“Ms. Martin, you are no Gwyneth Paltrow.”
These words, said by my college theater director, have never left me.
These words, a response to my defensive reaction when he told me to stop slouching on stage. “Shoulders BACK, Ms. Martin!” he yelled from the back of the theater as I was mid-monologue in Tom Stoppard’s The Real Thing.
“Well, Gwyneth Paltrow slouches all the time!” I yelled back.
Dear readers, I am no Gwyneth Paltrow.
The faster I shot up in height as a kid, the further down I slouched. It’s as if I imagined slouching would slow my growth and keep me at a standard size. Also, my head is big, so maybe my shoulders hunch forward because they are tired of carrying all that weight. Regardless, it’s not a good look.
Slouching is the same as shrinking, and that’s a habit I want to break. Shrinking is timid and quiet. It’s not speaking up for yourself or your needs. It’s not sharing ideas because they’re shot down. It’s not sharing your heart or your beliefs because you’re afraid (🛎️🛎️🛎️ there’s fear again!) that the other person will judge you or dislike you. Shrinking is the culmination of everything I’ve written about for the last 34 days—the fear of rejection, being exposed, being judged. Sometimes I shrink because I don’t want to hear what the other person has to say, so scared I am that their opinion or behavior will break my admiration for them.
Case in point: the time I shrunk back in a Congressional office building.
The year is 2018, and I’m in DC for meetings with our state elected officials for my work. I have no problem meeting with Missouri senators. This state is like a giant small town, and I’ve worked with the staffers long enough to know them well, even if we don’t agree on every policy issue. I am not nervous about speaking with my Senators, and I’m pretty adept at cocktail party small talk, so I am not intimidated. Our meetings are about a bipartisan issue (Opioid regulations), which made this trip relatively easy.
At one point between meetings, I find myself in an empty hallway of the Senate office building. I spy a bench, which pleases me greatly because I need to rest my high-heeled feet. Suddenly, from around the corner, I hear an unmistakable booming laugh. I know this voice. The hair stands on the back of my neck, and my heart starts racing.
I tiptoe to peer around the corner at the elevator bank, and there he is. My absolute favorite Senator, standing with two of his aides and sharing a joke. They are laughing about his dry cleaning.
Now, this is not MY representative. He is from the great state of New Jersey. I have read his books and his speeches. I have studied his policy proposals and brazenly copied them to try and implement them in my city. He is one of my heroes, and I am paralyzed. I am genuinely frozen.
How on earth did I just come from meetings with my own Senators and talk so casually and knowledgeable, only to find myself holding my own shoes, crouched down like a troll under a bridge, unable to muster the courage to finally talk to one of my inspirations?
By all accounts, he is a lovely person. He loves taking selfies! We even have friends in common! It would have been so easy to slip my shoes back on, walk over, and say politely, “excuse me, Senator Booker? I think we have a friend in common… [insert name drop]. Would you mind if I sent him a selfie?” And then we would pose, and I would tell him how much his work inspires me. Knowing him, he’d probably ask me about my life. Maybe he would hire me on the spot. I would have to start looking for apartments in DC. Would my kids find a school they like? I should sell my car, I guess. I probably won’t need it here. Who should I invite to my housewarming party?
Then, in real life, I start to shrink. What if he’s mean? What if he’s like, “leave me alone” or “what’s wrong with you?” What if he calls security and has me escorted out of the building, and I lose my job? What if one of his aides laughs at me and posts about me on Twitter?
By the time I have worked through all the doomsday scenarios, they’re on the elevator.
I’ve missed my chance.
A few weeks later, I received a photo from my sister, a high school art teacher from California taking her kids on a field trip to DC. I open the message, and there it is… A selfie of her and Senator Booker in front of the White House. She just happened to walk by him on the street and, knowing my ridiculous story went up to him without hesitation and said, “my sister loves you… can we send her a selfie?”
Ridiculous.
Whenever I told someone this heartbreaking story, they would get confused. I’ve built up this unbreakable, confident persona. Sure, when I’m on stage talking about something I am professionally passionate about or asking strangers about their hobbies at boring fundraisers, I present myself as someone who is unshrinkable. And yet when I feel cornered or anxious, uncertain how I will be perceived, I clam up. I hesitate. I shrink.
There are roots to this timidity that, in hindsight, are pretty obvious. I spent much of my adult life repressing my needs and letting others make me feel less-than. After a fun dinner party we threw, I once had a partner who looked at me in disgust and said, “god, do you always have to be so on?” And then, there were the student evaluations in my first year of teaching that accused me of being “too much personality” or “too aggressive.” I’ve been tone-policed. I’ve been asked to wear darker colors to work to avoid drawing attention to my body. I’ve been asked to wear flats so as not to emasculate men. I’ve been told I’m “only as good as the man who will have you,” so I shrunk when the shrinking kept things calm and safe for everyone else.
Can you imagine if Jesus was the shrinkable type? If he came into a city and did a miracle and then wilted the minute the heat turned up? If he was told, “you aren’t the real Son of God,” and then responded, “oh, ok… yah, you’re probably right… I’m sorry, I’ll just see myself out.”
You can’t be an evangelist if you aren’t a little bit bold. And it isn’t just about inviting new people to church, though that is an important goal. It’s about making sure you’re being authentic in your believer-network, too, and that you’re challenging each other to be accountable to the scriptures.
In one part of my life, I’m a passionate advocate for things like anti-racism, protecting fundamental rights, and leading with love. In another part of my life, I’m on fire for Jesus and what He has done for me. In the in-between part, where those Venn Diagrams should intersect, I shrink and shrivel like a California Raisin. (If you are too young to remember the California Raisins, Google it, and then you’ll understand why a whole generation of us are so messed up.")
It’s time to stand up straight, shoulders back. It’s not just about having courage but about accepting the consequences. Because you might actually be rejected. You might be emotionally or physically hurt as a function of your beliefs. I think about Jesus’ inner circle and how different they were from each other. I’m sure they might have voted differently or had strong preferences for one type of fish vs. another. Amidst all those worldly differences, though, they were committed to the truth of one thing: Jesus. So it goes today, where I’m sure the election yard signs could vary widely within my church congregation. I often get questions from my non-believer friends about how I can be friends with people who are so vastly “different” than me. There was a time I would have had a litmus test for friendships, but that time has passed.
Making peace with the future is the key to taking up more space with our beliefs. It’s a future we can’t control. As Jon Bloom wrote in a great blog about boldness:
“Jesus did not die on the cross to have us quivering in a corner because some human being might say something mean, or stop our paychecks, or sever a relationship, or even kill us.”
He then goes on to say:
The only reason fear-based timidity remains in us is that we don’t believe God’s mind-blowing promises. What freezing fears might melt away, like snow in April, if we let the bright rays of Romans 8 shine on our shadowy places of unbelief, even for just a week?
I want to move out of Lent confident that the Holy Spirit will fill my mouth with the words I need to speak boldly. But, the spirit can not force my mouth to open. That’s on me to take the first step—to approach that elevator bank knowing that, no matter how the Senator reacts, I will never regret taking action.
You have to wonderful proportions to be a high fashion model! Blessed!