0034 - The Weight - Tiffany Bluhm - Whose Feet Are You Sitting At?
Shownotes:
It’s easy to become weary with the weight of the suffering the world is experiencing right now. When we consider the larger scope of social justice, it can be difficult to narrow down our role in God’s work of healing and reconciliation. All of us experience suffering, tension, and insecurity at some level, but as we are filled with God’s immense mercy, goodness and hope can leak out of each of us, spilling into the areas that break our heart the most.
This is a journey that author, speaker, and podcast host Tiffany Bluhm knows well. She is the author of the upcoming book Prey Tell: Why We Silence Women Who Tell the Truth and How Everyone Can Speak Up. As a woman of color who has served both inside and outside of the church, Tiffany offers a unique perspective on the invitations the church extends to marginalized followers of Jesus. Tiffany has learned to lean into the power of her “home team,” women and men who have celebrated her spiritual gifts and calling as both a woman of faith and a woman in ministry.
She joins Eddie and Chris to discuss the ways Jesus empowered women in the Bible, God’s holy heart for justice, the importance of representation, and how to have an invitational spirit in the church. Tiffany invites us to “call in, not call out” in an effort to humanize the people who think differently than we do. She speaks about how her deep passion for Jesus trickles out into every area of her ministry and acknowledges the divisive nature of Jesus during His ministerial context. She challenges us to consider whose wisdom we are gleaning from, both digitally and personally, and invites us to choose our battles wisely in the calling God has placed on our hearts.
The Weight Afterthoughts
We've realized that a lot of great conversation actually happens AFTER we say goodbye to our guests and turn the microphones off. So, we decided to turn the mics back on (and a camera) and create a new segment called, Afterthoughts.
This will live on our new YouTube channel and you can find our Afterthoughts on this episode NOW!
Resources:
Follow Tiffany Bluhm on the web:
Pre-order Tiffany’s book Prey Tell: Why We Silence Women Who Tell the Truth and How Everyone Can Speak Up here
Check out Tiffany’s podcast “Why Tho” here:
https://www.tiffanybluhm.com/podcast
Follow Tiffany Bluhm on social media:
https://www.facebook.com/TiffanyABluhm/
Full Transcript:
Chris McAlilly 0:00
I'm Chris McAlilly.
Emily Box 0:02
I'm Emily Box.
Eddie Rester 0:03
I'm Eddie Rester, and welcome to The Weight.
Chris McAlilly 0:05
We're here today visiting with a person that Emily Box brought to our attention named Tiffany Bluhm. Who is Tiffany Bluhm?
Emily Box 0:15
Tiffany Bluhm is an author, a speaker, a woman in ministry, a woman who champions and empowers other women. She is the host of Why Tho, and they just talk about all their existential crisis, curiosities, and questions. She is just someone who I look up to and respect so much as a woman in ministry.
Eddie Rester 0:36
She's written several books. "Never Alone" and "She Dreams" are her last two books. She has a book coming out early 2021 called "Pray Tell." And she has a lot to say, a lot of important things to say as a woman of color raising two sons in the Pacific Northwest, just a passionate follower of Jesus Christ, and passionate about who the church can be, I think, in this moment. She talks, she jokes a little bit about the dumpster fire of 2020. But she also points to some good that can come out of this year.
Chris McAlilly 1:10
We talked about motherhood and adoption. We talked about calling and vocation. We talked about what the church is, what the church can be. We talked about kind of renewing the church from the inside or going outside the church to create entrepreneurial, you know, new ministry. The whole conversation I think is inspiring. There are a lot of one liners in here. She's one of those speakers that can speak in aphorisms, which is awesome.
Eddie Rester 1:40
Emily, did you have a favorite one liner from Tiffany today?
Emily Box 1:44
Oh, there were so many good ones.
Eddie Rester 1:47
She talks about one at the end about the farther we get away from the point of pain. You're going to get to that in the podcast. You're gonna love it.
Chris McAlilly 1:54
I thought you were going to talk about muting the haters, man,
Eddie Rester 1:57
Muting the haters.
Emily Box 1:57
Muting the haters. Yes.
Eddie Rester 1:59
Let me just say, if you know a woman in ministry, maybe you are a woman in ministry, listen to the podcast. Share this with other women in ministry. Because a lot of what she has to say, a lot of the conversation is so encouraging, I think, for young women, for young women in ministry. Just really, really great. Emily, before we kick it into the podcast, any final words, anything?
Emily Box 2:24
This was such an exciting day for me. So y'all need to listen for sure.
Eddie Rester 2:29
All right, well do what Emily says, Listen, for sure.
Chris McAlilly 2:32
And then share with your people.
Eddie Rester 2:33
[INTRO] Let's be honest, there are some topics that are too heavy for a 20 minute sermon. There are issues that need conversation, not just explanation.
Chris McAlilly 2:44
We believe that the church is called to engage in a way that honors the weightiness and importance of these topics for how we live faithfully today. We'll cover everything from art to mental health, social injustice to the future of the church.
Eddie Rester 2:55
If it's something that culture talks about, we need to be talking about it, too. [END INTRO]
Eddie Rester 3:02
Today, we're excited to have Tiffany Bluhm on the podcast with us. She is a writer and a speaker. And Tiffany, we're glad to have you.
Tiffany Bluhm 3:12
So glad to be here.
Chris McAlilly 3:14
You should also introduce...
Eddie Rester 3:15
We've got someone else.
Chris McAlilly 3:16
Someone else.
Eddie Rester 3:17
Special guest today: we've got Emily Box, who is one of our ministry fellows this year. Emily, we're glad you're with us today.
Emily Box 3:23
I'm so glad to be here. I'm so excited to be joining Tiffany.
Eddie Rester 3:28
So tell us your connection. I mean, why have we invited you in today?
Emily Box 3:32
Yeah, well, I am a 23-year-old woman in ministry. Just got on at OU and just have been listening to a lot of women in ministry. I think that it's a very timely place to be talking about women in ministry and the work of justice. And so Tiffany was one of those pivotal voices for me to be listening to throughout the summer. She is just a champion of women everywhere and has really helped me in discerning what I want to do with my ministry.
Chris McAlilly 4:10
We're so glad to hear and to introduce our audience to your work, Tiffany. So tell us a little bit about your story.
Tiffany Bluhm 4:18
Yes, absolutely. So I live in the Pacific Northwest, just south of Seattle. I am married. My husband's a realtor. I have two little boys. One is adopted from Uganda. The other one is straight out the chute. Nine and five are those ages. And I entered into full-time church ministry at 19. I didn't have very much money to go to college, so I did a kind of a jumpstart program that Washington State offers and then was able to move abroad and really hone my speaking skills. I knew that I had a passion and call in my life to to preach and teach and was able to really, really practice and love and serve in a culture different than my own.
Tiffany Bluhm 5:01
I grew up in a very rural, white area. I'm East Indian. And so there was so much beauty in that. There was so much good in that, and a lot of challenges, especially in regards to understanding my place and feeling comfortable in my skin. As an Indian woman, especially post 9/11, who has light brown skin, those were not easy days. But I fell so hard for Jesus. I fell so hard in middle school, in high school and knew some sort of ministry capacity was gonna be how I spent my days.
Tiffany Bluhm 5:36
So I worked in church ministry up until just about five years ago; I'm mid 30s now. And I've done a lot of outreach, done a lot of just connecting the parishioners with organization and needs outside the church walls and finding creative ways to do that. I think I'm an entrepreneur at heart, but was able to really apply that passion to a ministry setting. And now I spend my days writing. I travel and speak--well, not currently due to the dumpster fire that is 2020. And I have a podcast as well called Why Tho, answering all the existential crisis questions we asked ourselves, with a fellow author, speaker, giving it all a Christian lens.
Eddie Rester 6:23
Nine and five.... that's, I'm sitting here thinking about the ages of your kids. That's a fun age to be a parent.
Tiffany Bluhm 6:28
Is it? I mean...
Eddie Rester 6:32
My kids are 17 and 19. So I can look back on those days with joy and, you know, warmth on those days. Yeah.
Chris McAlilly 6:39
Yeah, I feel
Tiffany Bluhm 6:40
I needed to hear that.
Chris McAlilly 6:41
Solidarity, sister. We have a nine, five-almost-six-year-old, and a three-year-old on top of that. So.
Tiffany Bluhm 6:50
Oooooh.
Chris McAlilly 6:51
Yeah, so we can talk a little bit more about parenthood later. But for the podcast, you mentioned kind of existential crises. I guess one of the recent episodes I saw was a conversation about faith and politics. What are the other things--I mean, you mentioned the pandemic as well--when you look at 2020, what are people feeling? What are you feeling? What are you sensing right now?
Tiffany Bluhm 7:13
Yeah, I'm going to be very honest with you. I think that specifically in the church, in the evangelical church, there is this new awareness for everyone--no matter where you fall on the values spectrum, no matter where you align yourself with--I think for people of color, like myself, who deeply, deeply loved the church, deeply plan on spending the rest of their life building the church, supporting the church, serving the church, there was this new awareness I had that maybe not everybody valued my experience and my minority narrative in the way that I thought they did. So there's this, "Oh, man, you, you, you feel this way? I, I didn't... I thought we were further along," you know. So I'm kind of in the camp that, like, "Aw, man, I just thought we were farther along than this."
Tiffany Bluhm 8:03
And then there's those who maybe have felt like no, this was always an issue of racial tension and not understanding those who have a different story than your own, or majority narrative versus minority narrative. And I think there's also a hunger. I think we know that God's call for all of us, it transcends politics. It transcends this year. His desire is that we would be one. And that requires listening and learning and sitting at each other's feet.
Tiffany Bluhm 8:38
And that's a hard word. That's a hard word because it places us second. It invites a communal care like we've never seen, like we've never seen. And it admits fault. It invites repentance and invites reconciliation in such a practical way, a micro-systemic and macro way, that it's realizing we have a lot of work to do. So when I think of 2020, obviously, racial tension, this is nothing new. But I think we've hit that fever pitch in a way that we can't ignore this anymore.
Tiffany Bluhm 9:11
And I think, you know, it's interesting, I feel like a few years ago, pastors might have, they might celebrate Black History Month, or they might talk about the unique challenges of our brothers and sisters of color. And now that they're doing that, within the greater context of realizing, "Hey, this is an issue. We've got to lead people through this," and meeting that pushback, I think, is obviously nobody's signing up for that. And I think, you know, this is something we've learned, especially during the Civil Rights Movement, to speak up is not to be divisive. To speak up is not to be divisive. And I think anytime we are rubbed the wrong way, we're like, "Oh, that's divisive," because we don't at first agree with what somebody might come at us with.
Tiffany Bluhm 9:57
But the invitation to be a peacemaker can often feel and be labeled as divisive. But if we look at Christ, and we look at his life, somebody could call him divisive. We could easily say that he picked sides or that he favored one people group or another. And the honest truth is we have a lot of work to do. And we have a long ways to go. And I've found myself in this place of, I wouldn't say re-traumatized for my personal experiences as a woman of color, and as a woman of color in the church with a Black son. But I've been unpleasantly surprised. But I think, you know, specific, anecdotally, I think I'm in a place where I'm like, hey, let's learn together. This is a long road. This is a long road. And may we fight that all God's children would be treated with respect, kindness, offered the same equity and equality that anyone else would. So. It's a long fight, and it's a gospel fight, isn't it? I think this idea that this is a quote-unquote, "social issue," divorced from the church is just ridiculous. It's just ridiculous. Ridiculous. So.
Eddie Rester 11:13
We've been in a lot of conversations recently, around Esau McCaulley's book "Reading While Black." And I don't know if you've had a chance to pick that book up, read it. It's an incredible, incredible read, but part of it is helping people. He's telling it for his community. He's a young, Black scholar, but he writes in a way that those from the majority culture can lean in and listen and hear and can begin to understand what you're saying is that we have to begin to listen to people's stories, particularly when it's uncomfortable for us to listen to one another's stories. I feel like, like you say, if there's anything maybe 2020 could be good for it's, if we're willing to hear that message to say, maybe it's time that we get back to listening to each other's stories,
Tiffany Bluhm 12:09
Yeah.
Eddie Rester 12:09
not pointing fingers and claiming who's right and wrong.
Tiffany Bluhm 12:14
Yeah, and making assumptions right? Making assumptions about other cultures or ethnicities that they might be off base. They might be influenced by entertainment, or any sort of media, or particular news outlets, that doesn't paint that particular people group in a positive light. And if we believe that we deserve justice, wholeness, goodness, beauty, then we have to believe that for those different than us.
Chris McAlilly 12:38
I think it's interesting that you mentioned the church, that I'm, you know, I'm out here and I'm committed to the church that transcends politics, that transcends this year, and I'm going to be. You have a clarity and sense of what your work is to build up the church. When you say that, what does that word mean to you, the word "church?"
Tiffany Bluhm 13:00
I think the body of believers. Jesus followers, whether they're in the four walls or out in the community, I think people who are committed to the way of Jesus.
Eddie Rester 13:11
And that's, you know, in my experience as a pastor during the pandemic, that whole "being within the four walls" has broken down completely. And it's
Tiffany Bluhm 13:22
Right.
Eddie Rester 13:23
and it's, you know, I'm not sure if it's easier or harder to figure out who the followers of Jesus are, but you can definitely feel the passion of people, even when the sanctuaries are empty, that there is a passion for Jesus that's alive in our world. And I hope other people can feel that as well.
Eddie Rester 13:43
One of the things that all of your bio lines say is that you're passionate about helping women come to know their worth, value, and purpose. So I'd love to turn the conversation just a hair. How did that become part of your passion, women in ministry, women finding their worth?
Tiffany Bluhm 14:02
Yeah. For myself, I was abandoned at birth. I was left on a doorstep, a couple days old. And in fact, just in the past couple years, the woman who took me in at two days old, she tracked me down. She still lives in India. She was visiting her niece who works in health care--well done, Indians--and who lives in Seattle, so she was out in the Pacific Northwest to visit and was able to track me down, regardless of my new last name and my new adopted name. She always thought my name was Brittany, which I get it: Tiffany-Brittany, easily interchangeable, another 80s baby name.
Eddie Rester 14:38
I was about to say 80s child, yeah.
Tiffany Bluhm 14:40
Yeah, totally, totally. And even meeting her and hearing this woman speak of, you know, "God gave me an insatiable desire to care for a baby. I was running this children's home, and we had a lot of older kids but the Lord just made room in my heart and said, 'Get ready for a baby.'" And a month later, I was left on her doorstep. So my whole life I've had this narrative of: Yes, things were hard. I might have been left on the doorstep and I've had a pretty rocky road, but God has been able to go back and redeem all of this. And I believe that if He can see me and know me, I believe that He can do this for anyone. If I can be one of 26 million orphans--one of 26 million orphans--and I feel so seen by the King, I have to believe that he can do that for anyone else.
Tiffany Bluhm 15:33
And then to meet this woman a couple years ago and hear that the Lord was preparing her heart to receive me, it was just that reminder of He's been there all along. He has been for you all along. So although I might not have the exact same story, as--I mean, I do have very similar story to thousands of people who were adopted--to any other woman, but those feelings of insecurity, those feelings of loneliness, those feelings of tension, those feelings of anger, those feelings of incredible, vulnerable loss, we all know that. Suffering is a shared experience among all of us. And I feel like if I can give even a shred of hope, even encouraging any woman to find their worth in Christ, then I've done my due diligence, and I can sleep well on that.
Emily Box 16:24
Tiffany, I had a question for you. So as we mentioned, we are in the South, and I was raised in church, and kind of just raised to think of women as polite and agreeable and kind and peacemakers. And I love that nurturing side of us, and I do think that there are unique gifts that women have in that, but what does it look like to be a woman of faith in today's culture and today's fight for justice?
Tiffany Bluhm 16:56
What a beautiful question. Thank you. I think number one, what does it look like? It looks like considering your sources. Who are you listening to? Whose feet are you sitting at both digitally, you know, in this time and day, but also in person? I think when you think about being a strong woman today, you have to have a home team. We cannot do this alone. 2020 is the most draining thing, I think that any of us could have ever, more than we could have imagined. And so having people who can speak into you and just learning, sitting at their feet.
Tiffany Bluhm 17:29
I think vision leaks. I think, just, hope can leak, goodness can leak out of us. And we just need to... I mean, "I could be empty by noon," is what we've been saying the last couple days to other friends. We can just, we leak that. And so being able to consider your sources and go to the well. Find other women. Getting the Word. Spend some time in prayer. Spend some time with the Lord, whether it's meditation, journaling, whatever the case may be.
Tiffany Bluhm 17:57
Next, I think we count the cost. And when we think of what battles we want to fight in the name of justice, I think there's a lot of people doing a lot of things. And we can get weary pretty easy when we think of the state of the world and all that's weighing on us. But when we can count the cost and think of what battles are calling me... We think of that quote of our deep gladness and the world's deepest need of finding out where do we fit in this? Where do we, in the tapestry of all that God is doing right now, where is my spot? And then I think we can dig into that as women and not be afraid to raise our voice.
Tiffany Bluhm 18:37
For me, I had men pour into me, in the most appropriate manner. I had an awesome youth pastor who saw me for who I was and my skill and called greatness out of me at a really young age. And surrounded by amazing female mentors who also were able to speak into me. I'm very much a product of just some awesome, good, Jesus-loving, committed-to-the-ministry-and-work-of-Jesus people. And I largely became who they spoke over me.
Tiffany Bluhm 19:10
And now, as in my place and space, in my season, understanding I have that same mandate to call out greatness of other women, to call out greatness in my children, in my family, whatever our platform may be, right. So I think... and you know, you got to really... you got to mute the haters. You got to mute the haters because I remember, when I think about being a woman, and not only encouraging other women but working side-by-side with men who I consider brothers in the faith. These are all my brothers right?
Tiffany Bluhm 19:47
I think of one time I was on a church staff, a pastor on staff. It was 11 men and me. I was the only female pastor. And it was a decent-sized church. And I was living my best life. These were my brothers. These were my uncles. These were, you know, men my father's age. And they welcomed me. And so I had a really good intro into seeing what could be in a woman's place at the table, but also at the pulpit, on the platform.
Tiffany Bluhm 20:16
But I remember this guy who was doing door knocking, came by. I was first married to my husband. He knocked on my door, and he's like, "Oh, have you heard about our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ?" I said, "I love Him so much. I love Him so much." And he's like, well, "Oh, you do?" And I said, "Yeah, I love Him. I've given my life to Him. I, you know, I work at a church." And he's like, "Well, but you're a woman. You're gonna burn in hell." And I was just like, "Okay, broheme. It is dinner time. I've got a DiGiorno in the oven. I ain't got time for this. I ain't got time for this."
Tiffany Bluhm 20:49
And I've had other occasions where totally bait and switch. You go out to dinner with a couple, and by the end of it, they're like, "So, you know, what you're doing is wrong, and you should never speak to men. And you know that this is outside the will of God, how you spend your day and how you spend your life." And you're like, "You know what? I know that you have a conviction about this. I know that this is what you believe. You firmly believe in this. And I don't, and that's okay. I bless you. I bless you. I bless you as a person. I bless your ministry. I ain't got time for that." I can't harbor that, man. This life is too short. And it's too hard. So I think just mute the haters, count the cost, fight the battles that are for you to fight, and have a great home team. I think that's how you fight in this day and age.
Eddie Rester 21:34
You know, I think about some of my friends, female friends who are pastors, and you know, that they deal with those voices that come at them. They'll start at a new church, and they'll be there for a month. And once that new pastor shine wears off, they start getting the notes or the emails or somebody stops by.
Tiffany Bluhm 21:55
Oh, gosh, those emails. Yep.
Eddie Rester 21:56
And say something, sometimes trying to... I don't know if it's a... they're trying to offer a kind way to let you know that you're not where you're supposed to be or something. And I hear those voices in our culture that try to kind of corner in. I've got two daughters, 19 and 17, and one of them won a science award a few years ago and had a guy
Tiffany Bluhm 22:21
Oh!
Eddie Rester 22:21
in her science class tell her girls shouldn't win science awards. An these voices... so I'd love to hear as the dad of two daughters who pushes them towards science and living the great life God has for them. You know, you've got sons, so if you had daughters--I'm going to ask you about sons in a little bit--what would you be saying to encourage those daughters when those voices come at them?
Tiffany Bluhm 22:48
Oh, absolutely. I would just go back to the Gospels and look at all the encounters Jesus had with women and girls. When you go back, that's why from the math class to the pulpit, so wherever else, all of this hate speech against women taking their place where God has them. I always just... when I feel like this is a lot, this is so discouraging, I just keep going back to how Jesus engaged and empowered women.
Tiffany Bluhm 23:10
I mean, the message going forth started out of a woman's testimony, the message of the resurrection. And in that time, in the first century, a woman's testimony was not in the court of law to be held in high regard. It was to be thrown out. And Jesus knew that and he decided, "I am going to entrust the message of my resurrection to a woman," when systemically that was completely unacceptable in their time and day. So I just, I go back to who Jesus called women to be. And I just, I just can't shake it of the goodness and the power and the greatness that he has placed upon them in their lives, and continuing to speak vision over their life of who they're becoming.
Chris McAlilly 24:09
That's awesome. I don't have anything. Like, I was trying to think of a question to draw on that.
Tiffany Bluhm 24:16
The pause, I was like, "That either bombed or..."
Chris McAlilly 24:18
No, no it didn't bomb. It was like you were preaching. And then it was like, we should have just said it collectively, "Amen."
Emily Box 24:23
Amen.
Eddie Rester 24:26
Had a prayer, sent everybody home.
Emily Box 24:27
Yeah.
Chris McAlilly 24:29
Yeah, go to lunch, afternoon snack, whatever, whenever.
Tiffany Bluhm 24:32
Yeah, there we go.
Chris McAlilly 24:32
I wonder, one of the things that, as you were talking a moment ago, part of our work in in Oxford is with college students and young people, and a lot of whom are, you know, they have majors or they have career ambitions or they're moving in particular directions. And I think that a lot of them want to make a difference in the world, but they look out kind of back to that moment, which battle is mine to fight? Or, you know, there's so much suffering, there's so many problems, where do you even begin to connect your gifts, your talent, the things that have been given uniquely to you and the world's suffering? Where do you begin on that journey if you're a young person?
Tiffany Bluhm 25:17
This is gonna sound a very practical, but when I was in full-time church ministry, I oversaw our outreach department, local and global. And I had about a little over 1,000 volunteers on our team. And everybody had to do an assessment when they first came. And the opening question is what breaks your heart? And what are you good at? It went back to this, when you think of--I'm just talking macro here--when you think of poor sanitation in East Africa, and those who are struggling to have clean water or, you know, all these huge, huge issues, right? And it's like, well, what are you good at? Are you good at math? Are you good at science? Are you good at communication? Are you good at marketing? All these things that you're good at, sometimes we feel like that's not holy. When we want to solve the world's problems through the Christian lens, we're like, "No, we need to go to Zimbabwe and do XYZ."
Tiffany Bluhm 26:14
And it's like, actually, what you're good at, God has uniquely designed you to apply that to a need. And I think, when you think about all those needs--and honestly, I mean, go to the Lord. Seek Him. Ask Him to speak over one of these. Ask Him. Talk to those who know you and love you and might be able to see this with some clarity. If there's a few issues that really break your heart, or you're just feeling overwhelmed, talk to people who love you, and ask, like, "Hey, where do you see these few things that I'm feeling really called to, or I feel like I can make a difference in X."
Tiffany Bluhm 26:45
And I'm going to be specific: when we think of the dignity of Black lives right now, and we think, "what can I do? This feels just overwhelming." If I'm at college, yes, it feels too big. It feels way too big. Okay, well, we know I can march. Yes, we know that that's needed and necessary. I know, if, okay let's say I'm a college student, I can go to human resources. I can ensure that there are policies in place to protect and ensure safety for men and women of color on my campus. What is happening? What is in place to ensure their safety and to ensure they have equal access to everything I might have access to?
Tiffany Bluhm 27:29
I think we forget that our, even just our little voice, just knocking on doors of HR. You could apply that thing to a business context. Okay, what’s in place to ensure that there is anti-bias, excuse me, unconscious training and all of these things that are necessary so we can ensure that Black lives are valued, dignified, and that all have equal access to resources necessary to thrive in this life.
Eddie Rester 28:01
As we think about that, I'm sitting here actually looking at one of your Instagram posts of your son. And Emily sent this to me, it was a post you made back in August, about your adopted son and about what somebody had asked you on a podcast, what you were doing differently than mothers of white sons. It talks about how you're affirming your son's identity as part of that work. Talk a little bit about how you are raising your sons as young men of color.
Tiffany Bluhm 28:37
Yeah. And it's a tender topic, and I'm happy to share. I think one of the unique positions I'm in is I am not part of majority culture. I've never experienced that privilege. But I am Indian and Indians in America have had a lot of gains. The average Indian American makes over $100,000 a year. They dominate, as we know, in tech and in medicine. They are kind of the model minority, unfortunately, that myth of the model minority. So here, that's how I'm treated when I'm out and about.
Tiffany Bluhm 29:15
My oldest son is and Ugandan and my youngest is mixed, but he passes for white. So I have found myself in this unique position of, you know, obviously the things that I've learned of how to overcome when I feel othered in my skin, so teaching them what I know of, "You matter." Although you may feel different, although you may feel the minority in church or at school or on sports teams, or in entertainment. When you watch a cartoon, and there's no people of color, and you wonder why and you never see yourself.
Tiffany Bluhm 29:54
Or even in children's literature. You know, they say of the 30,000 books that are released each year, for children's lit, only about 3300 have a lead of color. So even at the library, we're having to really work overtime to find books that feature a lead of color that aren't wrapped around the Civil Rights movement or around basketball, you know.
Eddie Rester 30:15
Yeah.
Tiffany Bluhm 30:15
I'm just being really honest with you. So, anyway, so I think when I am talking to them about identity and esteem and who they are in Jesus, it is constantly affirming to say that although you may look different, here's who Jesus says you are. Here's what we see. And, like, I shared on that Instagram post, I don't know any of my friends who have white sons who are stroking their son's back at night, and they're crying because they're not white. Or they're crying because they're just so broken that they're Black, or just begging, giving anything, and what it would be like to be white.
Tiffany Bluhm 31:00
My son was two years old in an Applebee's bathroom, and he burst into tears. And he said, "I would give anything to be white. I would give anything." Just shy of three years old, and he was begging, with tears down his face. And I was like, "Oh, buddy, I remember this very moment." I was a little older than that. But I remember that very moment, just begging for freckles and strawberry blonde hair.
Tiffany Bluhm 31:23
And affirming. Affirming who you are as good. Who you are is good. You are fast. You are strong. You are intelligent. You are capable. You're a hard worker. So I think because he doesn't get to see that in everyday life. And we have friends of color. And we're very particular about media that, you know, our kids are exposed to, as many parents are. But finding himself--and this is why so many people of color talk about representation in the media. It is such a big deal. I was an adult when I first saw an Indian woman on television. I was an adult. Adult. I didn't meet another person of color until I was 12 years old.
Eddie Rester 32:01
When when Black Panther came out, people didn't understand the power.
Tiffany Bluhm 32:05
No, they didn't. Yeah.
Eddie Rester 32:07
Chadwick Boseman, a Marvel superhero, African-American man. I had African American friends who saw the movie and multiple times who said, "You have no idea." After decades of Spider Man movies and decades of Superman movies. He said, "They're fine. Nothing against them. But I've never seen a superhero who looks like me."
Tiffany Bluhm 32:30
Yeah.
Eddie Rester 32:30
I never, ever thought of that until they told me that. I was like, from my position of privilege, I've never considered that need at all.
Chris McAlilly 32:40
Yeah, a similar thread came through the conversation we had a while back with Amy Nezhukumatathil who is an Asian-American poet. And she talks, she writes, she does nature poetry. And she talks about just that dimension of poetry or writing, or paticularly children's literature, of not seeing herself either in popular culture, in popular art. And for her to explore the natural world as an Asian-American woman, that that is an expression of the sacred value of the unique life that she's been given to live in the world and to offer that poetry, it just gives it a richness and dimensionality to both the body of Christ and the larger human community.
Chris McAlilly 33:34
And I think there's, particularly the church in America, I think that there is a kind of flattened, thin picture of what the church is, or could be, and it very much is white. I think one of the things that... It just seems really clear to me that the future of the church, not just in America, but around the world, is going to be multi-ethnic, multicultural, and in fact, the anomaly would be the American church, you know?
Tiffany Bluhm 34:10
Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. Totally.
Eddie Rester 34:14
You know, as we say that, it's becomes difficult to break down the barriers of helping that to become reality. And I'm not sure what that looks like. Maybe this year, or these years where things begin to fall apart, allow us to rebuild something
Tiffany Bluhm 34:35
Yeah.
Eddie Rester 34:35
that does look more like the kingdom of God, that does look more like what the hope of humanity can be from... You're nodding at me or something, Chris.
Chris McAlilly 34:48
Yeah. I think that there's work to do both within and and beyond the body of Christ, or beyond the church proper, the church as a denomination or institution, and there's reform work always to be done within. And then there's some people that are going to be called beyond, people with entrepreneurial gifts like your own, who are going to build in some ways from the outside. It's almost like you need the structure to be renewed and renovated and reformed, but you also need people to kind of go out and chart new territory and create new space.
Tiffany Bluhm 35:22
Absolutely, and I think one of the ways we do that is beyond performative allyship-- you know, performative meaning it's just shallow, it's just for looks. I have been that token Brown Girl far too many times. Because it made that roster look good, or I made that, you know, it rounded out that conference to have not only a woman, but a woman of color. And I think that when we move beyond performative allyship, but truly giving people of color a seat at the place of power, I think that's when you're really going to see that shift happen. When they're heard, not at a lower level, but at a higher level, and they're helping make those decisions.
Tiffany Bluhm 36:06
You know, I recently read the phrase, "oh, we need more people of color at this table," still implies that the white or majority person is running the table, that they still have majority power. And it was just like, oh, my goodness, yes, like, until we tip the scales and we can see the church represented in places of power, whether that's denominational, or whether that's on a church staff, I think that's really where things start to turn.
Chris McAlilly 36:36
We were in conversation with Jemar Tisby, who is
Tiffany Bluhm 36:40
Oh, yeah, love him.
Chris McAlilly 36:41
The Witness, a Black Christian collective, and just on the other side of the Mississippi/Arkansas line in the Delta, the larger Mississippi River Delta. And he was talking about this reality that, for him, his vocation, his calling is to go beyond the majority white Christian spaces that he had been in before to create a place where Black-centric voices and then kind of Black leadership, and even, you know, financial and institutional power can be gained, so that you don't have to apologize for that work. Or you don't have to translate it back into another idiom or apologize for it, you're just out here doing the thing.
Chris McAlilly 37:31
And the conversation turned towards the historic Black colleges and universities. Of course, and this is the American South, that's been a huge part of that story. It's interesting, the way in which it has kind of come back around. And just speaking as a white Southern man, I've always kind of existed within white Christian spaces and circles. I think one of the things that's hard to kind of figure out, what's the best way to support or encourage our brothers and sisters in Christ as they seek to create that space or to reform those spaces? I mean, part of it is to offer, you know, to either empower, or to step to the side, at times, allow other voices to be heard. Do you have any other suggestions? I think, especially in this conversation about who gets, not just a seat at the table, but who gets to do the invitations? Who gets to send the invitations to the table?
Tiffany Bluhm 38:35
Yeah, I would propose that at every level, everyone has the responsibility to have that invitational spirit. Honestly, I think whether it's a mom of a couple kids, how is she intentionally, intentionally seeking out relationships that might make her a little uncomfortable, might be outside her comfort zone, but are with other women who are women of color? I think, number one, she's exposing herself to that, so that's growing for her. She's allowing her kids to make friends with people of color.
Tiffany Bluhm 39:06
I think, at every level, I think there's room for invitation, because here's the honest truth: Outside of the church, business has caught up way quicker, right? Every other area, sports teams, all of these places are beautifully diverse. And it's the church where we show up, and it's still so majority culture. And so I think that there's room to just, first of all, consider what they might enjoy. Right? We've got to consider what people beyond majority culture might enjoy. And ask yourself, is this a place that they would want to be? And obviously I'm specifically talking about church, but is this a place that they would want to be?
Tiffany Bluhm 39:08
I mean, I know that's kind of bold question to ask. But what would make... We ask this about our team and our church: why would someone of color want to attend here? What would draw them? Is it the people? Is it the music? Is it the values within the children's or youth or adult ministries? What would want to make them? So I think even asking those questions is a great first step when you think of... And of course, we don't want to put all those big questions on, you know, that one family of color that's attending your church, right? Which happens. Which happens. Been part of that, too. But really stepping back and asking, why would somebody want to be here? How are we presenting Jesus in such a way that this could transcend ethnicity?
Chris McAlilly 40:37
I do think that it's a good word that everybody has that responsibility, and empowering people within the context of their own life, whether they're a part of a church or on a church staff, or in whatever kind of domain is their domain, even if it's a stay-at-home mom, or a coach, or a doctor, or a nurse, that you have not only responsibility, but you have influence and power.
Chris McAlilly 41:00
I was reading a book about politics in 2020, the book was called "Truth Telling in a Post Truth World." And a lot of it was about the larger national political narrative. And I just have to confess that I'm just completely... I mean, I watched the presidential debate this week--the first presidential debate happened, I guess, on Tuesday--and I just came away from that feeling pretty gross, and feeling, needing a reframing for what politics is, what it looks like to build a common life among people who are the same and different, etc. I think one of the one of the things that this book proposed was empowering different people to think of themselves as having political agency, and to be political actors. And the example that they gave was caregivers. There's something about, we don't think about caregivers as having political agency and power and responsibility. But if you gave the power to the essential workers who were caring for the elderly, or, you know, there are ways in which caregivers can create a different kind of space for the rest of us. That kind of came to mind when you were talking about the the stay-at-home moms that are creating space for their kids. I think that in some ways the world would be better off if we just started there.
Tiffany Bluhm 42:23
Yeah, yeah. That's beautiful. I think the farther you are away from the pain point, the less empathy, right, the less you can understand the unique struggle and need that somebody who is so different than you is facing. So of course, we're going to minimize. We're still tribal, right? We're going to minimize that. If we do not understand it--and it goes back to what we originally said--if we could listen to one another, and if we could approach this with compassion, think of what this could be like.
Eddie Rester 42:57
You know, that statement that you just made, "the farther away you are from the pain point," you know, that the rest of that was, "the harder it is to have empathy." I can't remember how you finished that.
Tiffany Bluhm 43:08
Yeah. I think the less you're exercising that empathy muscle, the harder, the farther you are away from a point of pain.
Eddie Rester 43:16
I hope whoever's listening, just stop right now. Rewind. Hear that again, and write it down somewhere. I think, for me, that's gonna require some, I think, some thinking. We're moving close to the end. So Emily, I think, has got another question. She keeps looking at us like, "I should say something."
Emily Box 43:33
Yeah, I just wanted to say one of the places where I feel like it's really hard to have empathy right now is on the Internet and on social media. And I listen to you and Ashley Abercrombie talk about being a dumb-dumb on the Internet. And you know, just the way that we talk to people right now, it's so divisive. And so I can tell you speak with so much grace and respect for other people. What does that look like right now, especially as we're about a month out from the election?
Tiffany Bluhm 44:04
Oh, first of all, may the Lord come back for us all. Secondly. Secondly, I think a couple things. Number one, picture whoever is coming at you on the Internet or posting ridiculous stuff--remember that God loves them as much as He loves you. He wants goodness for them as much as He wants goodness for you. I think humanizing the other, which is what we have talked about even on Why Tho just this past week, humanizing the other is so vital.
Tiffany Bluhm 44:33
And secondly, I think if there is not just a spirit of understanding, I do not believe that we owe that to trolls. Or if somebody is calling you out versus calling you in on the Internet, or if we just start rolling up our sleeves because we want to let somebody have it, I think first of all, "Would I say this to this person in person, if they were standing in front of me face to face, would I talk to them with such a tenacious spirit?" Because the answer is probably no. I probably would not treat them like that.
Tiffany Bluhm 45:08
I think even in my life, this past couple weeks, after posting about the passing of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, I had a lot of gals from a Bible study I lead and reach out and just post some pretty, pretty rude things on my posts. And these are women that I am in relationship with. I serve as their Bible study teacher and leader. And so I just deleted it, because I was just like, first of all, this isn't gonna happen. I have a lot of women in my life, and it was around issue of abortion, and I am this decidedly pro-life. But I also have a lot of women in my life, and who are following me online, who have experienced that, and I say we make it unnecessary. Unnecessary in the sense of let's support women in such a way that this would not even be needed.
Tiffany Bluhm 46:04
But they just went off, poppin' off on there. And so I deleted it. And I was like, You know what, we can do private messages. We can call each other in, especially if it's somebody you know, and I think that's what's so... You know, you see Aunt Joan posting stuff, or when you see somebody from high school, or when you see somebody from church, Lord have mercy when you see somebody from church, and you're just like, wait, what, what? Why are you posting that? I think that there's room to call in, not call out. And remembering that this is a human being and there's a nuanced approach to all of this. I think we just make things so black and white, especially leading up to November. I think it's a great time to work on our people skills.
Chris McAlilly 46:45
And then you mute the haters. That's what
Tiffany Bluhm 46:48
Mute the haters. They don't get time. They do not get airtime. They don't get time. If they do not have ears to hear or come with that spirit of openness to listen to each other, you're not going to gain anything from that. You're not going to gain anything from that.
Eddie Rester 47:01
Nobody learns. Nobody grows. Nobody moves when those attitudes emerge.
Tiffany Bluhm 47:07
Yeah.
Eddie Rester 47:08
I think we could talk all day. We've kind of reached the end of our time. And just, it's been great. Thank you, Tiffany.
Tiffany Bluhm 47:15
It's such a pleasure to be here.
Eddie Rester 47:17
For those who are listening and want more, she's got several books out, "Never Alone." We didn't get to talk about any of your books. "Never Alone," "She Dreams." I want to talk about the book that you've got coming out in 2021. Maybe we'll have you back when that comes out, which is "Pray Tell." And so I'm interested to see and to read that book in the months ahead. The podcast is Why Tho, and Emily, you're enjoying that podcast?
Emily Box 47:43
Yes. It's a great podcast. Y'all should listen.
Eddie Rester 47:47
Well, thank you again for your time today, and I look forward to talking with you again sometime in the future.
Tiffany Bluhm 47:53
Thank you.
Chris McAlilly 47:53
Thanks, Tiffany.
Emily Box 47:54
Thank you.
Eddie Rester 47:55
[OUTRO] Thank you for listening today. Go ahead and follow us on Facebook and Twitter. And go ahead and hit the subscribe button on whatever platform you use to listen to podcasts.
Chris McAlilly 48:06
This wouldn't be possible without our partner, General Board of Higher Education in Ministry. We want to thank also our producer, Cody Hickman. Follow us next week. We'll be back with another episode of The Weight. [END OUTRO]