If believing I'm a person makes me a feminist, then I feminist I shall be.

note: I originally posted this on my tumblr, but I thought I'd post it here too.


So I’ve spent the majority of the afternoon/evening/wee hours of the morning reading a bunch of blogs from the Biblical Womanhood/Quiverfull movement, and I’ve come to the conclusion that the “church” is most definitely just as full of crazy idiots as the rest of the world.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m a Christian, and I’m not turning away from that just because so many people who claim to be Christians are OUT OF THEIR BLOODY MINDS, and I will say that the ideas that I’m describing here are definitely not every church and certainly not every Christian, and I know for a fact that there are churches out there who know that women are equal with men in God’s eyes and deserve the same dignity that comes with being a child of God. But, unfortunately, there is a large and VOCAL group that preaches against women having any sort of worth outside of the home, and that, frankly, is wrong.  

They aren’t all TOTALLY crazy, and many are genuinely well-meaning. Some simply emphasize that it’s not a bad thing for women to stay home. Some speak out against the sort of feminism that claims that women are somehow BETTER than men. Some argue simply for purity and modesty and respect for men rather than the propagation of the “blundering idiot” male stereotype that has, unfortunately, become so popular in our culture.

But then there are people who say things like:

“I encourage you to recognize the children that came from your own body as God’s gift to your husband. They are HIS heritage (Ps. 127:3-5), and you are HIS helper in caring for these treasures HE is ultimately responsible for.”

or

‘if your husband has sexually molested the children, you should approach him with it… Stick by him, but testify against him in court. Have him do about 10 to 20 years, and by the time he gets out, you will have raised the kids, and you can be waiting for him with open arms of forgiveness and restitution.”

And I am instantly ANGRY almost to the point of tears because this is so, so wrong.

I’m not even saying that I think there’s anything inherently WRONG with being a stay-at-home mom or with wanting a lot of children or with enjoying traditionally “feminine” hobbies like sewing or cooking or various crafty things. I enjoy that stuff too! And I want a family some day and who knows, I may even be a stay-at-home-mom! (Lord knows it’s not an easy job. I really admire my mom for everything she put in to keeping our home running). All I’m saying is that for church leaders to look at a woman who wants to be a doctor or a lawyer or an author or an artist or a politician or a cop or anything else and tell her that her “highest calling is to be a wife and a mother” is outrageous. Is being a wife and a mother a high and honorable calling? Absolutely! But you know what? So is being a husband and father. Oddly enough, though, you never hear anyone preaching to men that their HIGHEST CALLING is to be a husband and father. No, men may be whoever they want to be, and we women are respected by the church only if we wait in the shadows, silently supporting our menfolk and whiling away our days longing for something more but feeling guilty that we aren’t fulfilled by homemaking. If a woman wants to be a stay at home wife and mother and homemaker, that’s great. She should do that wholeheartedly and serve the Lord in what she does; it’s an honorable calling. BUT THE SAME APPLIES FOR ANY PROFESSION.

And where does this leave single women? People may not ever come right out and say this (even in this crazy anti-woman world, people still at least have some sense of tact), but the teaching that women are saved through having children and that motherhood is the one thing all women should aspire to the most implies that women who are not mothers and wives are even more inferior than women in general. The married mother may only ever be viewed by the church as a wife and a mother and never as a person in her own right, with goals and dreams and abilities of her own, but at least she has a purpose to fulfill within this crazy paradigm. But the single woman? She is only a potential wife for some single Christian man, constantly thrown by the church into matchmaking situations, never a person with something to offer to the work of the church apart from her biological ability to grow a baby. And if a woman CANNOT have children? Where does that leave her? She serves no purpose in this sort of church’s crazy idea of how the world should work. If anything, she can spend her days in the nursery, surrounded by other people’s children as reminders of the shame she feels at being unable to fulfill her “highest calling.”

It is time for the women of the church to stand up and proclaim that we are NOT second-rate citizens in the eyes of God. We are not perfect, Christ died for us and made us clean just as he did for men, and we have talents, dreams, visions, and passions to offer to the church and to the world. We are strong and we are capable and we are willing to do mighty things for the kingdom of God, and we were never meant to sit silently in the wings while the men do all the work. Jesus came to set the captive free, We are the daughters of the King; silent acceptance of oppression was never his design for us.

The most acute pleasure.

A PRECIOUS, mouldering pleasure ’t is
To meet an antique book,
In just the dress his century wore;
A privilege, I think,
His venerable hand to take,
And warming in our own,
A passage back, or two, to make
To times when he was young.
His quaint opinions to inspect,
His knowledge to unfold
On what concerns our mutual mind,
The literature of old;
What interested scholars most,
What competitions ran
When Plato was a certainty,
And Sophocles a man;
When Sappho was a living girl,
And Beatrice wore
The gown that Dante deified.
Facts, centuries before,
He traverses familiar,
As one should come to town
And tell you all your dreams were true:
He lived where dreams were born.
His presence is enchantment,
You beg him not to go;
Old volumes shake their vellum heads
And tantalize, just so. ~Emily Dickenson

I can't handle Abilene much longer.

Don't get me wrong, it's a good town for raising a family.

But it's not for me.

Not now.

I need life.

Action.

Cultural vibrancy.

I need to get out.

To see the world.

To experience new things and meet new people.

I want to see the whole world.

Summer is taking too long.

On that note, I get to see some OC people in just a few weeks :)

Yay road trip!

Hopefully I can make it 'til then.

Sincerely,

I-think-I-can-I-think-I-can

There's something deeply unsettling about a room full of boxes.

I'm not entirely sure what it is about this that so unnerves me, but I have an idea. I think what bothers me so much is not that I have a room stacked high with boxes of stuff, but the thought that all of the material things in my life can be packed away into neat little cubes and be stacked in a corner to be dealt with later, or stored away in some dark closet, only to be remembered when I have something else that needs to go there and I realize that I've run out of space. If all the material things I use to represent myself or to facilitate easier living can be packed away like that, what prevents me from figuratively packing away all the immaterial things that make me who I am?

Can emotions be ignored like a box of old books?

Can memories be packed away as easily as the teddy bears, photographs, and wrinkled old journal pages which carry them?

Sure, things can be packed away and transported place to place easily enough, but when you move, how much of you gets left behind?

I know, I know, I sound particularly angsty tonight. It's just one of those days when I feel overly contemplative for no particular reason. I had to get the thoughts bouncing around inside my head out somehow.

Sincerely,

I should unpack so those blasted boxes will go away

The Project

So here's the deal.

My friend Danika and I are undertaking a (rather large) summer project. I suppose the full title would be An Investigation Into the Fundamental Similarities and Differences in the Various Christian Denominations and (If We Have Time), the Three Major Western Religions. However, that's a ridiculously long title, so let's just call it The Project.

This all came about when we were discussing the differences in our churches. Danika is a devout Catholic, while I was raised in the Assemblies of God, but personally lean more towards a Calvinistic viewpoint. In the course of discussion, we realized that neither one of us knows much about what distinguishes the different views of our churches, other than jokes that are told about the other by members of our own. After thinking about this a little more, I realized that this holds true for most people within Christendom. Each is fully convinced of the "rightness" of his own church with regards to things like baptism, communion, worship, etc., and is equally convinced of the "wrongness" of everyone else. The problem is, though, that no one really knows what the positions of the other churches are, just that they must be wrong.

That's where The Project comes in.

We decided that, between now and the time we leave for school in the fall, we will research the doctrines of, and then attend, a church of a different denomination every week and (hopefully) get an interview with the priest/pastor/minister of that church after the service. We will then each post a blog detailing our experiences, with the goal of discovering what it is that makes us different, and what it is that brings us together.

Now, I can think of several objections that can be raised to this undertaking, so I will take a moment to tell you what we ARE and ARE NOT doing.

We are NOT:

• Seeking to find the "right" religion. We are both fully grounded in our own faiths, and are only seeking to understand other viewpoints, not adopt them
• Trying to prove or disprove any one point of view.
• Trying to gain converts to our own viewpoint.
• Doing a school project. We came up with this all on our own, and really have no motivation other than our own curiosity.

We ARE:

• Seeking understanding and appreciation.
• Trying to inform other people and dispell prejudices.

Our plan is to begin with the more traditional denominations (Catholicism, Eastern Orthodox, Episcopalian, etc.), then move on to the more "American" denominations (Baptist, Southern Baptist, Methodist, Church of Christ, Assemblies of God, etc.) and then, at the end, attend some of the more sectarian places (Jehovah's Witnesses, LDS, Unitarians, etc.). At the end of the summer, if we have time, we'll try to visit a synagogue and a mosque.

With all that being said, we will begin The Project this Sunday at Holy Family Catholic Church. Wish us luck.