news stoically, but I could only say the words, "Rachel Held Evans died," before I started crying. My face was scrunched up, my throat ached from trying to shield my emotions from the strangers around me. He held me as I tried to gain a measure of calm.

I'm pretty open with my emotions, but most vulnerable conversations happen in environments where my girls aren't present; they rarely see me cry and both had concerned looks on their faces. I tried to explain that someone had died, not someone I knew in person, but an author that meant a lot to me, and I was sad because of it.

When we think about where we were when pivotal events happened, standing in the IKEA cafeteria when I learned Rachel died comes rushing to mind.

Losing Rachel was hard for me. For us. She was a lodestar. I thought she'd be here for decades yet, teaching us, stretching us, shepherding us. She was a fierce, brave leader with a prophetic voice.

I credit her for speaking words into my doubt, for creating a space for Christians who have left evangelicalism to find a new home, to wrestle with our doubts and become stronger through it all. To acknowledge the role our evangelical roots had in shaping us, even as we now dissociate from features of it. What a messy reality, but what a gift to not be alone.

Rachel's funeral was streamed, and it was meaningful to participate so as to grieve collectively the loss of a dear life. And my kids got to see me again cry for a woman I'd never met but still mourned.

I know what it is to survive, what emerging on that first anniversary of a devastating loss can be like. I can't imagine what it has been like for her husband, for her young children, for her family and friends. I can only share what it has been like for me on the distant periphery.

I grieve the words that died with her, words that could have challenged us, bolstered us. I grieve her absence in the lives of her family and friends.

So today, I again remember Rachel Held Evans. I don't censure myself for this past year's sadness because others had it worse or had more of a reason to grieve (I could cite Brene Brown here, on how admitting your realities doesn't take away from anyone else's struggles, or even Dan's own words today, as he reflects on the past year without Rachel). I acknowledge the way she shaped me while never knowing me.

I think of the gift her life gave me, and how there will be others who will continue to come across Rachel's words at pivotal points in their own lives, who will find themselves changed because of her faithfulness, her questioning, her writing.