Dorothy Ranaghan gave this talk at a 1982 women’s retreat, explaining how to follow the Lord in strength and dignity together as sisters. She shared tips on repenting, being humble and laughing together.
Transcript
This document is a direct transcript of an audio recording, and may contain transcription errors and other minor edits for the sake of clarity.
[Tape begins after Dorothy has already begun speaking.]
DOROTHY: . . . My talk tonight is going to sound a little bit like a brief question-and-answer session. I’ve thought of a series of questions, and I think the Lord will give each of you your answers.
Where are we going? What is the Lord asking of us? Where do we go from here?
This weekend, we’ve looked at where we have been and at where we are now, so that the last logical question we do face is, what’s next? Where are we going?
The answer to that question is no mystery for us. Now, what I’m going to say is neither a new revelation nor a new game plan for the women of the People of Praise. Stated quite simply, in a new, or a renewed, way, we are going to follow Jesus. As the song says for us, very clearly, we have decided to follow Jesus. There is no turning back for us. We decide again—tonight, now—to think, to judge, to love, to will, to suffer, and to labor with him, by him, in him, and like him. “Though none go with me, still I will follow; no turning back.” We will follow you, Lord, wherever you lead. We know where we’ve been: in the bondage of Egypt. How could we return having tasted of your freedom? “The cross before me, the world behind me; no turning back.”
Will it be any easier now, for us, than it was before, to keep the cross before us and the world behind us? Since the Lord has strengthened and restored us, and renewed us in virtue and zeal, and all sorts of other good things, this weekend, it will certainly seem easier. At times like this, if you’re anything like me, you know that your tepidity, and cowardice, and self-delusion, and blindness all seem to vanish in the radiance and the presence—the visible presence of the Lord.
We don’t dare or desire to look the other way at times like this, or to try to avoid his gaze upon us. We can count on the mercy of God for help as we go forward.
But as surely as the symbol of his boundless, fathomless love is before us now on the cross, we must be vigilant and watchful always, because the reality is often the reverse.
We see the world so clearly before us, with all its pomp and allurements and, above all, with its apparent normality in the midst of the seeming absurdity of our lives. The paradox that is the cross fades into the background at times like that, like a memory. We must allow ourselves to know the deceptive truth: that choosing the world will never look evil to us; it will only look easy to us.
But Mark 8, verse 36, pokes a hole in that baloney with the pointed jab of one sharp sentence. “What,” he asks, “does it profit a man, to gain the whole world but to suffer the loss of his soul?” And, as we know, the answer is simply, “Nothing.” Our alternative to unreservedly and wholeheartedly following the Lord is emptiness, and longing, and a great, unexplainable restlessness—and even death.
“How then,” you ask, “can we be sure of following the Lord?” To answer this, I’d like to tell you a sort of a story–prophecy that I once heard from a very wise priest who’s a friend of mine. Envision, if you will, a whole body of people who are marching down a very large, four-lane, major highway. They are all following the Lord; he’s leading this procession of people. Now, all of them have a sense of direction, and of purpose, and of mission, and they all think they know where he’s leading them. And, as in any festive gathering or parade, everybody is eating, and talking, and laughing, and having a very good time. And most of them stopped watching his lead. He suddenly turned off the highway at a fork in the road, and changed the direction. Many, many of those people kept right on going where he had been leading them.
We will follow him only if we keep our eyes on him.
Could what happened to the people in the story happen to any of us? Has it happened to you? Take heart! In this community we know, and should accept in simple faith, that we are not alone. We will take care of one another. United with the body, we will not get lost.
And, that’s the key. At every major juncture, with every major change of direction, have we been as one with the body? Or have we heard a different drummer? Can we be found grumbling, and still marching in isolation on the highway of our choosing, on the path we hope the Lord would take?
Not after tonight. Never again. If necessary, we will run, and not walk, to the crossroad we missed in order to catch up with the Lord. In fact, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if we found a search party out looking for us as we started to return.
That’s the great joy of community. We don’t have to sing, “Though none go with me.” We are all in this together, and we can count on, and lean on, one another. In fact, if none go with us, we better find out where they’ve gone and get there fast! [Loud laughter.] Alleluia! [More laughter.]
Now, what will we look like as we march from here into the future? Are we a—sort of a motley, tacky, ragtag sort of a group? Don’t be too quick to answer. [Laughter.] I think the truth is, not at all. Look around you. The women of the People of Praise are even visibly beautiful to behold. Others have remarked on it. And though we are, granted, a widely diverse lot in age and appearance, one of the most amazing things, that has been noticed by other people . . . is that a major aspect of our corporate beauty is that we all look so much alike!
CROWD: [Laughter and murmuring.]
DOROTHY: Now, I don’t mean that we all . . . look alike, like clones or something. [Laughter.] I think, in fact, that we look alike because we’re all dressed alike. And, lest you think I’m talking about a resurgence of Trinity School uniforms [laughter], I don’t mean that we’re all wearing the same blue jeans—or, more fittingly perhaps, a dress—as if it were a uniform. Rather, according to the prophecy that Barbara Koller gave to us some time ago, when we were gathered as women, we are, in fact, women who clothe one another in beauty, so that what is true of one sister . . . is true of all. And, in the words of Proverbs 31, verse 25, “Strength and dignity are her clothing, and she laughs at the time to come.”
I see strength and dignity, laughter and beauty, absolutely everywhere I look in this room. The strength is put on to us through trials and sufferings in so many ways, especially in every situation where we have chosen God’s will above all else.
For each and every one of us, those situations will be different. But our strength, in which we become clothed, comes through our abandonment, through the prayer that we have all said again and again: “Lord, take all that I am and all that I have. Give me only your love.”
I know for me, personally, that prayer has meant many things on a practical level. But one of the major areas of my life to feel the piercing pain of the Lord’s continual desire to take me up on my prayer has been learning to let my husband go—to release him, often very literally—which is never my will. But years ago, the Lord made it absolutely clear to me that I would really rather have him safe in the center and heart of God’s will for him, even if that meant his being in Australia, than to have him out of God’s perfect will, and next to me in South Bend.
Whatever God asks of our weakness becomes transformed, in the very act of being given over to him, into a garment of strength, a beautiful robe that is woven of our “yeses” to him. We all look alike in this. We are clothed with strength, and we wear an obedience, and docility, and a quiet spirit that is nonetheless filled to overflowing with valor and fortitude. And we will wear it, as Scripture also says, with dignity.
Did you know what I learned as I looked in the dictionary? That dignity means “a state of being worthy.” The Lord has dressed us in worthiness, so that we can rejoice, and forget our negative self-image. We can stand tall! We can stand confidently, regally, beautifully, as the holy, blessed, chosen, worthy women of God.
Now, I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t exactly feel like putting on a lavish new special dress right after working in the garden or jogging. [Dorothy gulps, followed by audience laughter.] I personally would feel the need to prepare myself first. I’d probably take a shower, wash my hair, maybe even do my fingernails, and get absolutely everything in order first, before I put on the new dress. And I feel the same way when I begin to realize just how the Lord wants me, as one of his women, to be clothed. It really makes me want to fix things up a lot. Not with a sense of guilt, or anxiety [Dorothy says “anxiety” in a foreboding tone], but with an overwhelming sense of joy, and of anticipation, and of excitement in what the Lord is about to do.
I long to get absolutely every single aspect of my life in order. In gratitude to my beloved, I long to impose discipline on my life, as befits the dignity that he has given me. And so I desire, as you do, to have order in my relationships, in my speech, in my service, in my family, even in my grooming and appearance, because it’s for the glory of God.
But, above all, I long, as you do, to impose that discipline on my prayer life. We can all pray as one, with one voice, “Lord you are the furnace and the fountain of love. Make our wills burn with thirst for your life-giving water, that we may throw ourselves before you always, to drink of your words and of your love.” With that assurance, who could doubt that we’ll be able to laugh at the days to come?
An ability to laugh . . . is both a virtue, . . . and a sign of good mental health. [Laughter.] I am not referring—[clears her throat dramatically] as some of my sisters were afraid I might, in our discussion before dinner—I am not referring to giggling, or to silliness, or to levity of any kind, because that kind of laughter, as Scripture points out so clearly, is ornamental. It’s unnecessary, and often, it’s most unfitting. Near-hysteria is clearly no substitute for the deep pool of joy that wells up from within: the laughter of a truly happy person.
It takes a certain amount of detachment from ourselves, it takes a certain lack of pride or vanity, to be able to laugh at ourselves, and at the sheer absurdity of our life situations. And that’s where I believe the virtue in all this comes in: in that kind of self-detachment. It’s a sign of holiness, of the proverbial woman of valor, that she can laugh at the days to come. Wherever the Lord leads her, wherever the Lord leads us from here, we’re ready! We’re prepared! So we can put absolutely everything into proper perspective and remain light-hearted.
[Slowly, with mock solemnity:] We really do need a lot more laughter in the days to come, my friends.
Especially in hard times. Do you remember some of the skits that we’ve seen this year? Especially on women’s nights? Didn’t they make it just a little easier to take the next step, or to feel a little better about your own hesitations? For me, it helps.
As many of you know, I, for example, am a hopeless Coke and Clark bar addict. [Laughter.] “What,” you say, “does that have to do with anything?” Well, you see . . . [laughter], that predisposes me to a whole way of thinking about eating that has very little to do with wheat berries and lentils [laughter] and other hearty sources of protein. [Laughter.] I must confess that, until very recently, eating a bowl of chili was a very long and arduous chore. [Laughter.] I never understood why everyone else in the household was finished so quickly! [Laughter.] But, you see, they hadn’t taken the time to meticulously sort out and remove . . . every . . . single . . . kidney bean [laughter] before they began to eat. [Extended laughter.] I had! [Laughter.]
My household loved me by laughing at me, and I learned to laugh my way through . . . to eating them. [Laughter.] Changing yet another habit, and another set of values. It’s just one example. But how would we get through without laughter?
Have you felt any sense of heaviness deep within your spirit lately? If so, then we ought to just get down on our knees and beg the Lord to reveal his will to us for relieving our burdens. Whatever he asks of us, we will do. And whatever we do, it will work! And then, we’ll all be able to enter into the abundant joy, and the rich laughter that gives the finishing touch to our beauty.
And the best place to learn the art of laughter, and to practice it, is from and with each other. For consolation in sorrow, yes, but for lessons in laughter, above all else, the Lord has given us sisters. The Lord has given us each other. Let’s not hold one another at arm’s length! Let’s not fear the vulnerability that is ours when we love. Let’s not stay safe just with natural family ties, in this, the fullness of sisters in Christ. Let’s not be afraid to invest our emotions, our time, our whole self, in our sisters. How impoverished I would be without my sisters! Who would share my joy?
We are about building the Kingdom of God. Yes, it is a most serious and a most urgent task, and the time is now. But we know from our experience of life within that kingdom already, which we see at hand, that it is most certainly a happy place, and I’m sure that the courts of heaven themselves will ring with the singing, the dancing, and the laughter of the saints in their eternal joy.
In closing up this brief talk, I’d like to put before our minds two Scripture passages, that I really do believe the Lord gave to me as his word of hope for tonight. When I was praying for us all last week, I opened my Bible to Luke, chapter 13, verse 6. And the passage is this:
A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came seeking fruit on it and he found none. And he said to the vinedresser, “Lo, these three years I have come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and I find none. Cut it down; why should it use up the ground?” And he answered him, “Let it alone, sire, this year also, till I dig about it and put on manure.”
[Laughter.]
End of passage. [Laughter.]
Now, friends. [Laughter.] Sometimes we do worry. And one of the things that we can worry about, is whether or not we are really bearing any yield at all. We can become convinced that we are the very next fig tree to get the ax. [Laughter.]
We cry out desperately with the psalmist, “Oh, Lord, do not cast me away from your presence. Do not take your Holy Spirit from me.” Words that I have said before, I believe, [that] are some of the saddest words in the Scriptures. Despite the richness of the garden in which the Lord has so graciously planted us, we often feel barren and useless. Looking at the lushness of other’s groves, and tasting their sweet fruit, only makes it worse, somehow. Repent of that jealousy. Forget worrying and feeling bad. Jesus gives us all another chance.
He’s not about to cut us down or toss us out. We may feel as if we’ve been dormant or nonproductive, and maybe we have. But the Lord desires our growth, and his desire is worth more than all of our effort. His desire, his will for us, will be accomplished within us if only— and here comes the full “ouch” of that passage—if only we allow ourselves to be dug out, and to have the manure applied to us.
In the midst of the pain of pruning, and the upheaval of being dug out, and of having the ax laid to the root of each sin within us—in the midst of the rotting stench of what looks like death, the manure of repentance, and of sorrow, and of washing one another’s feet, and of giving ourselves away unreservedly . . . fertilization takes place. And from fertilization comes life, and new growth, and an abundant harvest. Even from you.
The second passage that I got for us is related to the first. It’s a little farther down in the same chapter of Luke: Luke 13, verse 11. I really believe the Lord wants us to go out from here tonight with this passage:
And there was a woman who had [had] a spirit of infirmity for 18 years; she was bent over and could not fully straighten herself. And when Jesus saw her, he called to her and said, “Woman, you are freed from your infirmity.” And he laid his hands upon her, and immediately she was made straight, and praised God.
Woman, I ask you tonight, what is your infirmity? Physical illness, fear, anxiety, rebellion, scrupulosity, bitterness, negativity? We cannot fully straighten ourselves, but Jesus sees us. And he calls to us tonight, “Woman, you are freed from your infirmity.”
In faith, let’s join together and say, “Amen,” “Yes,” and “Thank you,” to claim this promise of the Lord. And then, People of Praise, let’s faithfully do what we should always do best, both now and in the future: let’s praise our God.
[Clapping.]
[Recording ends here.]
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