drawing lines
Moral absolutes make me nervous. It’s not that I don’t acknowledge that some exist. Some certainly do. Killing, for example, is wrong. I don’t see any situation in which I could ever kill and feel justified, unless it was in defense of my children. Rape is wrong. Causing pain is wrong, torture is wrong. These are things I don’t have to think about in order to acknowledge them.
Lying, I feel, is wrong. That is, I feel that it’s almost always wrong. When it comes down to debating the fine points I will say that there are some situations in which a lie is justified. If I were a soldier, I were caught by the enemy and they asked me for information I wouldn’t bat an eyelash about lying. Suddenly I feel my moral absolutes becoming squishy. I also feel that stealing is wrong, but if it came down to steal or starve I don’t know how long I could stand on my moral soapbox.
Then there are things that I feel personally, but I don’t know about their morality. I don’t want to have sex with other women. If I did, I’d be going against my nature. I like men. But I’m not sure if that means that any woman having sex with any other woman is necessarily immoral. It is what I feel about myself, not what I feel about the world. While I find using foul language with the intent of causing offense distasteful, I don’t necessarily feel that cursing is immoral. It’s crude, it could make people uncomfortable having their kids around you, but is it a real offense against God? I don’t know. I doubt it. I was raised by people who believed that tattoos were vile, and yet I have one. I was raised in an area where getting a body piercing or dying your hair an unnatural color was also considered wrong. Yet, check box one and two. I’m guilty there, as well. Some people feel that women wearing “male” clothing is wrong, some people feel that having electricity is wrong. Once you start drawing moral lines it’s really hard to tell where to stop. What is true morality, what is personal preference, and what hinges solely on the dictates of lifestyle choices? Monks may choose to live a life of chastity to honor God, but that doesn’t make it the only way. That doesn’t mean that sex in and of itself is dishonorable. Mennonites may choose to live a life as free from the constraints of the appearance of riches and possessions as possible to honor God, but does that make acquiring worldly goods a sin?
Where are the lines?
I can’t believe that all morality is a matter of personal urges- I couldn’t simply “choose” to believe that taking a life is justified, or that torture is at any point excusable. I also can not go the other way and say that the only path to morality is that which others have illustrated. What they feel to be what God desires simply does not apply to everyone. How could it? While one might argue from a Biblical standpoint that the only path to God is through Jesus, one cannot make that same argument for living a life of meager possessions, dressing a certain way, speaking a certain way, behaving by particular dictates.
Jesus is far more than a list of rules and requirements. Christianity is about more than drawing lines. It’s about renewing your way of thinking, changing not just the way you behave but the way in which you view the world around you. It’s about love and passion, charity, mercy. Those principles seem to be at odds with a mindset in which the way we come to know God is through obeying strictures.
Or maybe I’m a moral relativist, and should be shunned.
Parenthood is not Cute.
I heard someone comment earlier today that teenage girls seem to think babies are an accessory. I found that statement jarring.
Babies are NOT an accessory, nor are they a pet. They are human beings. Parenting is more than an extended game of dress-up. When you choose to have a baby, you are accepting the responsibility for the life, safety, well-being and mental health of a human being. You are ceding your personal choices and your right to live uninterrupted in favor of giving a good home and loving environment to another person. If you want something cute and cuddly to show off to your girlfriends, get a puppy. Don’t have a baby!
Babies are helpless. Babies have no ability to communicate, they cannot even move. If your baby is too hot or too cold, you have to know that. You have to know the difference between a cry that means hungry and a cry that means wet. You have to know if your baby is bored or gassy or frustrated. Babies are born with no knowledge or ability, the part of behavior that is taught YOU must teach and the part that comes from experience will be absorbed through mimicking YOUR experience.
You, and only you, will be held to account for the kind of person your child grows up to be. Before having a baby you must ask yourself if you are prepared to not only hold and coo at a child, but to sacrifice your sleep to care for a child, to make yourself last in all things and your child first. It is not merely a question of priorities- your child’s well-being and perhaps even their life will depend on your ability to be constantly aware of him or her.
You also need to realize that your child may not be what you expect or desire. You may be dreaming about pink lace and ribbons only to have a boy, or a girl who hates pink. You may be fantasizing about long quiet afternoons only to have an energetic talkative ball of nerves. You may be fantasizing about afternoons running in the park only to have a child that prefers the comfort of home and repetition. You may not like to read out loud, and your child may beg and cry and cajole you into 50 readings of Brown Bear every day. You may love reading out loud, only to have your baby wander off in boredom every time you crack open the cover.
You will be expected to remember everything. The names of favorite characters, colors and foods that are loved and loathed, where every toy is dropped or hidden.
The first year of your child’s life will be a passionate journey of loving discovery- that much is true- but the discovery won’t always be magical. There will be many sleepless nights figuring out what position relieves the pain of gas and what kind of bounce and rub and jiggle brings on sleep. There will be long days of deciphering cries and coos and trying to find the hidden meanings in every gesture. There will be times where you can do nothing but give up in frustration and hand your screaming child to someone else. Do not tell yourself, “no, not me, not my child…” because every parent faces this. There will be moments of pure joy, ecstasy, emphatic love, but they will be thrown into stark relief by the many times you collapse in tearful exhaustion only to hear your child’s voice on the baby monitor, calling for your return.
Sleep will be a distant thought, caffeine necessary.
And all of this comes only after nine months of your body belonging to the child within, nine months that are often less of a pregnant glow and more the sheen of sweat and tears. It is not easy, hauling around the extra weight, feeling the baby roll and kick as you try to find that one elusive comfortable position so that you can drift into sleep only to wake up to a full bladder three hours later.
All that being said: if you want a child, if you want to raise one, if you want to be a teacher and confidant and to know the joy that can only come from a child’s kisses, it is worth it. It is definitely worth it.
It’s just not always cute.
Blocked.
Writer’s block is a bad word for what I have today, as if there is something simply obstructing the path that needs to be moved. No. This is not writer’s block. This is writer’s pain, writer’s agony, writer’s knife in the gut, writer’s riptide, writer’s living grave.
The cursor blinks. It looks like an erratic blink. Sometimes fast, sometimes slow, never predictable. I do believe it is teasing me.
The words don’t seem to want to come. It’s not that I am not passionate. Quite the contrary. I am enraged, embittered, so full of piss and vinegar that I ought to be sleeping in a pickling barrel at night. The passions have drained me and thinned my skin, clarifying me, leaving me wet and slippery with salty partiality. I’m too impassioned to think clearly, I think. I want to speak about politics and conspiracies and language and belief and religion, I want to speak of all of these things so badly that I cannot settle on one theme. I write out one sentence, two, three, and erase them in irrational hatred of my own thought. Nothing is good enough. Nothing dances silkily on the page. Everything lies there in a zombie sulk, griping and moaning it’s way across the screen, trying to communicate but saying only “urgh, argh, b~r~a~i~n~s…”
I want desperately to be able to say what I desire. I hate myself for sitting on the computer for three hours straight and have nothing to show for it but a better knowledge of Don Siegelman‘s plight, and yet no words to properly express my horror and confusion at the state of our Union. Why, oh why, can I not seem to whip my mind to serve me? Why do I have to go day after day feeling like I could but yet I am not?
I want to make the words sing. I want to enrapture and inspire. I want to do what I love to do and be loved for doing it.
I want to. I may. Some people say I am.
I feel like I’m failing.
And they call this “writer’s block.”
Assholes.
Staying Married Forever
My mother has a One-Step plan to stay married forever: don’t get divorced.
While she usually outlines her plan with a wry smile and joking tone, she’s also very serious. There is very little that can break two people apart if they simply make the decision to never leave each other. If the continuation of the marriage means more than your temporal happiness, the marriage will keep on. The question becomes, “what is a divorce-worthy offense?”
In my mother’s eyes, the only reasons to leave are abuse and unfaithfulness. Everything else can be worked through if both parties are willing to commit. There is no such thing as an irreconcilable difference. All differences can be overcome with a certain amount of sacrifice, selflessness and understanding. While life is always more complicated than ideals, the fact that my parents will soon be celebrating their 35th anniversary stands as a testament to the effectiveness of her One-Step plan. Both of my parents have made their share of selfless sacrifices, and they reap the reward of remaining together after all of their children are grown and out of the nest.
Marriage is about more than one’s own happiness. Marriage is about a commitment to your partner, looking at them and saying “your happiness is as important as mine.” It is about working to achieve your partner’s happiness with as much avidity as you work for your own. It is about changing when change is needed. There have been times in my own marriage where I’ve had to face changing myself or knowing I was hurting my spouse, and I chose change. I chose change, at times, even though I felt that it cost me more to change than it would have cost my husband to bear with me. I’ve also seen my husband choose change, even when he didn’t feel he was in the wrong.
Marriage is about growth. It’s about two trees sharing root space, sacrificing and growing together. Two separate beings intermingling until the casual observer can’t tell where one begins and the other ends. This cannot be achieved without a sacrifice of self, and it’s not always pretty. There have been times where I have felt like I was cutting away at my own flesh to make room for my husband. In moments I’ve resented and even felt like I hated him. But we have two children together, and the reasons we married have yet to change. The question is what matters more? Myself, my happiness, or my husband and children’s? If I change, and we can continue, and the three of them find their happiness, does that matter more than me feeling like my needs are being met right now?
And then there’s the principle of spiritual and karmic return. I sincerely believe that every time someone sacrifices of themselves for someone else, it is returned to me. I have seen my own returns in the form of my husband and children. I see that we are together, that we are witnesses to each other’s life. I see the peace and stability that can only come from continuity. It’s good. It’s definitely worth it.
Beijing Olympics come at a high price
Imagine, then, if two million people were forcibly evicted, imprisoned and beaten if they demanded restitution.
I imagine that wouldn’t go over well. When Beijing won their bid for the 2008 Olympics, they said it showed a new era for China, acceptance into the modern way of life, and that it would improve conditions for the Chinese people and lower human rights violations. Two million people who have lost their homes and forty thousand who have been imprisoned and beaten for staging quiet protests would have something else to say about that. An estimated two hundred thousand are still living on the streets, unable to find temporary housing and not able to stay with family. Two hundred thousand. That is nearly ten times the amount of people who live in my hometown. Imagine if the town of BumbleBee Indiana (fictional name) were to be ENTIRELY DEMOLISHED to build an Olympic stadium, the townspeople were offered no restitution or temporary housing, and were beaten for protesting?
The international community would not be silent.
I cannot tell you all how hard it was to find any reporting whatsoever on this topic. The one Washington post article simply cited “a continuation of human rights violations” with no specifics. All I could find were blog posts and one good article from the UK. (thank you SweetMisery for bringing this to my attention and Carol for the good link.)
I find it bitterly humorous that a celebration of the world’s unity and friendly competition would come at the price of such heinous violations of basic rights to housing, compensation and due process. I also find it bitterly humorous that due to America’s own sketchy acknowledgment of human rights for prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, we may have no leverage for voicing our disdain.
Please, think long and hard about what it means to be human. Think about the rights of our fellow man. Think about what it means to be a member of the world stage. People are people, regardless of their situation. People have rights, because we want to have rights we need to acknowledge that these rights exist for all people. The fact that China owns our debt shouldn’t keep the United States from speaking, and the fact that we are afraid shouldn’t be a good enough reason to violate the rights of others, even if they are possibly terrorists and enemies of ours.
Some links to more information about Beijing’s human rights violations:
2,000,000 lose homes due to Olympics
Beijing Slum Demolitions
Homes Forcibly Destroyed without Prior Warning
Demolition destroys history, a way of life
Caring for our Soldiers
My husband told me, several months ago, about a woman he worked on a factory line with whose husband fought in Iraq, came home, injured his shoulder during re-training and was unable to return to the front lines. This soldier and his wife have been struggling for a very long time. She works incredibly hard while he does his best to care for their children. For months he fought to be able to get the surgery to repair the tears in his shoulder, and even now he is still fighting to get the disability benefits he needs. They went from making good money to having a house payment, car payment and the expenses of caring for three children with his wife working herself to the bone for $50,000 a year. If she’s lucky, the industry does well and there are regular bonuses she may make more. If things continue to do poorly, as they have, she will likely make less. They need his disability pay, they need him to get adequate medical care. They are not selfish or lazy- they are people in need.
A few days ago he made the local news, you can see the print story here.
My husband wrote about it on his blog as well, which can be seen here. (He has the video of the television broadcast, as well)
I just don’t know what to say about things like this. I’ve worked in the medical industry. Yeah, it was as a receptionist, but I’ve fielded calls from Medicare and I’ve been in the breakroom to hear discussions of how the whole system works. What is happening to that poor soldier is what seems to happen all the time. First, the government acts like your friend. Then, they stop returning your calls. Then something seems to be missing or was filled out wrong, but the paperwork never seems to be on anyone’s desk so they can never give you details.
Stall, stall, stall, until the person who needs the coverage just… gives… up.
Only this guy isn’t giving up, and good for him.
I really feel like I need to say something. I’ve been thinking about it for a long time. It’s one thing to say leave no one behind on the battlefield- but what happens when they come home? There’s been a lot of stories about veterans in homeless shelters and veterans being refused benefits, and somehow people persist in thinking that the only veterans that bad things happen to are, well, bad veterans. Drunkards, drug addicts, convicts… Only, that’s not the truth. Sometimes they are good people to whom bad things have happened, and they shouldn’t be treated like they are somehow not worthy of our care.
Part of the expense of waging a war and maintaining an occupation is the expense of properly caring for the engines of war- and in this case the engines are HUMAN BEINGS. Real people with emotions, needs, families, and bodies that must be kept fit if they are to keep fighting. These people should not be treated so carelessly. They should be treated with honor and respect.
I’m sick and tired of hearing people say that the Democrats don’t care for the troops because they want the occupation to end. That’s not true. The Democrats, like many Republicans, realize that the expense of war does not stop on the battlefield, and the simple truth is there isn’t enough money to maintain the troops on the battlefield in the numbers they are now and also care for the ones who are unable to return. Every day, every month, every year we maintain the occupation more soldiers run the risk of injury. How will we care for them? How?
Things have to change. The stalling tactics have got to end. The missing paperwork had better be found. Here in Indiana, there are three beautiful children who want their daddy to be better and their mommy to not have to feel so tired all the time.
Lets not forget that people aren’t statistics. They are people.
Speak Plainly.
As an exercise, for a few months my old youth group and I kept track of all of the buzzwords and “Christians Only” language we heard on Sunday mornings. There was one girl who complained that not having grown up in the church, she didn’t even understand the sermons. She would often pass me notes that would say things like, “what is he talking about?” I would paraphrase the pastors words in plain English, and she would respond, “why doesn’t he just SAY that?”
I was never sure how to reply. Why doesn’t the pastor speak plain English? I don’t know. Perhaps it’s because after doing the scholarly end of studying the Bible, he wants to use the words he’s paid so much to learn. Perhaps it’s because the Church likes the country club feeling of the members being more at home than the guests, for whatever GOD-forsaken reason, and having language that only they know makes them feel powerful. Perhaps it’s because we all buy in to the idea that words mean more if you have to work harder to understand them. Perhaps it’s because as a former manager of a chain store, he was familiar with buzz and hype speak and was eager to use the Christian equivalent. Whatever the reason, one thing he failed to understand was the distance and confusion he was creating. It was all well and good for us who understood him, but for those who didn’t his language became yet another barrier between the seeker and belief and acceptance.
Language is about both meaning and the ability to convey meaning- if you’re using the word that is closest to the meaning you want to convey but farthest from the ability to convey the meaning, what you intend for the word to mean doesn’t matter. To put things plainly: you need to use words that people understand. I hate “Christian” speak because it is just another one of those things that makes those outside the fold feel like they will never belong within it. With all of the talk of making “seeker friendly”Sunday mornings and making our sanctuaries welcoming to guests, with all of the money and effort thrown at figuring out the best way to welcome guests, the best materials available for guests, the best classes for new believers, the most active and exciting worship- one thing that seems to have been forgotten or never looked at is the words we use. Christianity has it’s own language, it’s own meaning for common words, it’s own proprietary sentences and proverbs and jokes and everything else. We use them second nature, not really ever considering if they mean anything when we leave our Christian bubbles.
Here’s a hint: they mean nothing to others. They are incomprehensible and sometimes offensive. They create confusion and distance. They make people feel like we’re acting superior. They make the rest of the world feel like the wait staff at a huge resort, interacting with the clientele but having to go back home in the evenings.
Christianity is not a country club. While we may joke about “members only” and how we’re the ones with the inside line to God, that’s not the truth. God is Love, and love is for everyone. God is for everyone. We, as the body of Christ, should be for everyone. Our language should be, too.
Sex and Marriage
Growing up, I often heard people talking about sex as God’s gift to married couples. There was this joke that was often said, about how if God didn’t give married folks sex than they’d have nothing but misery. That concept of sex as a reward, or something to be earned, was something that irked me. I also heard a lot of, “sex is for procreation”, a phrase that would be uttered with a kind of derision that implied that sex was duty, and sex for recreation was just plain dirty. It would not be uncommon for me to hear the women at church talk about sex in tones of dreariness, talking about the “grossness” of sex, their boredom with it, the weariness of giving in to sex out of submission after a hard day’s work. I have to admit that I began to picture sex as a painful and horrible beast, the thought of genitalia made me a little nauseous, and I was relatively sure that sex was primarily about power.
Imagine my surprise, the first time someone really kissed me, and I enjoyed it. It was like a drug. It was like the veil over my eyes being shredded. I opened my eyes and I was sure that the sun was brighter and there was a chorus of angels singing and ten thousand birds had taken flight. I was astonished and horrified that such a wonderful sensation, the sensation of being needed and desired and reciprocating, was lost on all of the married women at church with their head coverings and china teacups. I’ve been married for six years, and sex for me has never once been primarily about procreation. I’ve seen sex as submission, sex as desire, sex as celebration, sex as recreation, sex as forgiveness, sex as power- but sex simply as procreation I have yet to see. I may not ever.
If you look at the Bible and find Song of Solomon, you’ll see these verses:
(song of solomon 7:7-9)
Your stature is like that of the palm,
and your breasts like clusters of fruit,
I said, “I will climb the palm tree;
I will take hold of its fruit.”
May your breasts be like the clusters of the vine,
the fragrance of your breath like apples,
and your mouth like the best wine.
This may just be one girl’s opinion, but I’d say that couple was having some passionate sex. I have yet to find anywhere in the Bible where it says that taking enjoyment in each other is wrong.
Women involve their sex drive with their emotions. I think of the women who have passionless sex and I wonder what their relationship with their husbands is like. Do they give the same grudging submission in every aspect of their lives? Do they close their eyes and pray for it to be over when they’re at the dinner table? Sitting together at church? Going through the bills? Do they know what it is like to passionately share their husband’s life? Does he involve them in his private thoughts? Do they read and discuss the Bible together, or is he the priest of the house in cold detachment? I think that good sex is the natural bi-product of a good relationship. A couple that is devoted to each other, desires each other and sacrifices for each other is not going to end the day in tiring procreation, they are going to end the day in a celebration of the life they share.
There is nothing more sacred than a body, nothing more precious and personal than the parts of yourself you cover to live your daily life. To give to your spouse those parts of you that no one else sees, to allow entrance, to take and give: there is nothing greater. This gift should not be given grudgingly or out of duty, it should be given gladly and rejoiced in. Sex should be good. By learning to live with each other in every aspect of our lives, from the mundane to the holy to the inexplicable, that is the one way that we are given to fully understand unconditional love. This isn’t an opportunity that should be taken lightly. It shouldn’t be done dryly, it shouldn’t spurn tea-time conversations about the “burden of spousal duty”. If marriage is a metaphor for the Church’s relationship with Christ, would we want to picture ourselves at the church stirring sugar into our tea with a deep sigh, decrying that being united with Christ is unseemly?
Rejoice in each other, enjoy each other, take part in each other. It’s nice.
Obama has a PLAN?
Okay: I get infinitely tired of people who spew talking points without taking the time to adequately research things. For instance:
“Barack Obama doesn’t have a plan. It’s impossible to tell where he really stands on issues. You can’t vote for someone just because they talk nice.”
I would say, “idiots”, roll my eyes and move on, except I’ve seen this particular one perpetuated by really intelligent people. I don’t know why anyone would expect to hear a twenty point plan detailed in a stump speech or debate- in a debate the candidate might have five minutes if they are lucky, and the point of a stump speech isn’t to impart information so much as inspire. As much as one might hate Obama, the man knows how to inspire.
If you want to know about Obama’s stances on the issues, go here. That is available to all, right on his website! I’ve even direct linked you, so you don’t need to go through the pointless subscribe screen (which you can bypass, by the way) and waste a few precious minutes of your life scanning the link bar. (Issues is the second link. Wow. Skillfully hidden.)
To further shed light on this incredible conspiracy of silence from Obama, I did a little google sleuthing. If you google “Obama Stances” you come up with this page from ontheissues.org: Obama On the Issues
“Obama Issues” leads to Obama’s own issues page (previously linked) once again proving how hard he’s trying to hide it.
“Obama Plan” leads to two of Obama’s specific issue pages, health care and energy. It also tells us that he has a plan to end our occupation of Iraq.
“Obama Agenda” will eventually lead you to a Propeller article about Obama’s desire to close income gaps.
If you google “Obama has no plan” you’ll mostly see articles debunking the idea that he has no plan… which makes me wonder, why are there so many intelligent people out there perpetuating this almost laughably stupid idea? Oh, that’s right. There’s some youtube videos of people saying it, and it’s on the radio, and the talking heads on the news networks shout it out over their guests protestations, and that which you hear loudest and most often must be true.
Legislating Morality
If you legislate morality, moral choices lose their value. For example:
Bob chooses not to drink because he believes drunkenness is a sin. Larry chooses not to drink because he doesn’t want to pay a fine. Who does the better thing?
Susan chooses to dress modestly because she honors her body. Leticia dresses modestly because she’s afraid of a public flogging. Who does the better thing?
George prays every day during the lunch hour because he believes that partaking of food without praying shows disrespect for God’s gifts. Tony prays during the lunch hour because he is told to by the voice on the loudspeaker. Who does the better thing?
I think the answers are obvious. When a decision is forced, it loses it’s moral merit. I say that because I believe that morality comes from choice, not law. That isn’t to say that both choices are good- obeying the law is always good. And that isn’t to say that some moral choices shouldn’t be made in the law as well. It is good that murder and rape are crimes. It’s good that they are crimes because those that murder or rape should be treated as criminals- for the protection of the populace. There is also a difference between drinking to drunkenness and doing it in a way that could hurt others. It’s not wrong to be drunk, it is harmful to others to drink and operate machinery or to drink and strip to the nude and parade around publicly- which is why there are laws to prohibit those behaviors.
One should also keep in mind that while morality is subjective to the believer, ethics aren’t. One can make both moral and ethical arguments for things like the value of personal property and the inherent wrongness in stealing. So there’s nothing wrong with arguing that certain behaviors (like stealing) should be prohibited on ethical grounds. Those laws are also about protection.
We as a society should ask ourselves questions like, who are we protecting if we ban gay marriage? Is there an ethical argument for teaching creationism in schools? Does the ethical argument weigh more towards allowing or banning stem cell research?
Do we really have a moral obligation to stop things like abortion- and if we do, would our energies be better spent banging our heads against the legislature or simply going out and helping meet the needs of the pregnant women? (Realizing that the number one reason a woman gives for seeking an abortion is the inability to adequately provide for a child.)
These are the things that occupy my mind while washing dishes. Now they can occupy yours, as well.
