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Enough said.
Showing posts with label Culture. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Culture. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Monday, October 11, 2010
Physical, Verbal and Emotional Immodesty
So I have been out of town for a couple of weeks and got back and settled back into my life. I went to Texas, where I grew up, for my brother’s wedding which was spectacular. I had a memorable visit, but what struck me most was how much California really feels like home to me now. I missed everything here and was so ready to come back. When I got off the plane, I felt like I could exhale and then yesterday we had brunch with our friends and I was like “Yes! I am home!”. It is a great feeling.
Something interesting happened the day of my brother’s wedding. He got married on a sail boat on a lake and the day of the wedding, they got a room at the Hilton by the marina. It is a really nice hotel that is right on the water. When we arrived at the hotel, I noticed that there were a lot of teenagers dressed up in formals and realized that it must be homecoming. Now, homecoming in Texas is NOT homecoming in California. First of all, football in Texas is not football in California. Second of all, school dances are a huge deal. Apparently, this was the group’s senior homecoming and the parents all got them rooms at the Hilton to get ready and take pictures on the lake afterwards. This is not making sense to some of you, I know. But just suffice it to say that it is different in Texas. My point is that these were not just 16-18 year old girls dressed up nice for a dance. The words that came out of my mouth were, “I feel like I am at the playboy mansion.” I could not, COULD NOT believe what these girls were wearing. Not all of them were horrific, but the worst ones were these tight corset sweetheart tops with tutu skirts. Walking towards me, their breasts were desperately but futily trying to remain in the top and once they got past me, (yes, I turned around) their bottoms were doing the same. They seriously looked like hookers. And then there were the parents, parading their girls around on the arm of teenage boys who probably thought they were the luckiest guys on the planet. We were all talking about the ridiculous scene and so were the rest of the wedding guests. There is a lot to this story, but I will skip some of it.
The next day, I see these girls on the news. Not joking. Apparently, when they arrived at their dance, the chaperones would not let them enter because they were inappropriately dressed. The parents had gone to the news stations to protest the injustice and of course, it actually made the news. Journalism is another topic altogether, but I think this speaks for itself. I went to the internet story and read the comments and I could not believe the response from the community. Here is one comment:
“What a mean-spirited group of uptight fuddy-duddies. This isn’t 1950, it’s 2010! Didn’t anyone tell these administrators that Leave it to Beaver hasn’t been on primetime TV in over 45 years? What to do? Pull your students out of that school. Tell your local school board that nobody is going back in there until the entire administrative staff is replaced.”
Many of the comments echo this opinion and I have to say that it is completely heartbreaking to me. The saddest part of all was to see the girls with my own eyes and to know how excited they were about their appearance. Girls are being told from every avenue that if they are sexy, they are beautiful and therefore have worth. To see the adults in the community respond this way almost seems like cementing the reality. It isn’t about the dresses. It is about a culture of immodesty. Somehow we have gotten to this place where modesty = shame. “Don’t tell me to be modest! I am not ashamed of my body! My body is beautiful!”. How easy it is to make this argument. It is much harder to make the argument for the preservation of anything sacrosanct. I do not cover my breasts with clothing because I am ashamed of them. I cover them because they are sacred. This is MY body. I take pride in physical modesty because it is beautiful to me when I see a woman valuing her body.
The interesting thing about this is that the concept has bled into the emotional and verbal side of things as well. “Don’t tell me to be quiet! I am free! I can say what I want to!”. I’ve been there people, it doesn’t get you very far. I am always amazed at the way people listen to Joel when he speaks. People stop what they are doing to listen to him, and it is because he does not talk a lot, particularly when the topic is serious. He doesn’t stay quiet in conversation because he is afraid to offend, embarrassed or unsure of himself. He is quiet because he values his words. He wants to steward what he says because they are sacred to him. You cannot take back what comes out of your mouth. “Don’t tell me how to act! I can be angry! I am just being real!”. Stewarding your emotions is not being fake. It is understanding that when you are always emotionally vomiting on someone, your emotions lose validity in the eyes of others and also to yourself.
Restraint has been one of the most valuable lessons I have ever learned. Not because it has improved my relationship with other people, but because it has made me own who I am. I know that my feelings are mine, my opinions are mine, and my body is mine. No one else is responsible for them and they are sacred to me. I choose the people who I share who I am with and they are people who are trusted and valuable to me. I can’t make it any clearer than that.
Something interesting happened the day of my brother’s wedding. He got married on a sail boat on a lake and the day of the wedding, they got a room at the Hilton by the marina. It is a really nice hotel that is right on the water. When we arrived at the hotel, I noticed that there were a lot of teenagers dressed up in formals and realized that it must be homecoming. Now, homecoming in Texas is NOT homecoming in California. First of all, football in Texas is not football in California. Second of all, school dances are a huge deal. Apparently, this was the group’s senior homecoming and the parents all got them rooms at the Hilton to get ready and take pictures on the lake afterwards. This is not making sense to some of you, I know. But just suffice it to say that it is different in Texas. My point is that these were not just 16-18 year old girls dressed up nice for a dance. The words that came out of my mouth were, “I feel like I am at the playboy mansion.” I could not, COULD NOT believe what these girls were wearing. Not all of them were horrific, but the worst ones were these tight corset sweetheart tops with tutu skirts. Walking towards me, their breasts were desperately but futily trying to remain in the top and once they got past me, (yes, I turned around) their bottoms were doing the same. They seriously looked like hookers. And then there were the parents, parading their girls around on the arm of teenage boys who probably thought they were the luckiest guys on the planet. We were all talking about the ridiculous scene and so were the rest of the wedding guests. There is a lot to this story, but I will skip some of it.
The next day, I see these girls on the news. Not joking. Apparently, when they arrived at their dance, the chaperones would not let them enter because they were inappropriately dressed. The parents had gone to the news stations to protest the injustice and of course, it actually made the news. Journalism is another topic altogether, but I think this speaks for itself. I went to the internet story and read the comments and I could not believe the response from the community. Here is one comment:
“What a mean-spirited group of uptight fuddy-duddies. This isn’t 1950, it’s 2010! Didn’t anyone tell these administrators that Leave it to Beaver hasn’t been on primetime TV in over 45 years? What to do? Pull your students out of that school. Tell your local school board that nobody is going back in there until the entire administrative staff is replaced.”
Many of the comments echo this opinion and I have to say that it is completely heartbreaking to me. The saddest part of all was to see the girls with my own eyes and to know how excited they were about their appearance. Girls are being told from every avenue that if they are sexy, they are beautiful and therefore have worth. To see the adults in the community respond this way almost seems like cementing the reality. It isn’t about the dresses. It is about a culture of immodesty. Somehow we have gotten to this place where modesty = shame. “Don’t tell me to be modest! I am not ashamed of my body! My body is beautiful!”. How easy it is to make this argument. It is much harder to make the argument for the preservation of anything sacrosanct. I do not cover my breasts with clothing because I am ashamed of them. I cover them because they are sacred. This is MY body. I take pride in physical modesty because it is beautiful to me when I see a woman valuing her body.
The interesting thing about this is that the concept has bled into the emotional and verbal side of things as well. “Don’t tell me to be quiet! I am free! I can say what I want to!”. I’ve been there people, it doesn’t get you very far. I am always amazed at the way people listen to Joel when he speaks. People stop what they are doing to listen to him, and it is because he does not talk a lot, particularly when the topic is serious. He doesn’t stay quiet in conversation because he is afraid to offend, embarrassed or unsure of himself. He is quiet because he values his words. He wants to steward what he says because they are sacred to him. You cannot take back what comes out of your mouth. “Don’t tell me how to act! I can be angry! I am just being real!”. Stewarding your emotions is not being fake. It is understanding that when you are always emotionally vomiting on someone, your emotions lose validity in the eyes of others and also to yourself.
Restraint has been one of the most valuable lessons I have ever learned. Not because it has improved my relationship with other people, but because it has made me own who I am. I know that my feelings are mine, my opinions are mine, and my body is mine. No one else is responsible for them and they are sacred to me. I choose the people who I share who I am with and they are people who are trusted and valuable to me. I can’t make it any clearer than that.
Friday, September 3, 2010
What Our Words Reveal About Our Hearts
I have been thinking a lot lately about how I encourage the people around me. It has always been a difficult thing for me to express affection verbally to people for different reasons, so it has always been easier for me to be sarcastic and coarse. I know that sarcasm is a huge part of humor in our culture, but for many, it has become the primary form of communication. What I have found for myself is that if I am sarcastic, I am protected and can keep conversations and situations on my terms. If I am vulnerable and caring, I am at huge emotional risk.
Something that is very common now is to jokingly respond negatively when someone succeeds. It is with a wink and a smile, so it is not taken as an insult. Last year Joel and I’s car broke down and we needed a new one. A family at our church decided to give their car to us because they had just gotten a new one. When I found out about it, I called a friend to share the news and her response was, “I hate you! Things like that always happen to you!” What kind of response is that? I also walked into church a while back wearing sweats with my hair pulled up into a pony tail and no make up on. When I came through the door, a friend of mine was standing there. She said, “Uh! How can you be dressed like that and still look pretty? I hate you!”. I never really think about comments like this, (because I am often the one giving them) but the other day I did this to someone and right after, I thought, “What am I doing? What am I saying? Why can’t I just encourage them?” For some of us, it is purely habit. This is how the people around us communicate and we have adapted. But for others of us, it is a self preservation instinct. Sometimes when we see others succeed in something that we want for ourselves, we are envious instead of happy for them. Or sometimes when we recognize something positive in someone’s character, we feel bad about ourselves.
I am not saying that sarcasm is wrong, but I am saying that positive and encouraging speech goes much further. If someone takes the time to look you in the eye and acknowledge something positive about you, it stops you in your tracks. It is like finding a drink if water when you are suffering from thirst. It is because we are all hungry for it. We actually need it and with the popular patterns of communication, it is very hard to find. Some of the most encouraging and vulnerable people I know are my friends Brandon and Rachel Naramore. It is true that they are both very funny people, but when the time comes to be real, they do not hide behind fake insults and jokes. They are not afraid to open their hearts and to say what they are thinking. And if someone experiences a victory, they are the first to rejoice with that person. I have been very challenged by them and am so blessed to be on the receiving end of their goodness. I will never forget some of the encouragements they have given me, but I am probably not going to remember the joke they told at dinner.
Joel and I even have to watch this with our son, Ethan. An entire afternoon will go by where we are being sarcastic and joking and one of us will realize that nothing real or positive has been said. I want Ethan to grow up being comfortable with saying what is in his heart, even if it makes him vulnerable.
For whatever time I have on earth with the people around me, I want to be a source of life. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard the saying “What comes up in the bucket is down in the well” but if the only thing that comes out of my mouth is negativity (even if it is joking) then it is safe to say I’ve got a good supply of cynicism and envy. If I wasn’t hiding something or protecting myself, I wouldn’t feel the need to talk that way all of the time. However, if the majority of what I say is positive and optimistic, my words will mean more to people. This is something I have been actively trying to do for the past few months and I will tell you it has largely improved my quality of life. Of course I still joke around but I try to seize opportunities to speak life as they come instead of adapting my humor to it.
In the past, what my words have revealed about me is that relationships scare me and that I had a hard time being happy for those who had what I wanted. I hope that now what my words reveal about me is that I want to love people vulnerably and that I want to give life where I can.
Something that is very common now is to jokingly respond negatively when someone succeeds. It is with a wink and a smile, so it is not taken as an insult. Last year Joel and I’s car broke down and we needed a new one. A family at our church decided to give their car to us because they had just gotten a new one. When I found out about it, I called a friend to share the news and her response was, “I hate you! Things like that always happen to you!” What kind of response is that? I also walked into church a while back wearing sweats with my hair pulled up into a pony tail and no make up on. When I came through the door, a friend of mine was standing there. She said, “Uh! How can you be dressed like that and still look pretty? I hate you!”. I never really think about comments like this, (because I am often the one giving them) but the other day I did this to someone and right after, I thought, “What am I doing? What am I saying? Why can’t I just encourage them?” For some of us, it is purely habit. This is how the people around us communicate and we have adapted. But for others of us, it is a self preservation instinct. Sometimes when we see others succeed in something that we want for ourselves, we are envious instead of happy for them. Or sometimes when we recognize something positive in someone’s character, we feel bad about ourselves.
I am not saying that sarcasm is wrong, but I am saying that positive and encouraging speech goes much further. If someone takes the time to look you in the eye and acknowledge something positive about you, it stops you in your tracks. It is like finding a drink if water when you are suffering from thirst. It is because we are all hungry for it. We actually need it and with the popular patterns of communication, it is very hard to find. Some of the most encouraging and vulnerable people I know are my friends Brandon and Rachel Naramore. It is true that they are both very funny people, but when the time comes to be real, they do not hide behind fake insults and jokes. They are not afraid to open their hearts and to say what they are thinking. And if someone experiences a victory, they are the first to rejoice with that person. I have been very challenged by them and am so blessed to be on the receiving end of their goodness. I will never forget some of the encouragements they have given me, but I am probably not going to remember the joke they told at dinner.
Joel and I even have to watch this with our son, Ethan. An entire afternoon will go by where we are being sarcastic and joking and one of us will realize that nothing real or positive has been said. I want Ethan to grow up being comfortable with saying what is in his heart, even if it makes him vulnerable.
For whatever time I have on earth with the people around me, I want to be a source of life. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard the saying “What comes up in the bucket is down in the well” but if the only thing that comes out of my mouth is negativity (even if it is joking) then it is safe to say I’ve got a good supply of cynicism and envy. If I wasn’t hiding something or protecting myself, I wouldn’t feel the need to talk that way all of the time. However, if the majority of what I say is positive and optimistic, my words will mean more to people. This is something I have been actively trying to do for the past few months and I will tell you it has largely improved my quality of life. Of course I still joke around but I try to seize opportunities to speak life as they come instead of adapting my humor to it.
In the past, what my words have revealed about me is that relationships scare me and that I had a hard time being happy for those who had what I wanted. I hope that now what my words reveal about me is that I want to love people vulnerably and that I want to give life where I can.
Saturday, August 21, 2010
Is Women Staying at Home With Their Children Biblical?
DISCLAIMER: I am a happy and fulfilled stay at home mom!
I was talking with a neighbor this week and she asked if I work. I told her that I stay home with the kids and she gave me a smile and a nod, like we’re in some kind of club together. Then she said, “That’s so great, the way God intended!”. I smiled and thought, “What the heck does that mean?”. Is this the way that God intended?
In talking with other Christian wives, there definitely seems to be a general consensus that they bare the role of “stay at home mom” because they are expected to as Godly women. Somehow, this has become a “biblical principle” that I have been told began with creation and I do not get it at all. Looking at Genesis, God makes man and then gives him the responsibility of stewarding all that God has made. Then he says that man cannot do it alone, that he needs someone to help him. After he has made Eve, he does not specify which tasks each are to do. Now this is something I’ve been studying and want to understand but have failed to account for biblically and I admit I may be missing something... if I am please point it out.
To say that men need to be the “provider” is odd when you think about the ancient cultures. It is something that poses an issue because of the way that our societies work today. They are so different from the times of the bible. Yes, someone has to take care of children. In some areas, Joel is better suited for child rearing than I am. In others, I am better suited. Today, people work outside of the home to provide finances and because someone must take care of the children, that means only one person works outside of the home. When people lived and worked in the same place, this was not an issue. Men and women worked together to provide for their families. Maybe men went on hunting parties to provide meat for the winter. But who picked the grain in the field, gathered the berries in the forest and grew the corn? It is all the role of “provider”. I guess what I am saying is that our perspective has landed in an extreme place because of the way providing works now. When we really look at our lives, it still translates. Women that stay at home are providers as well. I take the money that Joel makes and buy food for us. I also buy clothing for our kids and the seeds and plants for my vegetable garden that I tend which will produce food for all of us.
I haven’t really drawn a conclusion for myself on this topic, it is just something that I have been questioning my opinion on. There is overwhelming evidence spiritually and scientifically that children are happier and healthier when their parent is staying home with them, especially in the younger years. Being a mom of two little ones, it is obvious to me. I think that Joel and I have found roles in our life that we are happy with but some may be surprised to hear that I don’t stay home with my kids because it is the “right” thing to do as a Christian woman, I do it because it is right for our family.
I was talking with a neighbor this week and she asked if I work. I told her that I stay home with the kids and she gave me a smile and a nod, like we’re in some kind of club together. Then she said, “That’s so great, the way God intended!”. I smiled and thought, “What the heck does that mean?”. Is this the way that God intended?
In talking with other Christian wives, there definitely seems to be a general consensus that they bare the role of “stay at home mom” because they are expected to as Godly women. Somehow, this has become a “biblical principle” that I have been told began with creation and I do not get it at all. Looking at Genesis, God makes man and then gives him the responsibility of stewarding all that God has made. Then he says that man cannot do it alone, that he needs someone to help him. After he has made Eve, he does not specify which tasks each are to do. Now this is something I’ve been studying and want to understand but have failed to account for biblically and I admit I may be missing something... if I am please point it out.
To say that men need to be the “provider” is odd when you think about the ancient cultures. It is something that poses an issue because of the way that our societies work today. They are so different from the times of the bible. Yes, someone has to take care of children. In some areas, Joel is better suited for child rearing than I am. In others, I am better suited. Today, people work outside of the home to provide finances and because someone must take care of the children, that means only one person works outside of the home. When people lived and worked in the same place, this was not an issue. Men and women worked together to provide for their families. Maybe men went on hunting parties to provide meat for the winter. But who picked the grain in the field, gathered the berries in the forest and grew the corn? It is all the role of “provider”. I guess what I am saying is that our perspective has landed in an extreme place because of the way providing works now. When we really look at our lives, it still translates. Women that stay at home are providers as well. I take the money that Joel makes and buy food for us. I also buy clothing for our kids and the seeds and plants for my vegetable garden that I tend which will produce food for all of us.
I haven’t really drawn a conclusion for myself on this topic, it is just something that I have been questioning my opinion on. There is overwhelming evidence spiritually and scientifically that children are happier and healthier when their parent is staying home with them, especially in the younger years. Being a mom of two little ones, it is obvious to me. I think that Joel and I have found roles in our life that we are happy with but some may be surprised to hear that I don’t stay home with my kids because it is the “right” thing to do as a Christian woman, I do it because it is right for our family.
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