Month: July 2015

Dammit! I care more (about the right things) than you do.

Cecil_the_lion_in__3388298b1It seems lately I am “not allowed” to care about anything without someone saying I care about the wrong thing or that I must also make it clear that I care about something else more.

I am not allowed to care about the death of Cecil the lion unless I have already made it clear that I care more about aborted babies or police brutality or the death penalty.

Some don’t want me to say that #blacklivesmatter unless I also say #alllivesmatter.

We are not supposed to celebrate Caitlyn Jenner’s courage because soldiers (or someone else) are more courageous.

Etc., etc., ad nauseam.

How is it that all of a sudden compassion, caring and courage have all become competitive sports? Something to be won at the expense of others? Has it come to this? Are all our best qualities now just another thing to use against one another? Is empathy about the “right” things, people and situations now just a way to say “I WIN!”. How sad.

Perhaps, just perhaps, courage, empathy, compassion and the rest of our virtues are not a competition at all. Perhaps, like love, they are not an apple pie with only so many slices to go around. Perhaps, as we voice our care and concern, our admiration and respect, these things do not diminish but rather multiply. Maybe we could all try to recognize that just because someone says one thing is tragic (for example, the death of a beloved lion) does not mean that they do not also believe that other things are just as and sometimes much more tragic; that just because we believe one person exhibits courage, does not mean others have not and do not exhibit courage and sometimes in greater measure.

What if instead, we mourn every death? Celebrate every act of courage? Call out every injustice? Recognize every act of altruism? What if we actually believed that humanity’s best qualities could multiply with use and worst qualities would necessarily and absolutely atrophy in the presence of love?

What kind of world would that be?

A better one I think.

“Cover your precious minerals” or some-such nonsense.

11659290_944298798945885_7960805857886270010_nYesterday this showed up in my news feed along with the following story.
(I copied and pasted it “as is” so please forgive the spelling and grammatical errors).

Two young ladies arrived a Meeting wearing clothes that were quite revealing their body parts. Here is what the Chairman told them: He took a good look at them and made them sit. Then he said something that, they might never forget in their life. He looked at them straight in the eyes and said; “ladies, everything that God made valuable in this world is well covered and hardly to see, find or get.

1. Where do you find diamonds? Deep down in the ground, covered and protected.

2. Where do you find pearls? Deep down at the bottom of the ocean, covered up and protected in a beautiful shell.

3. Where do you find gold? Way down in the mine, covered over with layers of rock and to get them, you have to work hard & dig deep down to get them.

He looked at them with serious eyes and said;
“Your body is sacred & unique” You are far more precious than gold, diamonds and pearls, and you should be covered too.”So he added that, if you keep your treasured mineral just like gold, diamond and pearls, deeply covered up, a reputable mining organization with the requisite machinery will fly down and conduct years of extensive exploration.
First, they will contact your government (family), sign professional contracts (wedding) and mine you professionally( legal marriage).But if you leave your precious minerals uncovered on the surface of the earth, you always attract a lot of illegal miners to come and mine you illegally. Everybody will just pick up their crude instruments and just have a dig on you just freely like that. Keep your bodies deeply covered so that it invite professional miners to chase you.
Let us all encourage our wives, friends and daughters to dress well and decent!

There is so much wrong with this post I am not sure where to begin. Let’s just start here and see where it goes…

1. Humans decided gold, diamonds, and pearls were valuable. As far as I know God did not hand out a book of valuable minerals text in the garden of Eden.

2. Women and girls are not objects to be possessed or “mined”.

3. I am not my daughter’s “government” here to be contacted for permission to “professionally mine” her. She is not my property to give to whom I please. She is an autonomous human being who is able to choose for herself whom she wants to share herself with when that time comes.

4. Weddings are no longer considered a transfer of property (at least not in my household) or a license to “mine” a woman “professionally” (whatever that means).

5. If my daughter (or any other woman) “leaves her minerals uncovered on the face of the earth” (read: wears revealing clothing) she is not giving permission to be “mined illegally” (again, whatever that means).

5. He then says the most egregious thing in the story.

Everybody will just pick up their crude instruments and just have a dig on you just freely like that.

So, let me get this straight, if a woman doesn’t cover herself to this man (or any other man’s) standard, she should not be surprised if they “pick up their instruments and just have a dig on you freely”?!? WTF? Seriously? No. No. NO! This is wrong and a very dangerous thing to teach to both women and men.

After all these years, I don’t know why things like this surprise me anymore. Honestly it should surprise no one that stories like this are applauded and taught to our sons and daughters when much of the church espouses a theology where women are less than men, bear a greater responsibility for “sins of the flesh”, and are considered to be more easily deceived.

Oh yes, I almost forgot…

What is up with that picture? Let’s see, you don’t want women to wear revealing clothing, but you use a picture of a woman in revealing clothing to illustrate your point. Hmmm. Maybe all of this says more about you than it does the women you are trying so desperately to control