One of the best new things about this school year has been that I’m teaching/leading a class with some of the LightChildren’s peers. We started out with about 15 students, and we’re down to about 8 or 9 now. That’s okay because we’re intense and learning a lot. It’s a philosophy class. We’re using a text book called (without much inspiration), Philosophy For Teens: Questioning Life’s Big Ideas. It’s a really good text which is introducing the kids to a lot of great philosophers and (yeah, I’ll say it) big ideas. Lately class has consisted of the kids reading the chapter and then we discuss the ideas contained therein. This unit of four chapters is focusing on justice and began with a chapter on civil rights (Malcomb X). The chapter we discussed the other day moved to animal rights. That chapter opened with a dialogue between two boys about whether one of them had the right to force his dog to jump through a burning hoop and withhold food when the animal refused to comply.
So. Of course, I opened our discussion with cell phones. All of the students have one. I wanted to know how they took care of their cell phones (there was a range of caring from downright love to abuse), how they would respond if their cell phone was lost or mangled, and how they would respond if/when the cell phone was replaced. We talked about that for a while and I moved them to an understanding of the idea that cell phones are “property.” They got that. Everyone was happy. But I sucked in my breath because I knew what I was about to do and it was going to be hard.
I asked them to think about our last class when we talked about civil rights and slavery. I asked them to take a moment and consider all of the ideas we had just expressed about property as they concerned our cell phones and apply those ideas to human beings as slaves. Everyone stopped for just a few seconds. Most of the kids didn’t quite know where to put their eyes. One even said, “Wow. This isn’t so funny when we’re talking about people.” Then we spent a few minutes talking about how just as there had been a spectrum of care for cell phones, there was a spectrum of care for slaves. That most people throughout history had been considered property at one time or another (feudalism) and that slavery has existed in many forms. We talked about slavery today (sex trade and child warriors). I recommended “Half the Sky” by Nicholas Kristoff to them because if they can handle this discussion, they can more than handle that book.
We needed a break at this point. I knew ahead of time that this class was going to be hard and uncomfortable. That my wonderful students were going to need some sustenance and assistance to get through this. So I made brownies for them to have at break (it’s a two hour class). There’s nothing like a brownie to boost your spirits and keep you going during a rough spot. If I’d had my whole act together, I’d have had milk for them to drink with the brownies. But I only had half my act together. They all wanted the brownie recipe … so here it is, because some of you might need some sustenance too. I got the original here, but I tinkered with it and my tinkering is below:
Brownies From Heaven
1. In a saucepan over low heat, melt butter and chocolate; cool for 10 minutes. 2. In a mixing bowl, beat eggs with wire whisk. Add sugars, vanilla and salt, beating after each addition with whisk. 3. Stir in the chocolate mixture. Add flour and nuts; mix well. >4. Pour into a greased 11-in. x 7-in. x 2-in. baking dish. Bake at 325 degrees F for 45-50 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out with moist crumbs. Cool.
I think peanut butter frosting or adding chocolate chips to this would be even more heavenly … but I didn’t have the chance to try either of those. Ohhh … or I might add dried cherries and cream cheese frosting the next time I make these. Yum!
Weren’t those good? Are you revived enough to continue our discussion? Well, the students were. I told you … they are great kids. I am really privileged to have the opportunity to meet with them, hear their ideas, and share mine with them.
After the break we carried on and moved to animal rights. We talked about how animals are different from humans. They are not really sentient beings and some cannot care for themselves, so we must care for them. We talked about their relative intelligence and shared our favorite pet stories. I shared some information from this sort of creepy article on crows and how they can recognize humans, pass on information to future generations and generally are smarter than you think. This lead to a discussion on what rights should we give animals in the wild (i.e. wolves vs. sheep in our western states). We talked about how it’s uncomfortable but okay to discuss euthanizing an animal, but that sort of discussion is off the table for people. So we ended up in a place where we agreed that animals occupy a grey area. They have rights, but they are sort of property … sort of. It’s something we will probably discuss again.
Interestingly, at the very end of class one of the students wondered what would happen to a grizzly bear that had killed a man. We joked about sentencing the bear to jail … the zoo. Until the kids realized that wasn’t so funny. Then another student wondered about dogs who had been so abused that they attacked people. What happened to those animals. Could they be redeemed? And we decided that some could. But some cannot. So they decided that the ones who cannot should be euthanized. So, I asked them … what should we do about the very real problem of criminals who cannot be rehabilitated? What do we do with those individuals who are repeat offenders, who do their time in prison, but get out and are worse … sexual offenders, murderers, etc.? I asked them to think about that and we’ll pick it up there at the next class.
But I have to say … these kids are fearless.
As long as I give them brownies.
The other day I wrote about a Barna survey that will be coming out with full documentation in about a year. The posted statistics are quite provocative as I (and several other women) noted. The data have raised a lot of criticism and left many women scratching their heads, thinking, “That’s not my experience, so how can those numbers be so high?” It will be interesting to see the full report when Jim Henderson publishes his book next year.
FTR, I am still aghast that a man, without any co-authorship from a woman, is writing this book. Upon reading Pam Hogeweide’s testimony about her involvement with it, I am further dismayed. I don’t know Jim Henderson at all so I cannot comment on this. I will speak my own mind and say that to me it feels as though he is stealing our voices for himself. He has said that he is writing this because no woman has stepped forward to write it. That may be. It may also be that the time is not right for a woman to write it and therefore as a man he is taking away our right to speak for ourselves in our way, in our own time and with our own unique voice. Que sera, sera …
I stopped writing about this issue for some time. In fact, I stopped writing at all for a long time because I was and am undone by a lot of this. I am struggling to find my place in the world; struggling to understand my faith without the trappings of church. I don’t always know what is real and what is a reflection in a funhouse mirror. But then I saw this data and began to remember …
I remembered a time when I might also have answered all those questions affirmatively. Or in such a way that I might be part of the large percentage of women who were following the tail in front of them. I grew up in an egalitarian home; a home in which my mother finally decided that she would NOT learn how to use a chainsaw because then she would have to use it more frequently than she wanted to because the boundaries between women’s work and men’s work were blurred (except dishes and laundry). Everyone did everything. I took shop classes in highschool. My brothers took Home-Ec and I was jealous that my brother can still bake a better loaf of bread than I can.
Then LightHusband and I joined an EFree Church. As a new believer I remember that I wanted to be like the other women in my church. I think I wanted it mostly because that was the way to fit in and be part of the group. But it was also the key … the key to being “Godly.” In an evangelical or Bible-believing church, this is the defining characteristic of any adult … are they Godly? I have no idea what that means. What I can tell you is that people stand around looking very serious and hand out that superlative like it’s a crown. It is placed on the head of this person or that person … it was never put on my head, I’ll tell you that up front. Usually the character qualities that seem to be in common with a “Godly” person are those found in the fruits of the Spirit verses in Galatians: self-control, patience, peace, etc. They also have to be really good with their money (aka … rich). Women should be submissive to their husbands. Men should be the head of the family and make all the decisions.
I struggled to fit my round-peg into this square hole for 14 years. I now battle an most likely lifelong case of depression because I so depleted myself from this. I cannot even begin to catalogue the fallout from all of this in my life. I’ve been gone for 7 years now. I’m finally beginning to get my life and my mind back. I have held on to my faith by the barest edge; the evidence of grace and love.
I did some poking around because of a throw-away comment in my earlier post. I said that the Church is like an anorexic who looks in the mirror and sees someone who is fat and needs to lose weight, but the reality is she is wasting away and starving herself. I thought about that some more and did a little research into eating disorders. I found a little known cousin to anorexia called, orthorexia. Orthorexia is like anorexia because people (mostly women) who become trapped in its snare waste away and starve. However, the motivation for orthorexics is different. It is an eating disorder characterized by a focus on eating healthy or natural foods. The person who has become orthorexic feels better and better as they are able to purify their diet. As it becomes an obsession, the person begins to focus more and more time and attention on what they eat. I first discovered this through an on-line journal of a young woman who ultimately died as a result of her obsession with natural/healthy food. As I discovered more about this, I found this helpful Ten Signs Of Orthorexia:
Dr. Bratman suggests that you may be orthorexic, or on your way there, if you: Spend more than three hours a day thinking about healthy food. Plan your day’s menu more than 24 hour ahead of time. Take more pleasure from the “virtuous” aspect of your food than from actually eating it. Find your quality of life decreasing as the “quality” of your food increases. Are increasingly rigid and self-critical about your eating. Base your self-esteem on eating “healthy” foods, and have a lower opinion of people who do not. Eat “correct” foods to the avoidance of all those that you’ve always enjoyed. So limit what you can eat that you can dine “correctly” only at home, spending less and less time with friends and family. Feel guilt or self-loathing when you eat “incorrect” foods. Derive a sense of self-control from eating “properly.” Bratman suggests that if more than four of these descriptions applies to you, it may be time to take a step back and reassess your attitude toward what you eat. If they all apply, you’re in the grip of an obsession.
Dr. Bratman suggests that you may be orthorexic, or on your way there, if you:
Bratman suggests that if more than four of these descriptions applies to you, it may be time to take a step back and reassess your attitude toward what you eat. If they all apply, you’re in the grip of an obsession.
Now you’re probably wondering why I’ve included this here. As I was reading about orthorexics and their quest for a pure diet, the parallels between seeking a pure and undefiled diet and seeking after a pure and undefiled faith became very clear to me. They may not be to you. But I began to look at the Church in terms of this obsession with pure food. I think we all exist on a spectrum here. Some believers have no issue with pure/right faith, others are obsessed with it to the point of starving themselves of any other sort of food than that which they deem pure. Think about those 10 markers in terms of the faith of believers you know or about yourself –
So what does this have to do with women in church and/or church leadership? I’m not sure yet. But I do know that in many churches today there is an unhealthy focus on being “Godly,” on having correct doctrine, and on having a pure faith. For many of those churches, this includes attitudes about women and men that are not reflective of a healthy body. Some of these attitudes run to the extreme (such as a growing trend known as Christian Domestic Discipline, or another growing trend known sometimes as Quiverfull others as “radical family planning”). Some of them are more middle of the road and merely separate men and women into different classes during Sunday School, women are not allowed to teach men either from the pulpit or in a class, etc.
No one can fault these churches or these believers because they really truly are seeking after God and seeking to find Him in the purest way they know how. They get a lot of satisfaction from being a “Bible-believing” church, or having that crown of “Godliness” bestowed upon them. And truth be told, we all get that sense of satisfaction when we’re told that we’re doing something good and pure and right. It makes us want to be part of it and work harder for that cause … whatever that cause may be … so that we’ll get some more of that praise and that sense of satisfaction that comes from a job well done. When we’re part of a group, that’s what happens in our socially-inclined brains.
But what do you do if your group is killing you? I mean that both literally (sometimes women die from trying to have their babies unassisted at home in the so-called “Quiverfull” movement) and figuratively. What if seeking after a pure faith (even walking in the middle of that road) isn’t an obsession, but just a concern … and the “food” you’ve decided is healthy, really isn’t? How would anyone know? How do you know when you’re being slowly inexhorably being poisoned and it’s gone on all your life?
So … my fingers have been itchy and I want to write again. I find myself daydreaming about blog posts … again. It must be time to come back and write.
Thanks to the Holly, I found this site where they are posting a blog prompt every day for a month. I don’t know if I will be that dedicated … maybe I will manage every OTHER day or something like that. But at the very least I will be writing regularly again. Here is today’s prompt:
You’ve just been given a million dollars. You are not allowed to keep it or give it to anyone you know personally. What do you do with it and why?
My first response is that I cannot imagine what a million dollars really is. Really. Can you? What IS a million dollars? What can you buy with a million dollars? What can you do with a million dollars? I simply find myself in the place that I cannot understand the reality of having a million dollars all at the same time.
So I’m trying to daydream about some less concrete. I’m trying to daydream about simply having piles and piles of money that I cannot keep and I cannot give to anyone I know personally. Here are some of the things I would like to do with it …
–> Start a micro-finance program for inner city women, especially single moms, here in the States. I love the idea of Kiva and I think it’s doing huge amounts of good in the world, but I’d like to focus my efforts on women and single mothers, so that they can achieve some level of security and perhaps even raise their level of education, so that the cycle of poverty stops with their generation.
–> Along the same lines, use the money to seed loans and work projects so that those who currently live in inner city projects can participate in regentrifying their own neighborhoods. I love the idea of renewing our inner-city neighborhoods, but not at the expense of those who already live there.
–> Seed money to educate women and girls. There are scores of studies right now showing that the more a woman is educated, the less likely she is to ______ … fill in the blank with all of the ills of poverty, particularly those relating to addiction and sexual abuse.
–> Renew art programs for young people in need. We cannot live by industry alone, children need to exercise their imaginations and creative gifts as well as learn to read, write and ‘rithmetic.
Those are all the things I can think of to do with my million dollars. What would you do?
I still remember the moment when I first realized that I had a choice about whether or not I could finish high school and get a college degree.
I was about twenty-five years old, living on my own in Washington, DC with bachelors degree in political science and international studies. I was musing about whether or not to continue on in graduate studies of some sort and it struck me like a lightening bolt … wow. Education was entirely my choice. It really was a choice and it was mine to make. That had never been part of my paradigm before. Never. I had always known since I was tiny that I would grow up, finish high school and go to college. It’s just what people in my family did. The only question to be answered was, “In what should I get my degree?”
I spent a good deal of time agonizing over that. I was going to (at various times) study oceanography, be a nurse, be an anthropologist (find the missing link), be an international lawyer, and a variety of other things too numerous to even remember. When I was in ninth grade my earth science teacher was an amazing fellow who LOVED rocks and was so enthusiastic about them that I still remember most of what I learned in that class. I still remember how rivers age and what an oxbow is and where glaciers form and what the different kinds of rocks are. We measured beach erosion by going to the ocean and measuring a beach over the course of 24 hours. I had amazing teachers and I knew I was in that adventure for the long haul. So were my brothers.
I can still remember the agonizing phone conversations when my youngest brother was near to graduating from community college. My parents thought that he might not want to go on to a four year degree and did not want to pressure him into it, but they didn’t want to close that door unnecessarily either. He, on the other hand, kind of wanted to go and didn’t want to tell them because he didn’t want to add an unnecessary financial burden to their plate. I had to respect the confidentiality of both parties and yet get them to talk to each other honestly so that they could hear each other because I knew he’d end up where he needed to be. And he did end up going to a great four year college and got his bachelors degree in Automotive Engineering Technology (designing cars).
My parents understood what I was just beginning to realize. Education is a choice. It’s an important choice, but it is a choice. It’s one that we don’t always appreciate when we’re young.
When I was in elementary and high school the technology did not exist for the President of the US to speak all of the nation’s children at the same time. The best he might have done would have been a radio address and that just wasn’t done unless it was for emergency purposes back in my time. The President only addressed adults back then. Adults talked to adults and (as my grandfather was fond of reminding me) children were seen but not heard. So I wonder how I would have heard the message that President Obama is going to give the nation’s children in about half an hour. I think at the time, I would have heard blah blah blah … sort of like all the adults on a Charlie Brown special. Who wouldn’t stay in school and work hard? Duh …
Now, though, I’ve lived a little and I know better. There are a lot of children who live on the crisp edge of the envelope between poverty and riches. They live teetering between hope and despair. They live mostly without any good role models of how to do something day in and day out (like get up over and over and over again every morning to go to work). They don’t have the privilege of living with people who will praise them their good grades or even know when they get them. Sometimes this is because the parents are working 3 jobs, sometimes it’s because the parents are absent. Whatever the reason, these children are desperate for a role model who will tell them to keep going. That it’s cool to stay in school. And these children are all over. Yes, most of them are in the projects, but some are in the burbs. And they all deserve to hear from the Role Model in Chief … regardless of his or her political party, telling them to stick with it. That they’ll be okay if they just try a little bit harder every day. This is a good thing. And I know that the LightKids and I are going to be watching right along with everyone else.
