Been a while! My son is almost a year old! It's been tricky making time to write, and I don't have time to write the blog I want to write, but if I had time, it would go something like this.
Started reading Outlander after watching the pilot and I'm in love. I wish I had read her before I had written Beast in Exile. I would have taken more chances and bored you guys to death on even more historical minutiae (not that the author is boring, but in my less capable hands, yeah, probably so) and taken the time to fill in the story I thought everyone wouldn't care about, Diana Gabaldon is superb and I want to be her if I ever grow up.
Anyway, if I had time, I would write something titled Jamie's Body. I'm not even sure what the thesis would be, something about Diana Gabaldon redefining romance and rape, but this is what I've noticed.
From the very beginning of the show, Jamie's body is on display, for those of us who enjoy the male figure and in a very different way, for the people in the show. He is on display for Black Jack as an object of lust that symbolizes beauty and innocence Black Jack of course wants to crush into oblivion and he is on display for the people Dougal hopes to convince to join the Jacobite cause. Dougal romanticizes Jamie's body to stir up anger and sentiment, even though Jamie's floggings have little, if anything, to do with succession. This is fun ironic because normally it is the woman's body on display, and while yes, I know men are totally objectified (as honestly attested to above), I have three words for you: Game. Of. Thrones.
But the romanticizing here is much more than sexual, although it is a male from the beginning using Jamie's body. There's more here, but I don't have time, damnit!
So a popular theme this last season is rape. Like ALL OVER THE PLACE.
This is not new in the romance tradition. It goes back as far as Samuel Richardson with Pamela (1740) and Clarissa (1748) (reeeeeally hope those dates are right), through to Anne Radcliffe, through to the arguments we get into today about 50 Shades of Grey and so on. This seems to be a go-to for sensationalism. The distressed female about to lose her virtue is a disgustingly common trope. Even Sir Walter Scott got in on the action with my favorite character Rebecca, who, incidentally, does escape her pursuer.
Claire fulfills her romance duty by being assaulted twice, once with the nefarious, taking forever build-up of having her corset strings cut one by one as Black Jack tries to ruffle up some inspiration.
Her sister-in-law Jenny likewise is threatened. Trying to think of more before baby needs me, I'll fix it later when I remember.
However, I don't think any of the women are successfully raped and the one time Claire is saved by a man, it is Jamie with an unloaded gun. Lacking inspiration again, Black Jack is unable to hurt Jenny. The first time, Claire rescues herself by stabbing the man accosting her, where there could be an argument for stabbing being a phallic, penetrating symbol.
Jamie's rape by Black Jack takes the unfortunate aspect of the romance tradition and rips out its lungs, kinda like Arabella after she throws herself in a lake to get away from "would-be ravishers" (actually just guys riding by on horses) and almost kills herself. I don't believe this is a common plot point in other romances, though I haven't read everything there is to read in romance or any other genre for that matter. I kinda wonder if this isn't challenging the distressed female trope and calling bullshit. Jamie's pain is even given a greater significance by the fact that Black Jack drives a nail through his palm as a down payment for his sacrifice.
I haven't finished the second book yet, but there is a scene where Jamie uses Claire to get information out of a captive (no spoilers! saying no more!) and it is quite ruthless and all I could think was, wow, what a journey this character has had. He is not the same young man from the beginning of the first novel, the innocence destroyed and a new man reborn in the monastery (wait, was it a monastery? a place with a whole bunch of holy dudes).
Just for the record, I don't think rape is fun or particularly interesting, I just noticed this, and was thinking about everything you could do with the discussion. There are levels and levels of conversation and analysis that I would love to pick apart, freakish as that is. I'm not quite in a position to do that now, so help me out here and tell me what you think, what you notice, if I'm crazy, or any thoughts you have.
Anyway, just things I noticed that I would totally write a paper on if I could.
Wednesday, July 8, 2015
Monday, October 21, 2013
# 5 Halloween
This is another hot one that sends
people into moral seizures if you don't tread carefully, or even if you do, the
best you can sometimes hope for is a hostile "agree to disagree".
Halloween is coming and I love it.
Less specifically, I love Fall. I love Pumpkin Spice Lattes. I love decorating.
I love dressing up, I love giving candy to children, as creepy as that sounds.
I love Fall and Halloween is inextricably part of Fall's flavor in our culture
today. The big question every year is how should Christians react to this
holiday. It usually involves a lot of convoluted, technically and morally
ambiguous definitions, testimonies, often fictitious, from "ex-coven"
members, pious but useless truisms and historical inaccuracies. In high school
we watched a movie about how evil Halloween was, and if possible, were given a
huge test or project due the day after to prevent us from going out to in any
way celebrate.
My thoughts? I'm so glad you asked!
First off. Halloween isn't about
Satan. It's about money. Economy-wise, this is another market convention, like
Black Friday.
Second. If we're going to have this
discussion, we need to educate ourselves, which is difficult considering how
much bullshit is out there.
Point A. Paganism, Satanism, and
Secularism are all three different belief systems that DO NOT MIX, even if
people decide to get all pluralistic. By definition, you cannot have all three,
like moral absolutes and moral relativism (and if you're going to say, well,
it's all from Satan's deceptions, so isn't it the same thing, I would say,
technically that's all sin, making you, yourself, a Satanist, so let's be
careful about how we use our terms).
Point B. Trying to figure out who
came up with Halloween first is moot point. There is NO END to this argument.
We can only speculate. Discuss with as much abandon as you can muster, my
history-nerdy-lovelies, but we could just as soon pin down the historical King
Arthur.
Briefly, Paganism wasn't like a
style of coat in one store on the British isles when Christian monk burglars
broke in, stole the lot, made some creative adjustments and put them on display
at their own store across the street. England, Scotland, Ireland, were broken
into many small kingdoms that were all visited by Christian missionaries at
different times and with different agendas and different methods, and they
arrived AFTER the Northerners (Saxons, Angles, Jutes, to name the larger
groups) had come in and taken over the Bretons--Celts--matching and mixing
their own unique, "Pagan" cultures. And while the Christian
missionaries actually tried to preserve the cultures they were visiting, the
Northmen tended to do what made them famous as vikings: burn shit down.
Complicate it further, literacy came with the Christian missionaries, beginning
recorded history, so it's quite easy for Pagan enthusiasts to say they botched
up history in their own nefariously Judeo-Christian favor--which is often
true--but the problem is SO MUCH MORE complex than that and, even better,
impossible to prove. We can't simply say, "Well, it was our holiday until
you erased our name and wrote yours at the top."
So, for painful argument's sake,
impossibly simplified, we have three holidays to choose from, three if you
count it as a Satanic holiday, which was probably celebrated just for shock
appeal, because really, Christians give it up too easy. Aside from these three
holidays, we have a night of the year when kids get to dress up and have fun
taking candy from total strangers.
There is no direct link between
kids dressing up and trick-or-treating and Pagan rites. Kinda like not every
person who gives a gift at Christmas is giving in honor of Jesus. Any other day
of the year, kids would still love to dress up and scare the crap out of each
other. Those who follow Wicca, or Pagan beliefs actually aren’t (in my
experience at least) all that fond of the witch in a pointy hat with warts and
green skin. Letting your child dress up like that is actually less than
sympathetic.
Some things are by their nature a
problem. Cheating on your spouse, for example. Having dinner with someone of
the opposite sex? Some people would say that is never appropriate once you’re
married and that it’s sending misleading signals if you’re not interested in
the person. IMHO, that one's all on you, your strengths, weaknesses, interests.
I have lots of guy friends I would totally have dinner with because I know
that, for me, dinner would not be a possibly compromising situation.
Dinner
with Benedict Cumberbatch, now that would get me in trouble. I’d probably have
to invite my husband and my senior pastor before feeling morally at ease with
that one.
Same with watching your nutrition.
Once a week, I allow myself a day to eat whatever I want without counting
calories. This helps me keep my cravings down so I don’t binge (which would be
the definite bad), and so my body doesn’t go into starvation-mode and think I’m
dieting and therefore hold on to food. I can look at that cookie (21 days out
of the month at least) and say, “I’ll see you
this weekend.” A close friend of mine can’t do this. She has to gain momentum
in an opposite direction and maintain that momentum or it’s all over. If she
gives in to the cookie, she’ll cave entirely.
I can’t speak for everyone, but for
me, so far at least, my experiences have not led me to a place where “celebrating”
Halloween has ever encouraged me to worship any being besides the
Judeo-Christian God. And if your experiences have led you in that direction,
this blog is not aimed at you, there is no judging, because that is a different
matter altogether. For people with certain backgrounds and experiences, the
wise choice might be to treat it like any other day of the year, but that is
between you and God, not you and an uneducated, morally insensitive mob.
My husband and I have five swords
hanging in our hallway (and some still being stored until we figure out where
to put them because we’re running out of wall space). This frightens people,
but not because of what you might think. The sense of danger doesn't come from
the swords as much as from the level of nerdiness this registers about the
owners.
I have Arwen's Hadafang (which, yes, does not exist in the book) and
John has Aragorn's Anduril and we just revel in the Medieval-Tolkien-Jackson
goodness. It’s fun to take people into the hallway and see them be either
totally geeked out and speechless or weirded out and speechless. As a medieval
history pedant, this is a source of pride for me. I love the idealism, bring on
lords and ladies, magic horns and Camelot and Excaliber and Beowulf and Sigurd!
Flash back to 7th century Britain.
Those same swords are decorating
the mead-hall and I probably hate them. I hate seeing them because I know my
brother will take one into battle and possibly be killed. I hate seeing another
because it was the sword that killed my father (yay for blood-feud and
peace-brides). At any moment, a neighboring kingdom may decide to invade for
vengeance, Vikings (those that were early by a few hundred years) might land on
shore with a war horn and while present century me loves the sound, 7th
century me knows it may mean my entire family will be killed and if I’m lucky,
I’ll be killed before anything worse can happen to me.
Present century me and 7th
century me will never be able to look at those swords the same. It's like
suddenly running a current through a dead electric fence. If I choose to grab a
sword off the wall, my intent is what takes it from being an artifact to a
weapon. I've electrified the fence.
I wanted to put a picture here, but I couldn't find one with enough realism that didn't make the point only too well.
Now, to be fair, there is a limit
to this. Some symbols don't lose their punch. I don't think any girl, no matter
how incredibly stupidly “SoCal”, is ever going to sport a purse decorated with sparkly swastikas.
No matter how Bejeweled, Nazism is never again going to be trendy. Hopefully.
I'm a little jumpy around Focus on
the Family but I would like to close with them.
“Even here, however, there is a
place for some harmless fun. Kids love to dress up and pretend. If the
Halloween experience is focused on fantasy rather than the occult, I see no
harm in it. Make costumes for your children that represent fun characters…”
What is it for you? What is Halloween an opportunity to do, for you? I love seeing innocent little children dressing up as their favorite heroes and Disney princesses, spending time with their parents and getting to use their imaginations before the adult world smacks it out of them. I even like getting to discuss history in amicable settings, tracing the traditions back, learning about the sense of festival when people would have a good crop harvested and then celebrate because they weren't going to starve that winter. I hope you all have a beautiful Fall and glorify God with rejoicing in the beauty and complexity He built into our world and into our relationships. May you always balance well in your eschatological tension.
Saturday, September 28, 2013
Good and Evil in Once Upon a Time...#4 Maybe?
Warning! Once Upon a Time seasons 1 and 2 spoilers!
::cries:: Soooooo much more I wanted to do with this, but it's taking too long and I need to post! Peace out! Will probably continue working on this one on the side for my own closure....
Disney is famous for repackaging classics and fairy-tales (for more, see The Hunchback of Notre Dame). They’ve been pegged for some of the best-worst messages we could send to young women:
Snow White: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eT2R3E7vDUc
Ariel: http://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_71889&feature=iv&src_vid=eT2R3E7vDUc&v=N8xCgC3w1zs
Belle: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uuk-h2ZYNJU
There's probably a sexier way to list those links but I'm now and forever technologically impaired and afraid of getting sued, so, there you have it.
My favorite Disney princess is Belle, for obvious reasons: a dysfunctional bookworm with a Messiah complex?
Absolutely.
Mulan and Jasmine are awesome; feisty, intelligent, independent women, along with Disney’s Esmeralda but as their version can at best be described as “loosely based”, I have a difficult time thinking about it without twitching. Really, on the one hand, it’s a relief because you want to push each and every character in the book (besides, maybe, Djali, the goat) down an open elevator shaft.
On the other hand, Victor Hugo…. You just massively screwed with VICTOR-EFFING-HUGO!!!!
I’m not really that keen on Cinderella. The Snow White and Sleeping Beauty movies had other things going for them that made up for their passive, personality-less heroines (#creepytrees #medievalismanddragons), but Cinderella never was all that entertaining for me. Singing mice sneaking stuff around? I really don’t care. Make that dress for Cinderelly, but I want to know what she and the prince were talking about. Why are we spending so much time on a demonic cat? Aren’t there other people at this ball? Does the prince have any lines???
However, as far as damaged fairy-tale reputations go, she got the short end of the stick. We’ve got the name “Cinderella-complex” for someone who waits around to be saved or an underdog that suddenly soars to the top. It does seem fair, except for one detail from the original fairy-tale generally not emphasized in any re-telling, but IMHO it definitely gives Cinderella a little bit more savvy and sassy.
The tiny detail is that, at least in some versions, she doesn’t lose her glass slipper; she purposely drops it. Victorian CSI cred right there. I mean, when you think about, it’s brilliant; they couldn’t bump iPhones back then, she was in a hurry, and I think we can all agree that glass slippers would have been something of a novelty item. There’s also a little bit of a class issue here. Dainty feet were considered hot back then because, one, you couldn’t see much else south-wise on a woman, and two, they were associated with “people of quality”, because tiny feet meant you weren’t on them working all day (any woman who’s ever been pregnant knows what I’m talking about). That itty-bitty glass slipper would have reminded him quite chastely that there was a tiny, beautiful, eligible young lady out there waiting for him to get his shit together.
When I think about it in this light, I have a little more respect for Cinderella's discretion, if never for her boldness....
And finally to the point. Watching One Upon a Time has been for me, like appreciating Cinderella.
Initially the show has some serious detractors.
Awful, awful, awful one liners, “I will always find you” (and even the spectacular, “You can’t or you won’t?”); random magical objects that for some reason or other didn’t exist before that episode (really, that magical dream-catcher would have been sooooooo useful last season); and some curious plot consistencies (if the town was stuck in time, how did Henry grow up? How does the kid even know about the curse and geez, Evil Queen or whatever, Regina is a good mom!).
Let’s not even get started at the unabashedly whorish tribute served to the Disney franchise.
The show pretends to be painfully naïve (really, the clock is ticking, is there time to have your little moment now?!) and cheap with hackneyed plots and tricks we’ve seen again and again and at moments the costume look like they could have been ripped from a Halloween expo.
But for as many awful one-liners, there’s some subtle, wonderfully ironic moments that show a little bit of wit behind the naiveté. Such as the Evil Queen telling Belle, as she explains the power of “True Love’s Kiss”, a Disney invention, “I would never recommend that you kiss a man that is holding you captive, what kind of message would THAT send?”
My 3 Favorite Moments from Season 1
#1 Rumplestiltskin—who, as far as I know has never before been a Disney character—blowing up Cinderella’s fairy god-mother.
#2 A dreamy Snow White, complete with a red ribbon in her hair, sweeping while she hums what I think is the same song from the Disney movie, sets a dainty blue-bird on the tables and then savagely whacks it with her broom.
#3 Mary Margaret, aka Snow White, starts having an affair with David Nolan, aka James, aka Prince Charming, the book they discuss but never name, I believe, is Anna Karenina.
As I watch, I get all hung up in the subtext about good and evil. What the characters seem to be trying to teach us about good and evil is actually at odds with the subtext, particularly in regards to the tension between Regina and Snow White.
First off, according to the “good” characters there are heroes and there are villains. Period, end of story.
The Blue Fairy (who is adorable with Tina Turner hair) tells another character that she’s on the “right side”. Mary Margaret, aka Snow White, is furious with David Nolan, aka James, aka Prince Charming, when his own memories (incorrectly) indicate she has killed Kathryn. Like, they’re his MEMORIES! Really?!?! Give the guy a break! But this is treated as a serious transgression because she is a “good” person and because he loves her. And we don’t believe anything bad about people we love, especially when they are patently good people.
The villain side is a little different. First off, things aren’t so black and white. So far there aren’t any thoroughly, gratuitously evil characters (although piecing together his back story, the Mad Hatter would be a good candidate until he has his daughter). There are some serious jerks and butt-faces, but not one evil from the womb, without some sort of given to explain, though not necessarily excuse their behavior. The show handles them both sympathetically and unsympathetically. The portrayals of the Evil Queen, aka Regina and Rumplestiltskin are at first in all their evil glory. As their history is revealed, however, both characters display initially sweet, sensitive natures caught in a situation of some kind of abuse until they discover magic as a source of power and revenge. Classically, as in Buffy and other worthy traditions, magic becomes a drug for them, supplying the strength they need outside to deal with the emptiness and weakness inside.
Both the Evil Queen and the Machiavellian Rumplestiltskin say, “Evil isn’t born, it’s made”. While Rumplestiltskin’s anger makes him go from zero to dark one almost instantly, Regina takes baby-steps. Each progression towards Evil Queen comes with a moment of fear that eventually disappears as Regina finds her strength and stability in magic.
The tense storyline between Snow White and Evil Queen Regina gets even more complicated as we see how each responds to remorse and shame.
With a little help from Dictionary.Com
Shame: embarrassment, mortification, humiliation… different kinds or degrees of painful feeling caused by injury to one's pride or self-respect. Shame is a painful feeling caused by the consciousness or exposure of unworthy or indecent conduct or circumstances
In Biblical terms, this is the difference between “worldly” and “godly” sorrow.
Despite her past, all the wrong done to her and all the wrong she has done, Regina chooses during the second season to try to redeem herself for Henry, her adopted son. Looking back, Regina is actually more vicious in the first season when she has no magic, than in the second season when Rumplestiltskin brings magic to Storybrooke (gag, I know, right?). In season 2, she allows Henry to live with his grandfather, Prince Charming (it’s a long story, sorta), stops trying to do magic completely and even regularly visits the town psychologist (the interesting thing is that’s Jiminy Cricket, Disney’s conscience, who seems to be most sympathetic and hopeful for Regina’s rehabilitation).
However, instead of this being a beginning for Regina to climb out of the mind-sewer she’s been living in, the “good” people of Storybrooke—now in their idealized, fairy-tale identities—decide instead to drag her through the mud. Once they are no longer afraid of her, they make it clear to her she is still evil and not part of their good-guy club. At least as the Evil Queen she got some respect! Once the only power she has is removed, they confirm her worst fears by treating her like she is nothing, a nothing they would squash if it wouldn't dirty their shoes. Once she relinquishes her power, heroism seems limited to self-righteousness, rather than rehabilitation, much like in the church today.Regina’s dedication to redemption downgrades her from Evil Queen to Social Pariah.
Someone could argue, well, if she was doing it for the right reason, it wouldn’t matter. I’d say “good” better not act so self-righteous if they’re not prepared to understand that Regina’s moral compass is weak and broken and if it’s going to function right, it needs what they received growing up, support, trustworthy examples and love. Regina IS doing what she can to get better, which is a phenomenal step considering her childhood role-models and the powerlessness she feels until she finds magic, after her mother rips out the heart of the only strong man that loved Regina in her life.
Inevitably, good is more concerned with its shining armor than the people it is supposedly saving. Much like the church. Hey, could this count for one of my 95?
Snow White’s reaction when she tricks Regina into killing her own mother (while making Regina believe she is actually saving her mother) is entirely another story. The first thing Snow White says when Prince Charming finds her is, “You’re right, this isn’t me.”
Her first thought is what her actions say about her. Not about the damage she has done.
After that, she lays in bed for days, completely horrified and sickened of what her crime means about her, NOT about the pain it has caused. Her next step is to go to Regina. She doesn’t go to ask for forgiveness or ask for peace, she asks Regina to kill her so she no longer has to live with herself. Restored back to her Evil Queen status, Regina rips out her heart (only fatal if the person ripping crushes the heart) and shows her a little black spot oozing from it and Snow White loses her shit. Regina replaces her heart, leaving Snow White alive with the ultimate torture, knowing that she has sullied herself with an evil action.
Blog is getting way too long for a blog, so I’ll wrap it up here.
All this isn’t to say they should reinstate Regina as queen or let her off with a clean slate. If you see a train coming, you owe it to yourself and to others to jump off the tracks. Be shrewd; never get hit with the same train. But if you’re going to parade the moral high ground, you also have the responsibility of discerning compassion and humility.
Enjoy Season 3!
Agree? Disagree? Please let me know! It’s no fun to dialogue alone!
Saturday, July 27, 2013
#3 Purity Week
There are few things more awkward than watching a sex scene in a movie (just to be clear) with my dad. If it's a movie I know well, I'll plan a trip to the restroom or go get a drink before the scene comes and then come back once I know it's over. That said, I'm the first one to giggle "in bed" after reading a fortune cookie (if you haven't done this, do it, it's hilarious!!!). Unless my dad's at the table. When my dad's at the table, I would swear I was dropped off by stork or hatched from an egg because sex doesn't exist.
It's quite Victorian, really, but to some extent, healthy.
When I came to an appropriate age, and knowing already books were my thing and that I was painfully shy, my mom gave me a book and a journal. I could always come to her for questions, but if I was too embarrassed, I could write them down and leave the journal for her and she would leave a written reply.
I'm very thankful for how tactfully my mom handled it, but back then I experienced a disconnect.
I don't remember what we were talking about, but I remember I was in early-mid elementary school and I mentioned sex with a list of other disgusting sins. When my mom looked at me, startled I'm sure, and said that sex was something beautiful that God designed for a husband and wife (I think that's pretty close to what she actually said), it blew my single-digit world.
None of this had come from home. I'm sure you can guess where I got that impression.
At that age, it was just an impression. Sex wasn't really on my radar, naturally. It didn't apply to me. I didn't sit and ponder the philosophical and physical differences of having either a female brain or female parts.
Fast forward a couple years to middle and high school (just curious, do people still say fast forward?)
Sex still wasn't on my radar and between my own shyness and the impression inherited from childhood, there wasn't much danger.
Enter, Purity Week.
Purity came around twice a school year. Our schedules were modified so that we had chapel every day and every message was pretty much the same. The guys would go to the gym to hear one speaker and the girls would go to the sanctuary to hear another.
So, 10 Things I Learned From Purity Week
1. Do not have sex.
2. Do not EVER have sex.Only slutty whores like/have sex.
3.Sex for enjoyment is sinful.
4. You will be damaged beyond repair if before marriage you have sex.
5. You will lose all your worth if you have sex. You might be able to earn it back, but you'll still be holy damaged goods.
6. Do not engage in romance. It is the enemy's tool to get you to have sex.
7. Sex will pull you away from God.
8. You are responsible for how men view you.
9. God will take away His plan, for possibly permanently you if you have sex.
10. Never be alone with a male. You will be centripetally compelled to have sex and then you will be ruined.
And then, somewhere surreptitiously slipped in,sex in marriage is ok.
There is always the possibility that my sensitive, shy nature could have wrongfully inferred this, except it was the same message, every day, every year. We heard housewives cry because sex prevented them from going into the mission field. Another always said she had just recently been left at the altar (3 different years she spoke I think, so I'm not sure I believe this one). It's funny, but it was always women telling us (whether they had gotten pregnant or not) how sex had ruined their lives and always men telling us sex would degrade us.
Some Applications?
We were taught to avoid touching the opposite sex in a way that would have made the Gnostics proud.
We could not hold hands and if we were caught in any inappropriate activity outside school we could be expelled. We were monitored to make sure we didn't sit too close together. Dancing in any way shape or form was forbidden (Footloose anyone?), and any music that wasn't "Christian", even instrumental music, was banned.
Think twice before wearing a skirt with a hemline above your knee because you are responsible for causing your brother to stumble (this is specifically what someone said).
Don't hold hands because the guy God has destined you to marry might see you holding hands and decide he doesn't want you (also a specific injunction).
Over-correcting doesn't sum it up.
Could I direct a Purity Week any better?
Probably not; honestly I'd just make a whole new set of mistakes for someone to blog about.
But here are some things I would rather have heard:
1. It's not about not touching until you get married, like that's the finish line. I heard a pastor tell a couple to put a quarter in a jar each time they had sex the first year they were married. After that year,they were to take one quarter out each time they had sex. He told them it would take years to empty the jar, if they ever did.
#Bullshit
I've heard people say sex is a journey that starts when you get married, and in my limited experience, it's so far true. It kinda seemed like marriage/married sex was something you arrive at. Nope. Again, my experience is limited, but from talking to healthy people about this, and from limited experience, you are starting at the beginning of something that will take longer to explore than most relationships last.
This blog is already long enough and not meant to be a how-to on sex, so unless someone asks, I'm going to just leave it there and recommend Dr. Leman's book Sheet Music.
2. Some practical, healthy reasons why sex before marriage should be avoided. Yes, the Bible says we shouldn't, but are there reasons why that biology and psychology can explain, vocabulary and formulas the apostles didn't yet have to work with? For example, when a woman is sexually aroused (not talking about merely holding hands or recreational kissing), a hormone is released in her brain (I am NOT a scientist-dr-like-person, so this is a gist, not a scientific break down, cut me some slack in my description). That hormone is the same one released during breast-feeding to emotionally bond a child with it's mother. That's a pretty intense bond! I would take a little bit longer to think about the guy, especially because guys don't have this hormone. They are wired differently for sex. If the guy knows this about women and is still pushing to have sex when the relationship isn't serious, you know a little more about the jerk you're dating.
3. How sex impacts daily life, especially for men and women. Most guys don't know they can't ignore their wife all day and then ask for sex. Most women don't understand men don't know this fact and belittle their men for their ignorance and God-given appetite. Most women don't understand how deeply that rejection can hurt their husbands, who passive aggressively will find ways to reject their wives, including being at work all day and ignoring their wife and the cycle continues. Look at the guy you're with. Now back at me. Now back at your man (Sorry, couldn't help it). Is this guy someone you feel is safe to learn these things with? This goes back to #1 with sex being a journey. I first read Sheet Music before I got married, made notes and unlined things. I'm reading it again after I'm married and making all new notes and underlinings! Sex affects things and things affect sex that I had never even thought of and wouldn't have believed before marriage! I am so blessed with how giving and considerate my husband is as a lover and that conviction--so far-- has grown since our wedding night, not diminished.
It's quite Victorian, really, but to some extent, healthy.
When I came to an appropriate age, and knowing already books were my thing and that I was painfully shy, my mom gave me a book and a journal. I could always come to her for questions, but if I was too embarrassed, I could write them down and leave the journal for her and she would leave a written reply.
I'm very thankful for how tactfully my mom handled it, but back then I experienced a disconnect.
I don't remember what we were talking about, but I remember I was in early-mid elementary school and I mentioned sex with a list of other disgusting sins. When my mom looked at me, startled I'm sure, and said that sex was something beautiful that God designed for a husband and wife (I think that's pretty close to what she actually said), it blew my single-digit world.
None of this had come from home. I'm sure you can guess where I got that impression.
At that age, it was just an impression. Sex wasn't really on my radar, naturally. It didn't apply to me. I didn't sit and ponder the philosophical and physical differences of having either a female brain or female parts.
Fast forward a couple years to middle and high school (just curious, do people still say fast forward?)
Sex still wasn't on my radar and between my own shyness and the impression inherited from childhood, there wasn't much danger.
Enter, Purity Week.
Purity came around twice a school year. Our schedules were modified so that we had chapel every day and every message was pretty much the same. The guys would go to the gym to hear one speaker and the girls would go to the sanctuary to hear another.
So, 10 Things I Learned From Purity Week
1. Do not have sex.
2. Do not EVER have sex.Only slutty whores like/have sex.
3.Sex for enjoyment is sinful.
4. You will be damaged beyond repair if before marriage you have sex.
5. You will lose all your worth if you have sex. You might be able to earn it back, but you'll still be holy damaged goods.
6. Do not engage in romance. It is the enemy's tool to get you to have sex.
7. Sex will pull you away from God.
8. You are responsible for how men view you.
9. God will take away His plan, for possibly permanently you if you have sex.
10. Never be alone with a male. You will be centripetally compelled to have sex and then you will be ruined.
And then, somewhere surreptitiously slipped in,
There is always the possibility that my sensitive, shy nature could have wrongfully inferred this, except it was the same message, every day, every year. We heard housewives cry because sex prevented them from going into the mission field. Another always said she had just recently been left at the altar (3 different years she spoke I think, so I'm not sure I believe this one). It's funny, but it was always women telling us (whether they had gotten pregnant or not) how sex had ruined their lives and always men telling us sex would degrade us.
Some Applications?
We were taught to avoid touching the opposite sex in a way that would have made the Gnostics proud.
We could not hold hands and if we were caught in any inappropriate activity outside school we could be expelled. We were monitored to make sure we didn't sit too close together. Dancing in any way shape or form was forbidden (Footloose anyone?), and any music that wasn't "Christian", even instrumental music, was banned.
Think twice before wearing a skirt with a hemline above your knee because you are responsible for causing your brother to stumble (this is specifically what someone said).
Don't hold hands because the guy God has destined you to marry might see you holding hands and decide he doesn't want you (also a specific injunction).
Over-correcting doesn't sum it up.
Could I direct a Purity Week any better?
Probably not; honestly I'd just make a whole new set of mistakes for someone to blog about.
But here are some things I would rather have heard:
1. It's not about not touching until you get married, like that's the finish line. I heard a pastor tell a couple to put a quarter in a jar each time they had sex the first year they were married. After that year,they were to take one quarter out each time they had sex. He told them it would take years to empty the jar, if they ever did.
#Bullshit
I've heard people say sex is a journey that starts when you get married, and in my limited experience, it's so far true. It kinda seemed like marriage/married sex was something you arrive at. Nope. Again, my experience is limited, but from talking to healthy people about this, and from limited experience, you are starting at the beginning of something that will take longer to explore than most relationships last.
This blog is already long enough and not meant to be a how-to on sex, so unless someone asks, I'm going to just leave it there and recommend Dr. Leman's book Sheet Music.
2. Some practical, healthy reasons why sex before marriage should be avoided. Yes, the Bible says we shouldn't, but are there reasons why that biology and psychology can explain, vocabulary and formulas the apostles didn't yet have to work with? For example, when a woman is sexually aroused (not talking about merely holding hands or recreational kissing), a hormone is released in her brain (I am NOT a scientist-dr-like-person, so this is a gist, not a scientific break down, cut me some slack in my description). That hormone is the same one released during breast-feeding to emotionally bond a child with it's mother. That's a pretty intense bond! I would take a little bit longer to think about the guy, especially because guys don't have this hormone. They are wired differently for sex. If the guy knows this about women and is still pushing to have sex when the relationship isn't serious, you know a little more about the jerk you're dating.
3. How sex impacts daily life, especially for men and women. Most guys don't know they can't ignore their wife all day and then ask for sex. Most women don't understand men don't know this fact and belittle their men for their ignorance and God-given appetite. Most women don't understand how deeply that rejection can hurt their husbands, who passive aggressively will find ways to reject their wives, including being at work all day and ignoring their wife and the cycle continues. Look at the guy you're with. Now back at me. Now back at your man (Sorry, couldn't help it). Is this guy someone you feel is safe to learn these things with? This goes back to #1 with sex being a journey. I first read Sheet Music before I got married, made notes and unlined things. I'm reading it again after I'm married and making all new notes and underlinings! Sex affects things and things affect sex that I had never even thought of and wouldn't have believed before marriage! I am so blessed with how giving and considerate my husband is as a lover and that conviction--so far-- has grown since our wedding night, not diminished.
Sunday, June 30, 2013
#2 Reacting to DOMA/Please don't screw this up.
Wrote this in 3 or 4 settings, mea culpa, but I think it needed it... anyway....
I remember going with friends to see Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ. It was an awesome movie. Not really one you watch while eating chips and doing homework, but pretty damn powerful (except for the demon-baby part, wtf?). So churches got together like small armies occupying theaters for the midnight showings.
So we were kinda obvious. Our reputations preceded us and it only remained to either confirm or deny. We had an opportunity as a community to make an impression.
And, at least in the movie theater I was in, we totally blew.
When it seemed like things might not start on time, church members sporting "I LOVE JESUS" t-shirts descended on the theater staff, demanding to know what was happening. Not nicely inquiring. DEMANDING. They needed to talk to the manager, stat. They put us in one theater and then told us we needed to move to another. The Christian community lost their shit at this outrage and were quite vocal about it. The staff were already tired and hassled and a barbarian horde of gorilla Christians (you know, the meek, long-suffering, patient servants of Christ?) probably made their night one they will always look back to with joy. That's a moment we can't get back, and an impression we can't unmake.
Historically speaking, Christians as a collective entity fulfill the sayings about stupid people in large groups. It's pretty much why the latter half of the Bible was written. Because we keep screwing up. We call Romans and Ephesians and the like "books", but they are actually letters written to a specific group of people at a specific time in history. In the case of I and II Corinthians, the letters were written (among other things) because the Christians in those churches were behaving badly. If I understand right, there were so many problems with cliques and judgment (the letters still apply because we are still just as stupid) that Paul had to abort the mission he was about to undertake so he could visit the snobby Corinthians and lovingly smack them upside the head in the name of Jesus (there was also the issue about sleeping with your father's wife or, something, but not really to our purpose here....). Not everyone was behaving badly and in some areas the church was thriving and Paul high-fives them accordingly. Although it has been represented otherwise, Paul's tone is actually quite playful, rather than judgmental and fun-killing. Now, hold that though one moment.
BUM bum BUUUUUUUUUUUUUM! DOMA was finally ruled unconstitutional. We knew it was going to happen eventually. With or without DOMA, people are going to do what people are going to do. However, Christians are once again indiscreetly losing their shit. As this article from Cracked documents very well.
http://www.cracked.com/quick-fixes/a-30-second-guide-to-how-gay-marriage-ruling-affects-you/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=fanpage&utm_campaign=new+article&wa_ibsrc=fanpage
I would really hope those comments were photo-shopped, except I'm hearing them from other places. Christians freaking out, crying out to the Lord for the rapture, begging Jesus to come and collect them into the clouds to shield them from the possibility of being contaminated by such wickedness.
As a Christian with a conservative view on homosexuality myself, I still need to call bullshit.
REASON THE FIRST
Stop kidding yourself about being contaminated. You already are. The very thing that makes them do the thing that makes you do the thing where you cry out for the rapture, yeah, that's in you too (Romans 7:14-25). Savvy? The source of what you're so quick to call disgusting is a part of your human make-up. You're made of the same stuff. You're part of the kingdom of God, spiritually under His protection, but you still exist in eschatological tension, able to be very close with God and still royally screw up like some dudes I know named Abraham, Jacob, Peter--all after their increased intimacy with God. So take your pious horror down a notch.
REASON THE SECOND
Unless you live in Sodom and Gomorrah where your neighbors are pounding on your door and asking to rape your dinner guests (I know how it sounds, let's just leave it at it is possible, mmk?), you better have another damn good reason to think your life is so terrible, or under such persecution, other than a paper shuffle. Because that's all this is, folks. Political smoke and mirrors.
REASON THE THIRD
The early church martyrs join me in calling bullshit. You're about to be set on fire for Nero's gardens? I totally get it. I would be screaming for heaven at a sound frequency only dogs could hear. They've just unleashed a very hungry pair of lions into the arena so we can all watch them eat you--for fun. Great time for the Second Coming, seriously. Zip ahead a few hundred years. Catholics and Protestants setting each other on fire, getting dragged behind wild horses. Let's look at today. (Which brings us another point, no one knows the hour, so stop obsessing that it could be ANY minute and be a good steward of what the Lord has entrusted to you for THIS life!!!!) Christians in other countries are jailed or killed. Even our citizens in other countries. America is by no definition perfect, but she is definitely not the Whore of Babylon either.
REASON 3
You look like a jerk. You don't come across as pious. You don't come across as godly or holy. You're not "throwing pearls to swine" or showing tough love. You come across as an overreacting jerk, which is ALWAYS good for your witness, right? I mean, in high school, I simply LOVED when people would stop and ask me if I worshiped Satan or was obsessed with death. Really provided some empathetic common ground there.
You can't beat the sin out of anyone. The heart or the life, but not the sin.
So, returning to the thought above.
Now that DOMA is out, the church has another chance to make an impression. I'm not qualified to write a treatise about this, but these are my thoughts narrowed down.
Separate legal arguments from moral arguments and a person from the movement.
IDEA THE FIRST
I have an issue with how many times we've voted on this. I have an issue with feeling like I can't express my belief, like every time some celebrity admits they believe marriage is between a man and a woman, people lose their shit and stop buying their products. I have a problem with the idea that as a teacher I may not be able to say I disagree or that I may have to endorse a worldview I don't agree with even though I can't mention my own religion in my own classroom. These are all legal issues that affect me. It is not in my power to control other people. We--CHRISTIANS--sin in our very thoughts!
We are living alongside people outside our theocracy, eschatological tension. If we're going to play together, we need to learn to be nice and fair. There is a logic here that has to be applied when people live in a community, not a name-calling contest (::shakes finger at both sides::). Find that and work from within it. None of my issues with homosexuality have to do with the value of the human being. Only God has that right.
Note* Just to be clear, I'm not talking about sitting quietly by if, say, people are fired for our worldview, or censured (although we know both sides have experienced this), or that whole question of pastors being forced to marry people, or if any of the things I listed above come into effect. Name calling and judgment still wouldn't be helpful then either.
IDEA THE SECOND
Start caring about people beyond their sexuality. The Bible does not say, "Thou shalt focus on one arbitrary sin that you particularly find disgusting." I can't speak for God, but I don't think the Great Physician uses rusty instruments to rip a tumor out of a cancer patient without anesthetics, with a broken vital monitor. Think more pilates. You start at your core, at what's really important and work your way out as you get stronger, relying on your core without straining more delicate muscle areas until you're ready.
This doesn't mean you have to throw over your own personal beliefs. My belief system is not a surprise to any of my friends outside my worldview. Learn how to express your view in a loving way that still values the other person. Let's not force ANYONE to pretend to be anything other than what they are. Actually, tolerance at it's finest is when you disagree 100% and can still split a pizza with the person. When your conviction compels you to act inappropriately, hatefully, something else is interfering that has nothing to do with God.
Anyone you are trying to bring to Christ will respect and listen to you more if you see them as an individual and not a problem, and if you firmly but respectfully hold your own beliefs. You are now a safe person for them, because you are honest and loving. #healthy boundaries
Anyway, just my thoughts... If you disagree or are offended.... please forgive me.
Please comment, ermergherd please comment. Show me I am not alone in the universe!!!
I remember going with friends to see Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ. It was an awesome movie. Not really one you watch while eating chips and doing homework, but pretty damn powerful (except for the demon-baby part, wtf?). So churches got together like small armies occupying theaters for the midnight showings.
So we were kinda obvious. Our reputations preceded us and it only remained to either confirm or deny. We had an opportunity as a community to make an impression.
And, at least in the movie theater I was in, we totally blew.
When it seemed like things might not start on time, church members sporting "I LOVE JESUS" t-shirts descended on the theater staff, demanding to know what was happening. Not nicely inquiring. DEMANDING. They needed to talk to the manager, stat. They put us in one theater and then told us we needed to move to another. The Christian community lost their shit at this outrage and were quite vocal about it. The staff were already tired and hassled and a barbarian horde of gorilla Christians (you know, the meek, long-suffering, patient servants of Christ?) probably made their night one they will always look back to with joy. That's a moment we can't get back, and an impression we can't unmake.
Historically speaking, Christians as a collective entity fulfill the sayings about stupid people in large groups. It's pretty much why the latter half of the Bible was written. Because we keep screwing up. We call Romans and Ephesians and the like "books", but they are actually letters written to a specific group of people at a specific time in history. In the case of I and II Corinthians, the letters were written (among other things) because the Christians in those churches were behaving badly. If I understand right, there were so many problems with cliques and judgment (the letters still apply because we are still just as stupid) that Paul had to abort the mission he was about to undertake so he could visit the snobby Corinthians and lovingly smack them upside the head in the name of Jesus (there was also the issue about sleeping with your father's wife or, something, but not really to our purpose here....). Not everyone was behaving badly and in some areas the church was thriving and Paul high-fives them accordingly. Although it has been represented otherwise, Paul's tone is actually quite playful, rather than judgmental and fun-killing. Now, hold that though one moment.
BUM bum BUUUUUUUUUUUUUM! DOMA was finally ruled unconstitutional. We knew it was going to happen eventually. With or without DOMA, people are going to do what people are going to do. However, Christians are once again indiscreetly losing their shit. As this article from Cracked documents very well.
http://www.cracked.com/quick-fixes/a-30-second-guide-to-how-gay-marriage-ruling-affects-you/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=fanpage&utm_campaign=new+article&wa_ibsrc=fanpage
I would really hope those comments were photo-shopped, except I'm hearing them from other places. Christians freaking out, crying out to the Lord for the rapture, begging Jesus to come and collect them into the clouds to shield them from the possibility of being contaminated by such wickedness.
As a Christian with a conservative view on homosexuality myself, I still need to call bullshit.
REASON THE FIRST
Stop kidding yourself about being contaminated. You already are. The very thing that makes them do the thing that makes you do the thing where you cry out for the rapture, yeah, that's in you too (Romans 7:14-25). Savvy? The source of what you're so quick to call disgusting is a part of your human make-up. You're made of the same stuff. You're part of the kingdom of God, spiritually under His protection, but you still exist in eschatological tension, able to be very close with God and still royally screw up like some dudes I know named Abraham, Jacob, Peter--all after their increased intimacy with God. So take your pious horror down a notch.
REASON THE SECOND
Unless you live in Sodom and Gomorrah where your neighbors are pounding on your door and asking to rape your dinner guests (I know how it sounds, let's just leave it at it is possible, mmk?), you better have another damn good reason to think your life is so terrible, or under such persecution, other than a paper shuffle. Because that's all this is, folks. Political smoke and mirrors.
REASON THE THIRD
The early church martyrs join me in calling bullshit. You're about to be set on fire for Nero's gardens? I totally get it. I would be screaming for heaven at a sound frequency only dogs could hear. They've just unleashed a very hungry pair of lions into the arena so we can all watch them eat you--for fun. Great time for the Second Coming, seriously. Zip ahead a few hundred years. Catholics and Protestants setting each other on fire, getting dragged behind wild horses. Let's look at today. (Which brings us another point, no one knows the hour, so stop obsessing that it could be ANY minute and be a good steward of what the Lord has entrusted to you for THIS life!!!!) Christians in other countries are jailed or killed. Even our citizens in other countries. America is by no definition perfect, but she is definitely not the Whore of Babylon either.
REASON 3
You look like a jerk. You don't come across as pious. You don't come across as godly or holy. You're not "throwing pearls to swine" or showing tough love. You come across as an overreacting jerk, which is ALWAYS good for your witness, right? I mean, in high school, I simply LOVED when people would stop and ask me if I worshiped Satan or was obsessed with death. Really provided some empathetic common ground there.
You can't beat the sin out of anyone. The heart or the life, but not the sin.
So, returning to the thought above.
Now that DOMA is out, the church has another chance to make an impression. I'm not qualified to write a treatise about this, but these are my thoughts narrowed down.
Separate legal arguments from moral arguments and a person from the movement.
IDEA THE FIRST
I have an issue with how many times we've voted on this. I have an issue with feeling like I can't express my belief, like every time some celebrity admits they believe marriage is between a man and a woman, people lose their shit and stop buying their products. I have a problem with the idea that as a teacher I may not be able to say I disagree or that I may have to endorse a worldview I don't agree with even though I can't mention my own religion in my own classroom. These are all legal issues that affect me. It is not in my power to control other people. We--CHRISTIANS--sin in our very thoughts!
We are living alongside people outside our theocracy, eschatological tension. If we're going to play together, we need to learn to be nice and fair. There is a logic here that has to be applied when people live in a community, not a name-calling contest (::shakes finger at both sides::). Find that and work from within it. None of my issues with homosexuality have to do with the value of the human being. Only God has that right.
Note* Just to be clear, I'm not talking about sitting quietly by if, say, people are fired for our worldview, or censured (although we know both sides have experienced this), or that whole question of pastors being forced to marry people, or if any of the things I listed above come into effect. Name calling and judgment still wouldn't be helpful then either.
IDEA THE SECOND
Start caring about people beyond their sexuality. The Bible does not say, "Thou shalt focus on one arbitrary sin that you particularly find disgusting." I can't speak for God, but I don't think the Great Physician uses rusty instruments to rip a tumor out of a cancer patient without anesthetics, with a broken vital monitor. Think more pilates. You start at your core, at what's really important and work your way out as you get stronger, relying on your core without straining more delicate muscle areas until you're ready.
This doesn't mean you have to throw over your own personal beliefs. My belief system is not a surprise to any of my friends outside my worldview. Learn how to express your view in a loving way that still values the other person. Let's not force ANYONE to pretend to be anything other than what they are. Actually, tolerance at it's finest is when you disagree 100% and can still split a pizza with the person. When your conviction compels you to act inappropriately, hatefully, something else is interfering that has nothing to do with God.
Anyone you are trying to bring to Christ will respect and listen to you more if you see them as an individual and not a problem, and if you firmly but respectfully hold your own beliefs. You are now a safe person for them, because you are honest and loving. #healthy boundaries
Anyway, just my thoughts... If you disagree or are offended.... please forgive me.
Please comment, ermergherd please comment. Show me I am not alone in the universe!!!
Monday, June 10, 2013
My Ninety-Five #1
I know, I know, lost momentum there, please forgive me. Fell down the rabbit hole, hit the floor, did a little grab the key and THEN shrink yourself tango, and now crawling through the door.
Anyway.
So, in 1517 this guy named Martin Luther (he's on wiki) wrote this thing against the church called the Ninety-Five Theses, detailing 95 challenges, or issues he had with the church at that time (to call that a gloss would be an obscene understatement). He was a monk, a Catholic priest, a theologian, attended university (back when that actually meant something), studied the great philosophers, I'm guessing spoke or at least understood Greek and Latin, and had the spiritual ballz to take on the Catholic church when they ruled the western world and get himself in a LOT of trouble.
And then there's me. What do we have in common???
Not anything really.
I don't really fall under any of these categories, some less than others. I think the only thing we have in common is standing in front of our prospective religious institutions (since Protestants were earning their name at that time in history by 'protesting') with a speech bubble over our heads that says, "Religious Institution! What gives?! Are you kidding me?!?!?"
So, I am most emphatically not comparing myself to Martin Luther or the present Protestant wing of the church to the Medieval Catholic church, but I'm exploring if I can find ninety-five things that legitimately bug me about the Protestant church in general. It would definitely give me the means to get REALLY SPECIFIC, and give me time to do some research and see if my impressions are still (or ever were...) reality at large.
One of my grievances with church is that it's not designed for new comers, though it be the goal for a lot of well-intentioned leaders. Don't get me wrong, we put out the welcoming banner. It's on church handouts and seems built into events, but we do A LOT to undermine how user-friendly we would like church to be.
#1-Oversimplifying
This first issue is such an irritatingly intricate issue, it has taken me weeks trying to extricate it from other issues, and in the end, I think I have pretty much failed, but, here goes...
A lot of our messages are confusing, if not seemingly contradictory and inconsistent, and if you don't know to ask further (cuz people don't really explain it further), you won't find out the truth of any matter, only the bumper-sticker wrap-up repeated for the lifers each Sunday.
Here is one example. New believer in a new church, a little uncomfortable, you've gone through the 101 class and they are now cutting you loose in "big church". You get the church bulletin showing the pastor's schedule for the coming year.
Your Church Itinerary
Jan: All You Need is Jesus
Feb: Why We Need Each Other-The Importance of Relationships
March: You Don't Need Self-Help with Jesus
April: Guest Speakers Drs. Cloud and Townsend
May: Why Following Christ is Easy-Always being Joyfully His
June: Learning How to Carry Your Cross-Suffering is Inevitable
July: It's Not About You, It's About Jesus
Aug: Are You Making an Impact for the Kingdom?
Sept: Learning Life's Not About Me/Less of Me, More of Jesus
Oct: Developing Spiritual Gifts and Talents
Nov: Why Missions is Right for Everyone
Dec: Discovering Your Unique Calling
It's confusing, but everyone is smiling and easy as though it's the simplest thing in the world. I mean, who cares if we understand as long as we have Jesus? What they're saying has threads of truth, but those threads are getting tangled when they cross things other people have said.
The best part is the ways pastors tend to emphasize in each sermon just how universally, unequivocally what their saying at that moment is perpetually true. #selltheproduct
This Sunday: The SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT THING you need in your life is prayer.... until next week when,
Next Sunday: The SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT THING you need is faith in Christ....until the week after when,
Next Next Sunday: The SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT THING you need is to know the Word....
This has been a feature of every single church I have attended.
Each of the messages is delivered in a polemic, turn-or-burn, skate-or-die dichotomy that often conflicts with the polemic, turn-or-burn, skate-or-die dichotomy the pastor laid out the Sunday before. Each Sunday is preached in a vacuum as though nothing said that day has any bearing on the statement the pastor made last week. It's confusing, and honestly, I welcome my home Bible study because it helps untangle the knots created at church (Plug: Clinton Arnold's Bible Background Commentary is kick-ass!!!!)
Soooooooo difficult not to careen headlong into other topics!!!
Whenever someone begins to define faith, or God's love as "SIMPLY blah blah blah", I stop reading.You wonder if Paul might have used the athletic imagery because if you do it wrong, you can seriously hurt yourself. Human beings are complex beings. God is a complex being. This isn't necessarily sexy. It might turn people off. We've never let us stop that before. In high school, we would have two "Purity Weeks" where we had chapel EVERY DAY and had to listen about the evils of sex, ESPECIALLY sex before marriage. Why is virginity (a fake sense of purity, really) more important than our intelligence?
How can we determine our spiritual gifts without discerning minds?
Arg, veering, sorry....
What if we actually defined the concepts in our religion with the respect sublime concepts deserve? (yes, I called it a religion, screaming "it's a relationship not a religion" isn't actually saying anything and you could even argue it robs God of His due respect and glory)
I would argue people outside the church would respect our teachings more if we ourselves actually gave our teachings more respect, at the very least as much attention as we do our catch-phrases and bumper-stickers. How can people love and appreciate the nuances found in our belief system when we don't even celebrate them? #grasshopperfail
Now, to be fair, I'm not saying we should deluge people in information. At this point in my rant, I'm not sure exactly what I'm saying, but, I'm saying weigh every damn word and make sure what you're saying is unequivocally what you meant to say and that you're actually conveying needed information.
Further Reading...
Love Your God With All Your Mind, J.P. Moreland
12 Christian Beliefs that can Drive You Crazy, Cloud and Townsend
Anyway.
So, in 1517 this guy named Martin Luther (he's on wiki) wrote this thing against the church called the Ninety-Five Theses, detailing 95 challenges, or issues he had with the church at that time (to call that a gloss would be an obscene understatement). He was a monk, a Catholic priest, a theologian, attended university (back when that actually meant something), studied the great philosophers, I'm guessing spoke or at least understood Greek and Latin, and had the spiritual ballz to take on the Catholic church when they ruled the western world and get himself in a LOT of trouble.
And then there's me. What do we have in common???
Not anything really.
I don't really fall under any of these categories, some less than others. I think the only thing we have in common is standing in front of our prospective religious institutions (since Protestants were earning their name at that time in history by 'protesting') with a speech bubble over our heads that says, "Religious Institution! What gives?! Are you kidding me?!?!?"
So, I am most emphatically not comparing myself to Martin Luther or the present Protestant wing of the church to the Medieval Catholic church, but I'm exploring if I can find ninety-five things that legitimately bug me about the Protestant church in general. It would definitely give me the means to get REALLY SPECIFIC, and give me time to do some research and see if my impressions are still (or ever were...) reality at large.
One of my grievances with church is that it's not designed for new comers, though it be the goal for a lot of well-intentioned leaders. Don't get me wrong, we put out the welcoming banner. It's on church handouts and seems built into events, but we do A LOT to undermine how user-friendly we would like church to be.
#1-Oversimplifying
This first issue is such an irritatingly intricate issue, it has taken me weeks trying to extricate it from other issues, and in the end, I think I have pretty much failed, but, here goes...
A lot of our messages are confusing, if not seemingly contradictory and inconsistent, and if you don't know to ask further (cuz people don't really explain it further), you won't find out the truth of any matter, only the bumper-sticker wrap-up repeated for the lifers each Sunday.
Here is one example. New believer in a new church, a little uncomfortable, you've gone through the 101 class and they are now cutting you loose in "big church". You get the church bulletin showing the pastor's schedule for the coming year.
Your Church Itinerary
Jan: All You Need is Jesus
Feb: Why We Need Each Other-The Importance of Relationships
March: You Don't Need Self-Help with Jesus
April: Guest Speakers Drs. Cloud and Townsend
May: Why Following Christ is Easy-Always being Joyfully His
June: Learning How to Carry Your Cross-Suffering is Inevitable
July: It's Not About You, It's About Jesus
Aug: Are You Making an Impact for the Kingdom?
Sept: Learning Life's Not About Me/Less of Me, More of Jesus
Oct: Developing Spiritual Gifts and Talents
Nov: Why Missions is Right for Everyone
Dec: Discovering Your Unique Calling
It's confusing, but everyone is smiling and easy as though it's the simplest thing in the world. I mean, who cares if we understand as long as we have Jesus? What they're saying has threads of truth, but those threads are getting tangled when they cross things other people have said.
The best part is the ways pastors tend to emphasize in each sermon just how universally, unequivocally what their saying at that moment is perpetually true. #selltheproduct
This Sunday: The SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT THING you need in your life is prayer.... until next week when,
Next Sunday: The SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT THING you need is faith in Christ....until the week after when,
Next Next Sunday: The SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT THING you need is to know the Word....
This has been a feature of every single church I have attended.
Each of the messages is delivered in a polemic, turn-or-burn, skate-or-die dichotomy that often conflicts with the polemic, turn-or-burn, skate-or-die dichotomy the pastor laid out the Sunday before. Each Sunday is preached in a vacuum as though nothing said that day has any bearing on the statement the pastor made last week. It's confusing, and honestly, I welcome my home Bible study because it helps untangle the knots created at church (Plug: Clinton Arnold's Bible Background Commentary is kick-ass!!!!)
Soooooooo difficult not to careen headlong into other topics!!!
Whenever someone begins to define faith, or God's love as "SIMPLY blah blah blah", I stop reading.You wonder if Paul might have used the athletic imagery because if you do it wrong, you can seriously hurt yourself. Human beings are complex beings. God is a complex being. This isn't necessarily sexy. It might turn people off. We've never let us stop that before. In high school, we would have two "Purity Weeks" where we had chapel EVERY DAY and had to listen about the evils of sex, ESPECIALLY sex before marriage. Why is virginity (a fake sense of purity, really) more important than our intelligence?
How can we determine our spiritual gifts without discerning minds?
Arg, veering, sorry....
What if we actually defined the concepts in our religion with the respect sublime concepts deserve? (yes, I called it a religion, screaming "it's a relationship not a religion" isn't actually saying anything and you could even argue it robs God of His due respect and glory)
I would argue people outside the church would respect our teachings more if we ourselves actually gave our teachings more respect, at the very least as much attention as we do our catch-phrases and bumper-stickers. How can people love and appreciate the nuances found in our belief system when we don't even celebrate them? #grasshopperfail
Now, to be fair, I'm not saying we should deluge people in information. At this point in my rant, I'm not sure exactly what I'm saying, but, I'm saying weigh every damn word and make sure what you're saying is unequivocally what you meant to say and that you're actually conveying needed information.
Further Reading...
Love Your God With All Your Mind, J.P. Moreland
12 Christian Beliefs that can Drive You Crazy, Cloud and Townsend
Saturday, March 30, 2013
DOMA, Bumperstickers, and Bandwagons
ACK THIS IS MADDENING. I've only worked on this in 3 sittings and it's driving my crazy!!!!
Not the best for an Easter blog, but there you have it. I will try to coordinate better in the future....
I am so frustrated with both sides in this ideals war that I'm not even sure I'll be able to finish this blog. On account of my ambivalence, let me say, if you are on a bandwagon for either side, you will NOT be able to enjoy or possibly even finish this post.
First,what's a band-wagon? IMHO, anything unreasonably, implacably zealous.
This guys with a sign came on campus once and I foolishly tried to talk him out of his sign, which was indeed quite hateful, and he said he had to speak the truth. My feathers ruffled, I tried to point out the entire phrase includes "in love" and he said, "This is love! Tough love!"
IMHO, tough love is grounding your kid when s/he violates curfew too many times, or when you remain firm on boundaries with someone in your family, ("No mom, you cannot borrow my JUICY sweats because you never wash them after you use them"). I think of tough love generally as about enforcing boundaries and keeping people accountable for what is their responsibility, ("There's no way I'm lending you rent this month, not after the last time when you used it to pay off your Where's Waldo tattoo... nothing against Where's Waldo..."). Back to bandwagons.
The people on bandwagons are generally more dangerous because they're the ones that get loud and vicious and aren't afraid to make a spectacle of themselves ::cough WESTBORO cough:: often using Bible verses to elevate their stupidity to martyrdom (I mean, what do you think I plan to do?). Bandwagon-ing considers any allowance for the other team to be selling out, giving in, "compromising", or "giving the enemy a foothold".
As an example, let's talk about another equally fun and inflammatory topic! Abortion!
I used to get awful looks in church when I would say I could understand why a woman would want to have an abortion. Some people, it's true, just can't seem to figure out where babies come from, and if you don't want to deal with the effect, stay away from the cause. It's still a traumatic choice to make, even for women who are pro-choice. And then there is the woman dealing with rape, an abusive family, poverty, illness or a brutal husband along with her pregnancy.
IMHO, I don't have to condone something to get something. I can respect it, while still believing in my heart that abortion is wrong. If you want to stick a bumper sticker on me, I am "pro-life". But that doesn't mean it is impossible to appreciate the difficulty of the types of struggle that go on in a person's soul. I don't have to stand in front of a clinic with a sign to be secure in my beliefs and to be there to care for a woman making that decision (see the difference between the woman and the decision?). And who knows, your non-judgmental support and love might be enough to get her through the crisis without the abortion!
Back to bandwagons.
I really didn't care when Ellen became the spokesperson for JCP. She is a hilarious, talented woman. I would split a pizza with her. I "liked" George Takei on facebook because he posts stuff that makes me laugh so hard I pee my pants, and it's good for my geek cred (crazy Right Wings are going oh Myyyyy!)... I actually think the relationship between Willow and Tara is one of the sweetest love stories on television, and I think Tara's enforcement of boundaries with Willow is awesome, something we can learn from, whatever our orientation) and again, Buffy is great for geek cred. I have never quoted, as far as I know, "God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve", although, I have a pair of underwear that say St Eve, without punctuation, and it always makes me giggle. I can mourn and rejoice through the ups and downs of gay friends' lives and relationship without sneaking in an agenda to change their orientation.
And for all that, I personally do believe God designed us to live as man and woman. NO JUDGING! This might make you hate me and think I'm all about hate but I did vote for prop 8 (this might be one of those moments where I'm being too honest?). I don't think it's legally fair that we've voted so many times (except the once when we weren't allowed to) on this and the issue isn't put to rest. Why is it Starbucks can take a stand for one direction when a woman at a beauty pageant is asked her personal opinion and gets hell for it?
__________________________________________________________________________________
Btw, I just had to include one person's comment to that issue that I loved and please don't sue me, but I really appreciated his response:
The [] were for small typos, no other editing. Please don't sue me!
And then we have Westboro ::groan, facepalm:: I thought the painting the house thing was AWESOME by the way. Now Westboro might actually have to learn people skills...
See now, if you are on a bandwagon for either side, you're probably not reading anymore, or you're seriously pissed off. Remember the forgiveness! It's quite lonely being in the middle.
Marriage is a religious institution, and religion is between God and man (as in, mankind, feminists, don't freak), well, here, I'll say, God and the individual, not between man and the government. I've heard some people suggest we should have legal partnerships, whatever orientation you are, and leave the marriage ceremony for the individual to decide upon. Seems like a good--dare I say it?--compromise.
I do want to point this out. And again, I believe marriage is between a man and a woman (NO JUDGING!). We are arguing over a title. It is purely my opinion that the people who argue against gay marriage, aren't arguing against gay rights, they are arguing a religious definition of marriage (again, I'm not a sociologist, I don't have stats, I just have authentic eaves dropping in select locations). I don't think civil unions are an issue at all for them, simply because of the name. There are a lot of smoke and mirrors in discussing this issue and the definitions of words are moving targets. Anyway.
While we argue and play ping-pong with semantics, our government is being paid to do little or nothing about education, health care, security, unemployment, etc., while they waste time and resources holding the legal net high enough for us to play volley ball with ideals. Semantics, in this case, will not bind people's free will, but the government will be content to let us squabble amongst ourselves while they earn their salaries and pensions. I think it's like the guy who watches two girls fight over him. The idiots are the two girls (now, before I get arrested for sedition or called unpatriotic, I am very thankful to be an American, we have freedoms and luxuries some countries can only dream about, the kind of freedom that make it safe for me to post something like this without legal repercussions, render unto Caesar's what is Caesar's and all that, but that's another blog).
There is a bigger picture and I am NOT saying that this is a small issue in comparison, so let's all just forget about it; I'm saying if we consider the bigger issue, we might be able to dialogue more intelligently about this one.
So, I'm just curious... does anyone out there still love me?
Not the best for an Easter blog, but there you have it. I will try to coordinate better in the future....
I am so frustrated with both sides in this ideals war that I'm not even sure I'll be able to finish this blog. On account of my ambivalence, let me say, if you are on a bandwagon for either side, you will NOT be able to enjoy or possibly even finish this post.
First,what's a band-wagon? IMHO, anything unreasonably, implacably zealous.
This guys with a sign came on campus once and I foolishly tried to talk him out of his sign, which was indeed quite hateful, and he said he had to speak the truth. My feathers ruffled, I tried to point out the entire phrase includes "in love" and he said, "This is love! Tough love!"
IMHO, tough love is grounding your kid when s/he violates curfew too many times, or when you remain firm on boundaries with someone in your family, ("No mom, you cannot borrow my JUICY sweats because you never wash them after you use them"). I think of tough love generally as about enforcing boundaries and keeping people accountable for what is their responsibility, ("There's no way I'm lending you rent this month, not after the last time when you used it to pay off your Where's Waldo tattoo... nothing against Where's Waldo..."). Back to bandwagons.
The people on bandwagons are generally more dangerous because they're the ones that get loud and vicious and aren't afraid to make a spectacle of themselves ::cough WESTBORO cough:: often using Bible verses to elevate their stupidity to martyrdom (I mean, what do you think I plan to do?). Bandwagon-ing considers any allowance for the other team to be selling out, giving in, "compromising", or "giving the enemy a foothold".
As an example, let's talk about another equally fun and inflammatory topic! Abortion!
I used to get awful looks in church when I would say I could understand why a woman would want to have an abortion. Some people, it's true, just can't seem to figure out where babies come from, and if you don't want to deal with the effect, stay away from the cause. It's still a traumatic choice to make, even for women who are pro-choice. And then there is the woman dealing with rape, an abusive family, poverty, illness or a brutal husband along with her pregnancy.
IMHO, I don't have to condone something to get something. I can respect it, while still believing in my heart that abortion is wrong. If you want to stick a bumper sticker on me, I am "pro-life". But that doesn't mean it is impossible to appreciate the difficulty of the types of struggle that go on in a person's soul. I don't have to stand in front of a clinic with a sign to be secure in my beliefs and to be there to care for a woman making that decision (see the difference between the woman and the decision?). And who knows, your non-judgmental support and love might be enough to get her through the crisis without the abortion!
Back to bandwagons.
I really didn't care when Ellen became the spokesperson for JCP. She is a hilarious, talented woman. I would split a pizza with her. I "liked" George Takei on facebook because he posts stuff that makes me laugh so hard I pee my pants, and it's good for my geek cred (crazy Right Wings are going oh Myyyyy!)... I actually think the relationship between Willow and Tara is one of the sweetest love stories on television, and I think Tara's enforcement of boundaries with Willow is awesome, something we can learn from, whatever our orientation) and again, Buffy is great for geek cred. I have never quoted, as far as I know, "God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve", although, I have a pair of underwear that say St Eve, without punctuation, and it always makes me giggle. I can mourn and rejoice through the ups and downs of gay friends' lives and relationship without sneaking in an agenda to change their orientation.
And for all that, I personally do believe God designed us to live as man and woman. NO JUDGING! This might make you hate me and think I'm all about hate but I did vote for prop 8 (this might be one of those moments where I'm being too honest?). I don't think it's legally fair that we've voted so many times (except the once when we weren't allowed to) on this and the issue isn't put to rest. Why is it Starbucks can take a stand for one direction when a woman at a beauty pageant is asked her personal opinion and gets hell for it?
__________________________________________________________________________________
Btw, I just had to include one person's comment to that issue that I loved and please don't sue me, but I really appreciated his response:
The [] were for small typos, no other editing. Please don't sue me!
And then we have Westboro ::groan, facepalm:: I thought the painting the house thing was AWESOME by the way. Now Westboro might actually have to learn people skills...
See now, if you are on a bandwagon for either side, you're probably not reading anymore, or you're seriously pissed off. Remember the forgiveness! It's quite lonely being in the middle.
Marriage is a religious institution, and religion is between God and man (as in, mankind, feminists, don't freak), well, here, I'll say, God and the individual, not between man and the government. I've heard some people suggest we should have legal partnerships, whatever orientation you are, and leave the marriage ceremony for the individual to decide upon. Seems like a good--dare I say it?--compromise.
I do want to point this out. And again, I believe marriage is between a man and a woman (NO JUDGING!). We are arguing over a title. It is purely my opinion that the people who argue against gay marriage, aren't arguing against gay rights, they are arguing a religious definition of marriage (again, I'm not a sociologist, I don't have stats, I just have authentic eaves dropping in select locations). I don't think civil unions are an issue at all for them, simply because of the name. There are a lot of smoke and mirrors in discussing this issue and the definitions of words are moving targets. Anyway.
While we argue and play ping-pong with semantics, our government is being paid to do little or nothing about education, health care, security, unemployment, etc., while they waste time and resources holding the legal net high enough for us to play volley ball with ideals. Semantics, in this case, will not bind people's free will, but the government will be content to let us squabble amongst ourselves while they earn their salaries and pensions. I think it's like the guy who watches two girls fight over him. The idiots are the two girls (now, before I get arrested for sedition or called unpatriotic, I am very thankful to be an American, we have freedoms and luxuries some countries can only dream about, the kind of freedom that make it safe for me to post something like this without legal repercussions, render unto Caesar's what is Caesar's and all that, but that's another blog).
There is a bigger picture and I am NOT saying that this is a small issue in comparison, so let's all just forget about it; I'm saying if we consider the bigger issue, we might be able to dialogue more intelligently about this one.
So, I'm just curious... does anyone out there still love me?
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