Joining Forces

Brief Description

Many of us absorbed the rules for being male or female from our families and the culture in which we grew to adulthood. We formed beliefs about a man’s role and a woman’s role based on what we observed and experienced; mostly, those beliefs had to do with what men and woman did rather than who they were. Our ideas about what constitutes “masculine” and “feminine,” by now outdated and inadequate, have led to a precarious imbalance both in our inner lives and in our external lives of relating to men and women. The result? A gender war.

In Joining Forces, Jeanie Miley explains that our deeply ingrained gender expectations have created an imbalance in our emotional and spiritual lives and have kept us from becoming our most authentic selves. Joining Forces will help readers discover the masculine and feminine characteristics that connect, unite, and restore us—traits that men and women alike can and do express. By joining our masculine and feminine strengths, we restore our own souls, our creative energies, and our own true, essential natures.

About the Author

Jeanie Miley is a writer and columnist, retreat leader, and speaker on topics of spiritual growth and contemplative prayer. She is the author of ten books and has written a weekly newspaper column, “Growing Edges,” for thirty-three years. Trained at the Spiritual Direction Institute in Houston, Texas, Jeanie has read and studied broadly in the areas of spiritual growth and is a spiritual director. Her work rests, as she says, on a “four-legged stool”—Bible study, the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, contemplative prayer, and Jungian psychology. Jeanie teaches a popular women’s Bible study at River Oaks Baptist Church in Houston, Texas, and at other sites in the Houston area. She is a frequent retreat leader for groups across the country. Visit www.jeaniemiley.com for more information.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1
Made in the Image of God

Chapter 2
Start with Yourself

Chapter 3
Harnessing the Energies of Love

Chapter 4
Joining the Forces Within

Chapter 5
It’s Not Your Mother’s World (or Your Father’s, Either)

Chapter 6
Just Don’t Say Anything about It

Chapter 7
How Big Is Your Fig Leaf

Chapter 8
What Lies Beneath

Chapter 9
Women’s Brains Do That, You Know

Chapter 10
The Mothers, My Mother, and Me

Chapter 11
The Mother Who Matters

Chapter 12
Portable Parents

Chapter 13
Jesus, the Masculine, and Me

Chapter 14
A Spirituality of the Heart

Chapter 15
Beyond Ourselves: Joining Forces for Community