{"id":2209,"date":"2016-01-19T10:44:21","date_gmt":"2016-01-19T10:44:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/bge\/?p=2209"},"modified":"2016-01-19T10:44:21","modified_gmt":"2016-01-19T10:44:21","slug":"white-noise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/bge\/2016\/01\/19\/white-noise\/","title":{"rendered":"White Noise"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em>Jones is the pastor of the Evangelical Covenant Church in Stromsburg, NE. She earned an MDiv from North Park Theological Seminary in 2012. Abby is mom to Stella, Lucy, Mabel and Harper. Read more of Abby\u2019s writing at sustainabletheology.com.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Looking back, I\u2019m not sure how I survived the baby years. I\u2019m just coming out of the throws of 24\/7 caregiving after five years with three babies. My youngest is 18-months-old and all of the baby gear is officially gone. There are no more swaddles or swings, bouncers or binkis. There is just one item I\u2019m hanging on to, because the sleep and sanity of our family depends on it. Each and every one of our babies required a sound machine to fall asleep at night. <strong>The crackling static, like a radio dial between stations, signals my brain that the day is winding down.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/bge\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/96\/2016\/01\/IMG_0669-vintage-new-2.jpg\" rel=\"prettyPhoto[2209]\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-2211 alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/bge\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/96\/2016\/01\/IMG_0669-vintage-new-2-300x206.jpg\" alt=\"Retro Radio\" width=\"300\" height=\"206\" srcset=\"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/bge\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/96\/2016\/01\/IMG_0669-vintage-new-2-300x206.jpg 300w, http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/bge\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/96\/2016\/01\/IMG_0669-vintage-new-2-1024x703.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>When I turn the dial, it begins to drown out the to-do list, the projects and responsibilities until I drift off to sleep. White noise is great at distracting me from the things that matter. And I\u2019ve come to realize that the sound machine isn\u2019t the only thing feeding me white noise. During the day there\u2019s a constant static drowning out the sounds that matter. It\u2019s the vibrating of my phone with a new text, voicemail, phone call or email. It\u2019s the dinging of a new tweet, pic or notification. It\u2019s the alert of a new post, article or comment. No matter where I am or what I\u2019m doing, I\u2019m being fed everything from political controversy to fashion trends, global conflict to religious memes. <strong>All of it is covertly informing my identity.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s no escaping the GoogleAds that know what I\u2019m lacking. I\u2019ve read countless articles about how Facebook has made us sadder and less satisfied. But all of this discontentment didn\u2019t begin with the advent of the internet. Genesis 3 tells us that the curse of sin is that woman will look to her husband and her husband to his work to inform their identity.<\/p>\n<p><strong>This creates a dependency on someone or something other than God. <\/strong>For most of human history the value of a woman has been based on her role as mother, and of course the man she depends on to fulfill this role. As for men, their value has been wrapped up in their ability to provide for their families. Their success, their worth, their identity was in what they accomplish outside of the home. And it will never be good enough, until they finally die and return to the ground.<\/p>\n<p>Women looked to men. Men looked to work. <strong>And we wonder why our lives sound more like noise than songs. <\/strong>For generations we\u2019ve heard that this is the right way to do things. It wasn\u2019t too many years ago that a woman would introduce herself as \u201cMrs. Jeff Jones\u201d. And to this day, one of the first questions that man gets asked by a new acquaintance is \u201cWhat do you do for a living?\u201d. A woman, in God\u2019s eyes is not valuable because of her husband. A man, in God\u2019s eyes is not valuable because of his labor.<\/p>\n<p><strong>We\u2019re in-between stations.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Twist to the left and you can tune into creation. In the beginning, God\u2019s hands created and formed the beautiful and wonderful and majestic world, and God made man and woman <em>imago dei <\/em>(Latin for \u201cimage of God\u201d). They were created to be co-workers, caring for God\u2019s masterpiece hand in hand. But sin cracked this image. There were no gender roles. There was no division of work. There was only the role of image bearer and the work of stewarding creation.<\/p>\n<p>Twist the dial to the right and you can tune into the reality of God\u2019s Kingdom. It\u2019s the music of God\u2019s restorative justice making all things new. Returning the creation back to it\u2019s intended state.<strong> In this Kingdom, where God rules over all of creation, the image of God is not only repaired, but renewed.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>We were made adequate to do all of the work God made us to do at creation. We\u2019ll be remade to do all of the work God made us to do in the Kingdom. But in the middle, we squabble about who should be able to do what work. We\u2019ve muted what is beautiful in the beginning and at the end, causing confusion about our purpose and our identity. We end up taking our identity from soundbites in the form of buzzes, dings and tweets. <strong>Everything here in the middle is subject to the noise.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong>After listening to the white noise all of these years, when I\u2019m quiet and listening to it at the end of the day, sometimes I can make out music in the background. <strong>Sometimes it startles me, and sometimes it\u2019s subtle. But it\u2019s there. There\u2019s a song breaking through the noise. We just have to listen for it.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-report-this\"><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/bge?moderation_action=report_form&#038;object_type=post&#038;object_id=2209&#038;width=250&#038;height=300\" class=\"thickbox\" title=\"Report This Post\">Report This Post<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; Jones is the pastor of the Evangelical Covenant Church in Stromsburg, NE. She earned an MDiv from North Park Theological Seminary in 2012. Abby is mom to Stella, Lucy, Mabel and Harper. Read more of Abby\u2019s writing at sustainabletheology.com. Looking back, I\u2019m not sure how I survived the baby years. I\u2019m just coming out [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":128,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19328],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-testimoies-and-stories"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>White Noise - Commission on Biblical Gender Equality<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/bge\/2016\/01\/19\/white-noise\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"White Noise - Commission on Biblical Gender Equality\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"&nbsp; Jones is the pastor of the Evangelical Covenant Church in Stromsburg, NE. 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