Musings on Memes

So I see my blogging rate is about one every 7 months or so...I'm not really going to change the world at that rate. The problem is that I'm often busy with doing other interesting stuff so doing writing in a focussed way has been rather pushed to the side.

But In recent days I've been reading some things that have stirred me up and then one particular tiny straw pushed me over the edge and I needed a place to howl.

Thoughts of a Grumpy Old Pinterester

When I’m at a bit of a loose end I quite like flicking through a magazine.  I haven’t got time to get involved in a good book, I just want to be a bit distracted by looking at some pretty clothes, something funny, a nice kitchen, or a new recipe.  I don’t take it too seriously and it is just something to fill a moment of quiet between one thing and the next.  Trouble is, I don’t often buy magazines so I don’t usually have any to hand.  That’s why I like Pinterest; it’s an easily accessible, ever updating magazine.

I’ve started to notice a few problems with it though.  Firstly, it works like pornography.  Those who talk about the effects of pornography say that although it isn’t technically infidelity, by thinking about someone other than your significant other you think about having someone else, you compare what you have with what you could have, you see other people having better things than what you have and you start to feel dissatisfied with what you have and then you feel unhappy.  Pinterest does the same thing; you go from “That’s a pretty bedroom” to “It’s prettier than my bedroom” to “Why does she get to have that pretty bedroom?” to “I hate my bedroom”.  Now, I love my home; we’ve lived there for nearly twenty years; it’s the home my husband and I have made for and with our two children and it contains more than just the stuff we own.  Of course I would change things if I could, but it works well enough and actually I can't be bothered with constant home improvement.  But I’m noticing a little worm gnawing at my contentment with it.  Pinterest!  I’m watching you!  I do not need a villa on a Spanish Island, or a free standing bath with spa jets.

The second thing I’ve noticed is the cute sentiments that get propagated around it in no time!  Things like this:

Really people?  Is that true or is it just a way to make someone feel better about not having the courage to sort out something in an honourable way that doesn’t destroy other people in the process?

Or this one:

Are you sure???  What sort of sick, masochistic God do you follow???  Please explain the theology of this?

And don't get me started on what people do with scripture!!!  Look at this:

Totally ignoring what the verse is actually about, justifying bad behaviour and worshiping the God of pulling yourself up by your own efforts!

Maybe we should actually analyse what the outworkings of these sentiments are before we scatter them around…the more they spread around the more people tend to view them as truth.  As I finally reach the stage of Grumpy Old Woman-ness I’m getting a bit outspoken about it.  If you follow me on Pinterest I’ve started a board called Things to Question.  Even if nobody else reads it, it makes me feel like I’m asking myself some important questions about what I’m seeing.

And finally, a big bee in my bonnet: so many images of women looking either like skeletons or like freaky body builders, with lots of exhortations to perform 3000 jumping jacks so I can look the same.  Occasionally images appear of curvier women, but sadly they are usually connected to dodgy sites!  Why are we doing this to ourselves?  Isn’t it enough that men do it to us, and increasing to themselves as well!  Let's have more of this:

I’m not even going to start on American understandings of cooking* but suffice it to say that I’m looking at Pinterest in a more thoughtful way these days.  

*No!  Opening 3 jars and adding them to a can of ready made “Biscuit Dough” does not constitute cooking from scratch.  And NO!  reducing the number of ingredients by using packets and jars does not make it a good recipe!

A vote of thanks

I would like to take this opportunity to offer a vote of thanks to the makers of Snow White and the Hunstman.  Because I have spent slightly more than two hours of my life this evening watching this film I now no longer need to watch any of the following films:

• The Lord of the Rings series
• The Harry Potter series
• The Narnia Series
• El Cid
• Robin Hood – Prince of Thieves (or possibly the other one with Russell Crowe which I haven’t seen)
• Princess Mononoke (and possible most of the rest of Studio Ghibli)
• Avatar
• Disney’s Snow White

Which, allowing an average of two hours per film makes roughly 59 hours saved (Add a further six hours for the extended editions of LOTR).  It also saved me the time and expense of taking a holiday on the lovely Pembrokeshire coast since the scene that was reminiscent of Charlton Heston’s beach cavalry attack in El Cid was filmed on Marloes Sands.

I am using the time saved to ponder the following questions:

• Why is Kristen Stewart unable to keep her mouth closed?  She made a couple of valiant attempts in this film but generally failed.
• What was the back-story on the Bridge Troll? Why did SW’s scream defeat him?  Would he go back to his old ways until the Three Billy Goats Gruff come along?  I suspect there was some more story here but it’s on the cutting room floor – should have cut the whole story-line IMHO.
• What were the likes of Bob Hoskins, Ian McShane, Ray Winstone, Eddie Marsan et al thinking, other than “Nice pay check”?
• Where was Warwick Davis and the rest of the band of short actors who have been doing good work in the past few years (mainly in the above mentioned films)?  Surely they are the go-to place for any dwarf casting?  But seriously, it’s a bit like blacking up Sir Laurence Olivier to play Othello!
• Why did the dwarves not figure out that one of them was doomed, since we started out with eight?  Have they not read Brothers Grimm?  It couldn't have been more obvious if he’d been wearing a red top!
• Wouldn’t it have been funny if, when SW awoke from her ‘death’ her eyelids popped open to reveal red vampire eyes?

On the plus side this film would pass the Bechdel Test with flying colours since the two female leads do talk about things besides men for most of the film, as do the other female characters.  The only bum note was when SW was looking for volunteers for her army, which she was planning to lead, she asked “Who will be my brother?”  Bit of a stopper for the many women who were portrayed as fighters, particularly the lake women, who had trained themselves to fight.  Especially as the army then actually did appear consist entirely of men, apart from SW herself.  Still it was nice to see a woman saving herself through her own integrity and ferocity, while men played a supporting role. 

I also had a nice night out with my daughter; her verdict, as we stood up to leave, "That was the crappest film in the world, and the woman behind me kept kicking me"

A blog about Ellie

Ellie has just been reading my blog and wants me to write something about her.  So what can I tell you about Ellie.  She’s fourteen years old and turning into a woman before my eyes.  Sometimes the way she does it is absolutely glorious; sometimes it’s more complicated but she’s getting there.  She’s very clever, she’s good at languages and science, she’s creative and has a great sense of fun.  Her bedroom is full of things she’s made or altered; at the moment she’s into decorating things with nail varnish and the results are reminiscent of aboriginal art in their flowing beauty.

Ellie's art

I think she’s inherited my sense of justice, so she often gets angry about things that she thinks aren’t fair and I’m pleased about that.  She is developing a finely tuned sense of what’s right and wrong, and has a deep desire to do good, rather than evil.  She’s working out what that means for her, and how she can win her inner battles and she’s often very courageous in how she does that. 

My hope for her is that she will be able to grow into a woman who is confident about her personhood and womanhood.  I want her to know deep in her soul that she is ultimately and inherently valuable and precious; that she is precious because she is a woman and a human being.  I wish the world would be easier for her as a woman, but I fear that it isn’t.  I see the pressure on teenage girls to focus on their looks, to be attractive in the eyes of men, and to ignore the beauty of their inner selves and I want to help Ellie to be strong enough to know that her inside is what matters.

I want her to be someone who is known as just, kind, and gentle in heart.  I pray that she will know Jesus as her first love, but in the end that’s between her and him.  I don’t care what she does for a living, but I want her to stand on her own two feet and know the worth of hard work, done well.  Most of all I want her to be loved; she is now, me and her Dad love her to bits, but I want her to love herself as well.

The Feminisation of the Church

I’ve read a few things recently, and heard a few people argue that the church over the last decade/century etc has become feminised, and that this means we are losing men who don’t want to be part of something that makes them feel “girly”.  We must therefore stop this trend, they suggest, and start to make the church a bit more masculine so that young men in particular will be attracted back.

There’s something circular in this argument, and it occurs not just in discussions about church life but in society more widely and it’s to do with men’s response to the strengthening voice of women.  It seems to me that men often feel emasculated when stereotypically feminine virtues are strengthened, but that this emasculation is predicated on the idea that we are playing a zero sum game, i.e. that if women are strengthened then men are somehow weakened.  People like Paulo Freire (Pedagogy of the Oppressed) would argue that oppression dehumanises both oppressed and oppressor and that when the oppressed liberate themselves they also liberate their oppressors.

Attributes such as gentleness and humility, patience, kindness and self-control might be regarded as feminine but they are also biblical, for all of us, not just women.  One strand of Christianity that would seem relevant here is the Vineyard movement with its emphasis on intimacy with God through worship and spirituality, particularly with songs caricatured as “Jesus is my girlfriend” songs.  My local Vineyard church is packed full of “manly-looking” men; are they seeking a kind of faith that means they can drop the macho act and admit to feelings traditionally regarded as female?

It’s a live issue in some areas of the Christian blogosphere because Mark Driscoll is a strong advocate of the idea that the feminised church emasculates real men, but he’s not the only one.  This blog was prompted by “alastairjroberts” comments to Stephen Holmes’ article here:

http://shoredfragments.wordpress.com/2012/01/20/old-style-evangelical-gender-politics/

in which “alastair” argues that nineteenth century evangelical gender politics “…led to a stigmatization of many stereotypically male traits, along with a celebration of many stereotypically female traits.”  He goes on to say that this led to a kind of “sticky” sentimentalism in church life.  

My critique of his comment lies not with whether “female traits” are better or worse, but with their stereotypical nature.  The traits that were stigmatised were to do with violence, aggression, and oppressive patriarchy and the traits that were celebrated were the biblical ones I mentioned above.  These traits have become labelled as masculine or feminine because of our cultural constructs, but they are stereotypes and it seems to me that the “up-side down” nature of the Kingdom of God demands that we reject them in favour of men and women seeking to become more Christ-like.  This might be very costly for some men but only in the short term; it was Jesus who said “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”

p.s. I could get started on the way the church does have more women in the pews but that still most of the power lies in the hands of men but I won’t.