From time to time I find myself browsing music videos on youtube. Usually it happens because I've heard a particular song on the radio that's stuck in my head, so I find my way to youtube to watch the related video, and then end up clicking the recommended links along the side of the page. I started out last night by finding the fantastic video for Rihanna's "We Found Love," which if you haven't seen or heard is definitely worth checking out. The video explores the complex emotions of being in and ending a harmful relationship, recognizing the validity of being in love with the person who is causing hurt, and the pain of letting them go even when you know it's right for you.
But soon after watching this video (which has gotten a lot of press on certain feminist blogs I read), I randomly clicked on to LMFAO's video for "Sexy and I Know It," which I find to be perhaps more worthy of discussion. A recent Jezebel article called attention to an increase in male obsession with body image, a topic which is frequently overlooked in conversations about sexual and mental health. This is in part because it is a newly-developing trend, but the truth of the matter is that it is much overshadowed by media conversations around representation of the female body. While there is a lot to be concerned about with how the media portrays women, there is also a lot to be concerned about with how the media portrays men. Yes, I've said it. Even though the media is PERHAPS more accepting of different body types for men, there are still certain body types that can be sexualized, and other body types which become comical if there is any attempt to sexualize them whatsoever (for example, the Vanity Fair cover featuring Paul Rudd, Seth Rogen, Jason Segel, and Jonah Hill).
While at first glance, the video for "Sexy and I Know It" (FAIR WARNING: although technically this video is SFW, it may be frowned upon by stodgier coworkers) seems to run along similar lines: the male body, if not well-muscled and perfectly formed, is hilarious when sexualized. But the video itself seems to subvert this idea. Brazenly sexualizing themselves by wearing skimpy Speedos and thrusting about on the beach and at a bar, the men in this video (including cameos by Ron Jeremy and Wilmer Valderama!) confidently expose their bodies and ARE NOT ASHAMED OF HOW THEY LOOK. In fact, by revealing their own confidence in themselves, the men in the video manage to incite other men and women to confidently strut their stuff down a makeshift catwalk in the middle of the bar. These men and women represent all body types from the skinny woman wearing skinny faux leather pants to the obese gentleman performing what can only be described as the Truffle Shuffle. And you know what? Not a single one of them is ashamed of his or her body. Although it may have never been the intent, I can only give the creative director for this video kudos for producing such a body-positive music video.
Tell me in the comments! Do you know of other music videos that share a similar body-positive message? (And please don't link me Christina Aguilera's wonderful but overused "Beautiful"!)
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Monday, November 14, 2011
Questioning Movember
No, that's not a typo in my title. If you haven't already heard about the Movember movement, I encourage you to check out the official website (http://us.movember.com/about). Every November, the movement encourages men everywhere to grow a moustache in order to raise awareness of prostate cancer and other men's health issues. While I love the idea behind the cause, I have to wonder whether the movement reinforces gender stereotypes that may alienate or harm.
My first concern is for men who cannot grow facial hair despite their best efforts. The ability to grow facial hair can be genetic, and is often affected by biological race. Does the movement suggest that the inability to grow facial hair make one less of a man? This perception can influence racial and ethnic stereotypes by associating a certain racial background with effeminacy.
A second concern that I have is for transgendered persons, both M-to-F and F-to-M, who may be affected by prostate cancer. Unlike breast cancer, which can be experienced by all biological sexes and is therefore not limited to biological sex, prostate cancer only affects those persons who actually have a prostate. What this means in terms of transgendered patients is that some females can develop prostate cancer, whereas some males cannot. It is also a disease which can affect intersexed persons. By encouraging all men to grow moustaches in order to promote the awareness of prostate cancer, the Movember movement may run the risk of ignoring certain sectors of the population that may be affected.
A final concern is how the movement may affect those who actually have prostate cancer. Various treatment measures for prostate cancer, including hormone therapy and chemotherapy, actually affect the patient's facial hair growth. A person who is unable to grow facial hair because of his (or her) treatment may find themselves in a place of woundedness when seeing seeing persons growing facial hair to raise awareness of the disease. The same would be true for patients who experience excessive unwanted hair growth because of their treatment.
I find fault with the Movember movement for the same reason I find fault with many "awareness" campaigns. The focus is on raising awareness of the disease, but in many cases that is all that happens. People are made aware of the fact that the disease exists, but remain uneducated in how to monitor their own health in order to prevent or reduce the likelihood of developing the disease. In that vein, I recommend anyone who is reading this blog post to check out this article on prostate cancer for an overview of what it is and how it affects your body (WARNING: link includes graphic images of a medical nature that may be considered NSFW). Early detection and prevention are what we should strive for, not "awareness!"
On a final note, blueberries, besides being a superfood, are very important for prostate health. I encourage anyone and everyone to incorporate more fresh or frozen blueberries into your diet!
EDIT: I have had comments suggesting that I am too critical with the Movember campaign without offering viable alternatives. This is a wonderful critique, partly because I have not given enough thought to alternative approaches. My main frustration with the movement is that it does little to provide knowledge about detection and prevention of prostate cancer. I merely wonder about the other implications of growing moustaches as a way to promote men's health issues... there is an inevitable subliminal message that says that growing moustaches is something a man does, and I worry about that message. I myself am totally in support of raising awareness in terms of men's health issues, especially with regards to detection and prevention, but I can't grow a moustache! So I am looking into alternatives. My two main thoughts are to invest in a moustache-shaped lapel pin that I can wear, or perhaps using indelible ink to draw my own moustache on! If you have other thoughts with how to help the movement, please share in the comments section!
My first concern is for men who cannot grow facial hair despite their best efforts. The ability to grow facial hair can be genetic, and is often affected by biological race. Does the movement suggest that the inability to grow facial hair make one less of a man? This perception can influence racial and ethnic stereotypes by associating a certain racial background with effeminacy.
A second concern that I have is for transgendered persons, both M-to-F and F-to-M, who may be affected by prostate cancer. Unlike breast cancer, which can be experienced by all biological sexes and is therefore not limited to biological sex, prostate cancer only affects those persons who actually have a prostate. What this means in terms of transgendered patients is that some females can develop prostate cancer, whereas some males cannot. It is also a disease which can affect intersexed persons. By encouraging all men to grow moustaches in order to promote the awareness of prostate cancer, the Movember movement may run the risk of ignoring certain sectors of the population that may be affected.
A final concern is how the movement may affect those who actually have prostate cancer. Various treatment measures for prostate cancer, including hormone therapy and chemotherapy, actually affect the patient's facial hair growth. A person who is unable to grow facial hair because of his (or her) treatment may find themselves in a place of woundedness when seeing seeing persons growing facial hair to raise awareness of the disease. The same would be true for patients who experience excessive unwanted hair growth because of their treatment.
I find fault with the Movember movement for the same reason I find fault with many "awareness" campaigns. The focus is on raising awareness of the disease, but in many cases that is all that happens. People are made aware of the fact that the disease exists, but remain uneducated in how to monitor their own health in order to prevent or reduce the likelihood of developing the disease. In that vein, I recommend anyone who is reading this blog post to check out this article on prostate cancer for an overview of what it is and how it affects your body (WARNING: link includes graphic images of a medical nature that may be considered NSFW). Early detection and prevention are what we should strive for, not "awareness!"
On a final note, blueberries, besides being a superfood, are very important for prostate health. I encourage anyone and everyone to incorporate more fresh or frozen blueberries into your diet!
EDIT: I have had comments suggesting that I am too critical with the Movember campaign without offering viable alternatives. This is a wonderful critique, partly because I have not given enough thought to alternative approaches. My main frustration with the movement is that it does little to provide knowledge about detection and prevention of prostate cancer. I merely wonder about the other implications of growing moustaches as a way to promote men's health issues... there is an inevitable subliminal message that says that growing moustaches is something a man does, and I worry about that message. I myself am totally in support of raising awareness in terms of men's health issues, especially with regards to detection and prevention, but I can't grow a moustache! So I am looking into alternatives. My two main thoughts are to invest in a moustache-shaped lapel pin that I can wear, or perhaps using indelible ink to draw my own moustache on! If you have other thoughts with how to help the movement, please share in the comments section!
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
MS Initiative 26
Choosing to be theologically pro-choice was not a difficult decision for me. To me, it seemed self-evident. There are really two lives that must be considered when it comes to the issue of abortion: the life of the woman who is already living and breathing and working in the world, and the potential life of a child not yet born. Although my position is typically referred to as “pro-choice” rather than “pro-life,” I claim the title of pro-life. I am not anti-life. Instead, I argue for the life of the woman whose body has become a moral battleground. I argue for the life of the victims of sexual abuse and sexual assault. I argue for the life of the woman suffering from an ectopic pregnancy. I argue for the life of the woman who cannot afford the expenses associated with child-bearing and who refuses to bring a child into a world of poverty and suffering.
However, I can understand the perspectives and values of persons who claim a more orthodox pro-life stance on the abortion debate. Abortion is always a difficult decision, and never to be taken lightly. The truth is, most women who have abortions are not JUST having an abortion. It is not a minor chore for them in between washing the dishes and doing a load of laundry. No, abortion is a Big Deal. We want women to be thinking long and hard before choosing to have an abortion. It is a hard decision. But once that decision is made, we want women to have the freedom to pursue their choice without being made to feel even worse.
At this point, you have probably heard about the amendment being voted on right now in the state of Mississippi, titled Initiative 26. This initiative proposes adding a new section under Article III of the State Constitution, which is the Bill of Rights, defining “personhood.” The text of the amendment reads:
The implications of this seemingly innocuous definition are significant. The intent, as advertised by the “Yes on 26” campaign (http://www.yeson26.net), is to outlaw abortions. However, this is not the only outcome of this bill. Birth control, in vitro fertilization methods, and cryogenics may be affected, not to mention any number of other more complicated and possibly absurd implications (is a woman who miscarries guilty of involuntary manslaughter?).
The debate right now seems to center on the issue of moral law, but almost inevitably includes a tangential debate about the authority of the Bible and God in the “law of the land.” As a person of faith, I find this particular debate to be both frustrating and harmful, if not primarily because the Bible has absolutely nothing to say regarding abortion. Misinterpretation of the Bible aside, the question of religiosity influencing constitutional law within a country founded on the idea of separation of church and state is much more troubling.
The problem comes when the argument for banning abortion is founded on religious “truth.” The assumption made by such an argument is that there is a dominant religious view regarding the issue, and that particular religious view has the authority to govern the lives of people who may or may not agree with the particular issue at hand. Outlawing abortion because of religious zeal becomes a statement against any faith or non-faith that disagrees with that viewpoint. Being anti-abortion does not mean that you have to make it illegal to have abortions. Instead, you can choose to not have an abortion yourself, or you can choose to talk openly and honestly with a woman who may need help. Understand that your personal beliefs may not be shared by all.
The particularly troubling thing about Initiative 26 is that it’s only the first of several similar amendments. Six more states are already preparing similar amendments to go on the ballot in 2012. If Initiative 26 passes, it will be only the beginning in the fight against a woman’s right to choose. As a person of faith and a future minister, at this point I can only pray that Initiative 26 does not pass, and if it does, I will pray that it does not ignite a fire that spreads across the nation. Mother God, protect your daughters from the tide of hateful anti-abortion fervor, and welcome them into the safety of your loving embrace.
However, I can understand the perspectives and values of persons who claim a more orthodox pro-life stance on the abortion debate. Abortion is always a difficult decision, and never to be taken lightly. The truth is, most women who have abortions are not JUST having an abortion. It is not a minor chore for them in between washing the dishes and doing a load of laundry. No, abortion is a Big Deal. We want women to be thinking long and hard before choosing to have an abortion. It is a hard decision. But once that decision is made, we want women to have the freedom to pursue their choice without being made to feel even worse.
At this point, you have probably heard about the amendment being voted on right now in the state of Mississippi, titled Initiative 26. This initiative proposes adding a new section under Article III of the State Constitution, which is the Bill of Rights, defining “personhood.” The text of the amendment reads:
SECTION 33. Person defined. As used in this Article III of the state constitution, “The term ‘person’ or ‘persons’ shall include every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning, or the functional equivalent thereof.
The implications of this seemingly innocuous definition are significant. The intent, as advertised by the “Yes on 26” campaign (http://www.yeson26.net), is to outlaw abortions. However, this is not the only outcome of this bill. Birth control, in vitro fertilization methods, and cryogenics may be affected, not to mention any number of other more complicated and possibly absurd implications (is a woman who miscarries guilty of involuntary manslaughter?).
The debate right now seems to center on the issue of moral law, but almost inevitably includes a tangential debate about the authority of the Bible and God in the “law of the land.” As a person of faith, I find this particular debate to be both frustrating and harmful, if not primarily because the Bible has absolutely nothing to say regarding abortion. Misinterpretation of the Bible aside, the question of religiosity influencing constitutional law within a country founded on the idea of separation of church and state is much more troubling.
The problem comes when the argument for banning abortion is founded on religious “truth.” The assumption made by such an argument is that there is a dominant religious view regarding the issue, and that particular religious view has the authority to govern the lives of people who may or may not agree with the particular issue at hand. Outlawing abortion because of religious zeal becomes a statement against any faith or non-faith that disagrees with that viewpoint. Being anti-abortion does not mean that you have to make it illegal to have abortions. Instead, you can choose to not have an abortion yourself, or you can choose to talk openly and honestly with a woman who may need help. Understand that your personal beliefs may not be shared by all.
The particularly troubling thing about Initiative 26 is that it’s only the first of several similar amendments. Six more states are already preparing similar amendments to go on the ballot in 2012. If Initiative 26 passes, it will be only the beginning in the fight against a woman’s right to choose. As a person of faith and a future minister, at this point I can only pray that Initiative 26 does not pass, and if it does, I will pray that it does not ignite a fire that spreads across the nation. Mother God, protect your daughters from the tide of hateful anti-abortion fervor, and welcome them into the safety of your loving embrace.
Thursday, September 8, 2011
My faith journey
For my practicum class, we were asked to write a "faith timeline" which chronicled the way our spiritual faith developed. Here is what I shared:
"I was born in Houston Texas in 1988 while Ronald Reagan was still President, just before George H.W. Bush was elected.
"Although I have very little memory of my life during that time period, I know that there were two things that were very important to me: one was my dance career, which began when I was three years old; the other was church, which my mother and I attended every Sunday. I started my life as a Baptist, attending Nassau Bay Baptist Church in Houston Texas. What I really remember most about that church was that my Sunday School teachers were horrified to discover that I could not color within the lines. Interestingly, this habit has turned into quite the metaphor for my own life of faith: I still refuse to color inside the lines.
"My life changed abruptly in 1992 when the company my father worked for was forced to go out of business. PoFolks restaurants across the country closed down, and my father was forced to look for new work. At the same time, the neighborhood my family lived in was declared an unsafe place to live thanks to illegal toxic dumping, so my family was left with no choice but to move.
"My father found work in what I consider to be one of the most beautiful places in America, which also turned out to be a very unique place to grow up. We moved across the state of Texas to Big Bend National Park, which is situated right on the border of Mexico, about 300 miles South by Southeast of El Paso, and 120 miles away from the closest grocery store. My father worked as an Assistant Manager at the resort and restaurant situated in the middle of the Chisos Mountains, and eventually my mother became an Interpretative Ranger. My neighborhood there was very small, and I was the only child in the particular subdivision where I lived. My school was 10 miles away, and during my entire time living in Big Bend, its maximum enrollment was 22 students in kindergarten through 8th grade.
"What did this new and unique location mean for spiritual life? Well, for one thing, the closest church was approximately 36 miles away, too far to drive on a Sunday morning. For my first few years in the park, a unique ministry organization called Christian Ministry in the National Parks sent seminary students and volunteers to run church services on Sundays for park visitors, and I managed to attend them until the organization stopped sending volunteers. Church services were held in an outdoor amphitheatre, so our altar was a mountain face. In my mind, God became indelibly linked to the eternal forces of nature. God was in the mountains and the wind and the trees, and God was in the river that slowly and patiently cut its path across the dry desert landscape. This idea of God that I developed while I lived in Big Bend is probably the strongest influence on my current faith.
"In 1998, my father was diagnosed with a type of skin cancer that affected his lymph nodes. A great tumor swelled on the side of his neck, and we were offered the opportunity to take unconditional sick leave until his cancer was under control. This was during my 5th-grade year, and we spent the second half of my second semester staying with my grandmother in Atlanta Georgia while my father sought oncological care. I transferred to an elementary school in Atlanta, and started attending my grandmother's church there. It was during my time there that I chose to be baptized, although it wasn't until a year later that I finally was. Then I was baptized in a good old Baptist fashion, dunked fully under water to the point that it felt like I was drowning, and when I was lifted up again my life was changed.
"Water became important to my understanding of God as well. Baptism is understood in many traditions as life-giving, but in the desert landscape where I grew up, water really WAS life-giving. Since my mother was a park ranger, I memorized her lecture on the dangers of dehydration: did you know that a 2% decrease in water in your body results in a 10% decrease in brain functionality? And rain was always a blessing, whether it was accompanied by raging thunderstorms and flash floods, or a slow gentle rain that was absorbed into the dry soil and nurtured the flora and fauna found there.
"My life faced a great upheaval again at the end of my 8th-grade year in 2001, when my father's company was absorbed into a larger corporation, and my dad was laid off and we were once again forced to move. This time, though, there was not much choice in our decision of where to live; my paternal grandmother was growing old, and we moved in with her in Atlanta Georgia to ensure that she received proper care and treatment. We started attending my mother's childhood church, which was United Methodist, and I was confirmed and sought refuge there most Sundays. But it wasn't the polity and doctrine that I found so welcoming and wonderful about this particular church; it was the people, and when I went away to college I found that the Methodist Church no longer held the appeal that it used to for me. I returned to my own self-enforced religion: God was in the world around me and I could find him there without the church.
"I still held certain church rituals sacred; most specifically, I embraced the wonder and mystery of the Eucharist. This may be in part because of my study of ancient Gnostic sects, some of which chose to take the Eucharist every day, and others which rejected the Eucharist entirely, and many others which fell somewhere in between. It is clear through the history of Christianity that there is something powerful about this particular ritual, and I find the same emotion fills me when I partake of God's cup.
"So what do I believe? I describe myself to non-believers as an agnostic Christian. My strongest belief is that there is very little that we can truly KNOW, but there is quite a bit that we can accept on faith, and I CHOOSE to accept the story of Christ. At the same time, I feel that God is in the world; the glory of creation is made up of God's own being, but God transcends all of it. There is innate holiness in our bodies and our minds and in the world we walk in, but God is above all of us; he transcends creation. There is something sacred in water and baptism, and again something sacred about the Eucharist."
"I was born in Houston Texas in 1988 while Ronald Reagan was still President, just before George H.W. Bush was elected.
"Although I have very little memory of my life during that time period, I know that there were two things that were very important to me: one was my dance career, which began when I was three years old; the other was church, which my mother and I attended every Sunday. I started my life as a Baptist, attending Nassau Bay Baptist Church in Houston Texas. What I really remember most about that church was that my Sunday School teachers were horrified to discover that I could not color within the lines. Interestingly, this habit has turned into quite the metaphor for my own life of faith: I still refuse to color inside the lines.
"My life changed abruptly in 1992 when the company my father worked for was forced to go out of business. PoFolks restaurants across the country closed down, and my father was forced to look for new work. At the same time, the neighborhood my family lived in was declared an unsafe place to live thanks to illegal toxic dumping, so my family was left with no choice but to move.
"My father found work in what I consider to be one of the most beautiful places in America, which also turned out to be a very unique place to grow up. We moved across the state of Texas to Big Bend National Park, which is situated right on the border of Mexico, about 300 miles South by Southeast of El Paso, and 120 miles away from the closest grocery store. My father worked as an Assistant Manager at the resort and restaurant situated in the middle of the Chisos Mountains, and eventually my mother became an Interpretative Ranger. My neighborhood there was very small, and I was the only child in the particular subdivision where I lived. My school was 10 miles away, and during my entire time living in Big Bend, its maximum enrollment was 22 students in kindergarten through 8th grade.
"What did this new and unique location mean for spiritual life? Well, for one thing, the closest church was approximately 36 miles away, too far to drive on a Sunday morning. For my first few years in the park, a unique ministry organization called Christian Ministry in the National Parks sent seminary students and volunteers to run church services on Sundays for park visitors, and I managed to attend them until the organization stopped sending volunteers. Church services were held in an outdoor amphitheatre, so our altar was a mountain face. In my mind, God became indelibly linked to the eternal forces of nature. God was in the mountains and the wind and the trees, and God was in the river that slowly and patiently cut its path across the dry desert landscape. This idea of God that I developed while I lived in Big Bend is probably the strongest influence on my current faith.
"In 1998, my father was diagnosed with a type of skin cancer that affected his lymph nodes. A great tumor swelled on the side of his neck, and we were offered the opportunity to take unconditional sick leave until his cancer was under control. This was during my 5th-grade year, and we spent the second half of my second semester staying with my grandmother in Atlanta Georgia while my father sought oncological care. I transferred to an elementary school in Atlanta, and started attending my grandmother's church there. It was during my time there that I chose to be baptized, although it wasn't until a year later that I finally was. Then I was baptized in a good old Baptist fashion, dunked fully under water to the point that it felt like I was drowning, and when I was lifted up again my life was changed.
"Water became important to my understanding of God as well. Baptism is understood in many traditions as life-giving, but in the desert landscape where I grew up, water really WAS life-giving. Since my mother was a park ranger, I memorized her lecture on the dangers of dehydration: did you know that a 2% decrease in water in your body results in a 10% decrease in brain functionality? And rain was always a blessing, whether it was accompanied by raging thunderstorms and flash floods, or a slow gentle rain that was absorbed into the dry soil and nurtured the flora and fauna found there.
"My life faced a great upheaval again at the end of my 8th-grade year in 2001, when my father's company was absorbed into a larger corporation, and my dad was laid off and we were once again forced to move. This time, though, there was not much choice in our decision of where to live; my paternal grandmother was growing old, and we moved in with her in Atlanta Georgia to ensure that she received proper care and treatment. We started attending my mother's childhood church, which was United Methodist, and I was confirmed and sought refuge there most Sundays. But it wasn't the polity and doctrine that I found so welcoming and wonderful about this particular church; it was the people, and when I went away to college I found that the Methodist Church no longer held the appeal that it used to for me. I returned to my own self-enforced religion: God was in the world around me and I could find him there without the church.
"I still held certain church rituals sacred; most specifically, I embraced the wonder and mystery of the Eucharist. This may be in part because of my study of ancient Gnostic sects, some of which chose to take the Eucharist every day, and others which rejected the Eucharist entirely, and many others which fell somewhere in between. It is clear through the history of Christianity that there is something powerful about this particular ritual, and I find the same emotion fills me when I partake of God's cup.
"So what do I believe? I describe myself to non-believers as an agnostic Christian. My strongest belief is that there is very little that we can truly KNOW, but there is quite a bit that we can accept on faith, and I CHOOSE to accept the story of Christ. At the same time, I feel that God is in the world; the glory of creation is made up of God's own being, but God transcends all of it. There is innate holiness in our bodies and our minds and in the world we walk in, but God is above all of us; he transcends creation. There is something sacred in water and baptism, and again something sacred about the Eucharist."
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
Thoughts on anger
But the Spirit of the LORD departed from Saul, and a distressing spirit from the LORD troubled him. And Saul’s servants said to him, “Surely, a distressing spirit from God is troubling you. Let our master now command your servants, who are before you, to seek out a man who is a skillful player on the harp. And it shall be that he will play it with his hand when the distressing spirit from God is upon you, and you shall be well.” So Saul said to his servants, “Provide me now a man who can play well, and bring him to me.” Then one of the servants answered and said, “Look, I have seen a son of Jesse the Bethlehemite, who is skillful in playing, a mighty man of valor, a man of war, prudent in speech, and a handsome person; and the LORD is with him.” Therefore Saul sent messengers to Jesse, and said, “Send me your son David, who is with the sheep.” And Jesse took a donkey loaded with bread, a skin of wine, and a young goat, and sent them by his son David to Saul. So David came to Saul and stood before him. And he loved him greatly, and he became his armorbearer. Then Saul sent to Jesse, saying, “Please let David stand before me, for he has found favor in my sight.” And so it was, whenever the spirit from God was upon Saul, that David would take a harp and play it with his hand. Then Saul would become refreshed and well, and the distressing spirit would depart from him.A colleague of mine, Leonard, posted a question on facebook about the ways in which we view God, and he questioned why we seem to conveniently forget depictions of God as "wrathful" or "angry," and focus instead only on the loving nature of God. My colleague questioned whether there was a sort of misogyny in ignoring the wrathful side of God because anger is so often associated with the feminine. I have attempted to gather my thoughts on this subject here.
-- 1 Samuel 16:14-23
"This is a fascinating question and one I actually wrote a sermon about. One of the things people seem to frequently overlook about Jesus is the fact that he gets angry... a lot! There is of course the time that he turns over the tables in the Temple, which is probably the most memorable, but there is also the time that he curses a fig tree so that it does not bear fruit. And don't forget how many times he outright called the Pharisee and Sadducees stupid! However, whenever I have pointed this out in Bible study or some similar situation, it's usually brushed off as 'Oh that's just the human part of Jesus, not the God part.'
"What gets me about it is there is no specific reason that the anger is attributed to the humanity of Jesus and not the divinity. There is plenty of evidence in the Hebrew Bible of God being angry; therefore anger is quite evidently a quality that belongs to God. I think that our describing God merely with phrases of love and comfort is in fact avoiding the truth: God is not always loving and is in fact quite capable of anger."
In response to this post, I was reminded by another poster that "anger is not always the absence of love." I responded to this comment in kind:
"I was not trying to imply it was; in fact I would agree with you completely. Love and anger exist independently of each other, and both can co-exist. However, the typical understanding of God is that God does not get angry at his followers, sine qua non, and I think this is a false supposition. Anger in love is in fact very common in the Old Testament. Perhaps one of my favorite stories is when God gets angry at Saul because he does not live up to God's expectations of him; Saul does not live up to his own potential, and because of this God actually sends an evil spirit to plague Saul. Is this anger without love? I think not; it is anger because of love.
"And as for the idea that there is an inherent misogyny in referring to God as only loving, I think one must consider what value is assigned to God's anger. Is God's anger virtuous or shameful? There is a sort of binary in cultural understandings of how anger should be expressed. In men, it is perfectly acceptable to show anger, so long as it is not excessive and as long as it seems reasonable. As soon as a woman displays anger, however, she is immediately labelled as 'unstable' or 'crazy.' Would we be so bold as to claim that God's anger demonstrates instability or insanity? I do not have a satisfactory answer to this question. I can see the misogyny that you imagine, Leonard.
"Another thought: when there are descriptions in the Bible of God's love for his people, it is often described in feminine imagery: a suckling breast, a cradling mother, a protective hen. What is the implication of this?"
These are just my quick thoughts on the subject, and I hope to update with more as the conversation continues.
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Peace like a river
“Rejoice with Jerusalem, and be glad with her, all you who love her; Rejoice for joy with her, all you who mourn for her; that you may feed and be satisfied with the consolation of her bosom, that you may drink deeply and be delighted with the abundance of her glory.” For thus says the LORD: “Behold, I will extend peace to her like a river, and the glory of the Gentiles like a flowing stream. Then you shall feed; On her sides shall you be carried, And be dandled on her knees. As one whom his mother comforts, So I will comfort you; And you shall be comforted in Jerusalem.”
I have often encountered the phrase "peace like a river." Most notably, perhaps, it occurs in one of my favorite hymns, "It is well with my soul": "When peace like a river attendeth my way, and sorrow like sea billows roll, whatever my lot thou hast taught me to say: 'it is well; it is well with my soul." I only recently learned that this hymn, written by Charles Wesley, derives from a very Wesleyan Methodist practice--did you know that there are kinds of Methodism that are not Wesleyan? I did not--of beginning each gathering with a reflection on the state of one's soul.
I never really thought much about the phrase "peace like a river." It was obviously meant to convey peacefulness, and there is nothing religious people like to use as a metaphor more than water--unless perhaps it's fire. So what kind of water is peaceful? Obviously a river!
However, tonight during a Lectio Divina meditation, we reflected on the text I shared above from Isaiah 66:10-13. During this meditation, I started thinking about this phrase in particular; for some reason it held my attention more than the rest of the text. And what I began to think about was my own experience with rivers.
Growing up in Big Bend, water was not very commonly available, and I definitely did not encounter rivers very often. The only real river nearby was the Rio Grande and some of its tributaries, and in the Big Bend area, the Rio was always muddy and usually quite low. After rainfall was a different story; the desert came alive with rain, and empty arroyos and creek beds suddenly flowed with water: fresh, clean, and rushing very quickly. I remember one specific instance where I was out hiking with my parents and it began to rain. My father had crossed a dry river bed, but before Mom and I could join him on the other side, the creek filled with violently rushing water. I could not get to my father, and he could not get back to me.
I contrast that experience of water with what I learned about rivers when I moved to Georgia. The major river in the Atlanta area is the Chattahoochee, which perhaps reflects more strongly the kind of river one usually associates with the phrase "peace like a river." I have childhood (and teenage) memories of floating down the Chattahoochee on an inner tube, a common spring/summer activity for people in North Georgia. During these inner tube trips, I started learning the rhythms of a river that was more constant than my desert rivers. Here, where the water ran deep the river moved slowly. Where the water grew shallow, the river rushed along more quickly. The shallow water was the more dangerous because it was easy to get caught on a river boulder and flip over. My cousin Taylor had the unfortunate happenstance wherein he cracked his head on one of these boulders in the shallow of the river, and had to rush to the hospital and have his head stapled.
So as I think about the phrase "peace like a river," I think about the different parts of a river. There is no river that runs deep the whole way, quietly passing slowly and peacefully. Instead, the river itself has moods; in one place it is calm and peaceful, in others it is violent and fast-paced. And these natural rhythms of the river are changed when it rains excessively, or when an area suffers from drought. So then what do these texts mean when they say that peace is like a river?
I interpret this text to be speaking not about peaceful relationships between people, but rather of the inner state of one's soul, much like Wesley's hymn. This peace that is described is not necessarily the calm part of the river, but encompasses the river as a whole. It includes the rapids, the shallows, the boulders, the muddy parts, the clear parts, and the deep parts. When comparing this to the state of one's soul, perhaps this text shows that a peaceful soul has moods just like a river; we are to recognize that there is grace in every emotion; in calmness, but also in turbulence.
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