What Thanks?
16 Apr 2012 Leave a Comment
in Sunday Morning Tags: choice, faith, God, gratitude, pain, suffering, thanks
With deepest regards to Ann Voskamp.
Gratitude in the midst of suffering. Eucharisteo. Choosing to accept the bad as well as the good, seeing them as parts of the same whole.
Shadows teach us to appreciate the light. Rain make us grow. Winter bids us rest. Pain wakes us up. “Thank God for the dirty dishes/ They have a tale to tell/ While others may go hungry/ We’re eating very well.”
I repeat Scripture and truisms, but my heart wears heavy pain. I speak praises and affirm faith from a node of agony. I endure; I do not thrive. I do not count this joy. I hate the gifts and shove them from me. I would rather lie numb and shocky than wake up to recovery. I do not want pain or anything that comes from it.
Healing comes after admitted injury. Healing requires playing the deal. I left the cards on the table abandoned without backward glancing. I so nearly fell off the edge of the world.
To be thankful for all that? All this? To lift drenched eyes and clenching-bruised hands and say, “God’s grace!” To feel the sliced-edged beating heart and proclaim, “He is good!” To wrap empty arms around empty self and declare, “Love everlasting!” Can I do such a thing? Can I not and live?
How dare God require smiles and cheer from shattering? How dare the surgeon require movement from the broken limb? Healing requires movement. Gratitude propels us out of our misery. We would coddle our pains until natural healing leaves us warped and unable to use. Divine healing realigns the edges for stronger repair and restoration.
We see the whole when we lift our eyes away from anguish and turn to gratitude’s dawn.
Does Your Past Determine Your Future?
28 Mar 2012 1 Comment
in General
I’ve been hard at work on Descendants of Ancients: Volume 2 for several months now, and getting my main character to reconcile with her past and move on is a major theme. Bad stuff happened, but she’s got to make the choice to let it rule her or to overcome it. I hope that you can see how this correlates to our own lives out here in Reality Land.
Today, I came across this video. Take a moment to watch it; it’s really cute and not long.
The phrase that stood out to me was “He’ll never be able to survive on his own at this point, because of the way he was raised.” Wow; that is so true of us, as well.
How were you raised? How did the experiences in your formative years shape you? Do you feel like you can’t survive in new or different circumstances because of “the way you were raised”?
******
We’re all raised in this world, in the crime and slime and selfishness and unfairness that has become our reality. We were raised to be something that we aren’t. We’ve adapted to our environment. But does that necessarily mean that we can’t unlearn or become what we are actually meant to be?
For little Rocky, overcoming the early conditioning may not be possible. I would argue that we can overcome our conditioning. Not that it isn’t hard, not that we won’t want to quit at some point. Conditioning of any sort is hard to set aside and undo. But I say that it is entirely possible.
Now the question arises: Why would we want to change? We know how to live in the world we live in. Rocky the Squirrel lives in a house, not in a tree. Why would he want to change? Ok, it’s not a perfect analogy, but bear with me. Rocky might not want to change, but we should want to change.
This world is not our home. We don’t belong here, and we won’t stay here forever. Our forever home is a lot different than this one. Since we’ll spend a lot longer there than we will here, it behooves us to learn how to live there before we arrive. Think about your favorite action story. The main character (MC) has to fight through this and that to get to the goal, and often doesn’t know the fight is coming. If the character had been prepared, had cultivated a mindset that life could one day be different, how would s/he have fared differently?
******
I recently watched the movie adaptation of “The Hunger Games.” Everyone in that world knew to be ready for the games, for a fight to the death. But some were more ready than others. Some gave up before they started. Some focused exclusively on winning to the exclusion of common sense. And some made staying alive their goal.
Throughout the contest, the overlords changed the rules, raised or lowered the stakes, offered distracting gifts, and otherwise made it harder for anyone to come out alive. The contestants able to adapt and change with the rules fared the best. And the ones who refused to play the game given to them are the ones who triumphed.
We have this choice: to remain in the conditioning forced on us by an imperfect system or to seek out who we are truly meant to be. We are not meant to merely survive in this world; we are made to thrive. “Take what you can, when you can” is the rule of this life, but it’s not that great a rule. It reduces us to poor animals who can’t ever reclaim what was taken from them.
Fortunately, God gives us a way to overcome. He’s made a way for us to climb out and change. We can become brand new, no longer confused and chained to a reality that was never meant to be ours. Feel free to ask how. 
What Is Love?
21 Mar 2012 Leave a Comment
in General Tags: affection, choice, heart, love, mind
In case you hadn’t heard, I’m on G+ all the fragging time now, and I make a lot of nifty posts over there. Here’s one I thought I should repost here.
Love is a many-splendored thing, as one man said. It’s hard to define and indeed resists definition, which would box it in and perhaps make it both less and more than it is.
In modern times (the only time about which I may speak with any authority), we confuse other emotions, thoughts, reactions, and responses with love. Attraction is not inherently love. Lust is no inherently love. Caring is not inherently love. All of these things partake in and contribute to love, but one alone is not necessarily love.
I would posit that “in love” is not the same as “to love.” “In love” refers to all the things listed above and more, which we seldom have initial control over. We can be attracted to persons we do not love and do not intend “to love.”
I would say that LOVE occurs after we first choose, of our will and minds, to accept love and second begin exploring and permitting all those other aspects in our hearts and bodies. It is an action of the entire being, not of one over or excluding the others. It is not merely a choice or action, for who wants base duty with no affection? It is not merely emotion, which “ever changes in [its] monthly orb,” or a physical response, which reduces the object of love to … well, a mere object.
LOVE requires each of us to give all of ourselves to the one we love. Granted, we must not lose ourselves or give over who and what we are; that is indeed a disservice to our beloved. Mindless obeisance does no one any good. I suggest that most of us would eventually be sick of a lover who was no person in his/her own right. LOVE is both giving and getting.
The order of events is entirely subjective. At one time, we experience intense emotional and/or physical interaction that grows into a conscious choice to become more. At another time, we experience a deliberate shift in thinking that leads to the flowering of affection and physical attraction. Most of the time, we have no idea what the frack is going on.
So my opinion, humble or otherwise, is that LOVE encompasses every part of ourselves. It is a matter of will, mind, heart, and body working together to sustain the ultimate of relationship experiences. It is not a thing to hold lightly, and it is the greatest risk we could possibly take. A time may come when we must distance ourselves from a LOVE because of some circumstance, such as infidelity, abuse, or death. A time may come when we must again chance on LOVE, requiring some injured part of our whole to grow once more.
LOVE is, indeed, many-splendored.
Be sure to read the original discussion on G+.
Oh, the Humanity
09 Mar 2012 2 Comments
in General Tags: abortion, children, choice, death, life, sex
As much as possible, I try to live at peace with others. I don’t seek out opportunities to get into fights, I ignore attempts to goad me, and I’m as encouraging as I can be.
But every now and again, my dander gets itself up and I start making waves. Today shall be one of those times.
I will say without hesitation or wavering that I am pro-life. The only two instances in which I would agree to an abortion are 1) if the baby is already dead or 2) the mother’s life is at real risk. That’s it. Not in cases of rape or incest, not in the case of physical or mental retardation, and certainly not in cases of inconvenience. No one should be forced to pay for someone else’s mistake.
If you’ve read any of my writing, then you know I care about the welfare of children. I know that life is often unfair or downright cruel. I know that bad things happen to good people. And I also know that we tend to shift blame and responsibility everyy chance we get. And I do not accept the argument of “It’s my body, so I’ll do what I want with it.” Wrong, girlfriend. When you get pregnant, it’s your body and someone else’s.
People have argued a long time about when life begins, but that’s a silly argument. Life begins when it does. Once a seed sprouts, it’s alive. Once an egg is fertilized, it’s alive. Sure, it takes time for that living thing to reach its potential, but the process has already begun.
;
According to the Guttmacher Institute, over half of the unintended pregnancies recorded each year in America happen to those women who do not use contraception measures at all. What that means is that nearly half of the unwanted pregnancies happen to those women who are using contraception. Granted, the report shows that most of these pregnancies happen to women who aren’t using contraceptives correctly or consistently. Only 5% of the recorded unplanned pregnancies happened to women who use contraceptives correctly and consistently.
3,100,000 unplanned pregnancies made it into this report. 5% of 3.1mm means that contraception failed at least 155,000 times.
Not all of these children were aborted, but many of them were. The institute found that approximately 100,000 abortions take place every month across the nation. I don’t know of any other condition that kills as many people each year as “inconvenience.”
;
There are definitely some legitimate uses of contraception. I’m not at all opposed to birth control that aims to prevent pregnancy. What I hate is birth control that ends a pregnancy. Abortion happens because we don’t want to be responsible for our actions. We don’t want to face the consequences. We like sex and don’t like the fact that it creates babies. So we’ll keep the fun part and get rid of the un-fun part.
If you have sex, you have to expect that a baby is a likely outcome. That’s a large part of the purpose behind sex, after all. Thinking that we can have sex (when we have fully-functional reproductive systems) but not have babies is madness. If you don’t want a baby, you have two choices: remove your reproductive organs or stop having sex. It’s your body. Make your choice.
;
Now, what about the cases of rape or incest? The women harmed by these crimes have a significant amount of healing to do, and pregnancy can worsen that. I am not in anyway, shape, or form saying that these crimes are allowable. I am not justifying them or ignoring their severity. I am saying that one crime does not excuse another. I have great empathy for the women harmed by men and want justice for them. I also want justice for the children who are just as harmed by the sperm donors as their mothers were.
Babies who develop with physical or mental problems have just as much right to life as the healthiest specimens. I have a cousin born with Down Syndrome, and she graduated high school with honors, has held a steady job for several years, and is a joy to everyone who knows her. Yes, she still lives with her parents and no, she will not ever be truly independent. But she enjoys her life and enriches the lives of others. I once cared for a boy in a wheelchair who carried a small medical facility on his back. Despite the wires and tubes epand surgeries, he is a wonderful person who made my life better. He had fun learning and playing and interacting with other kids, most of whom saw him and not his chair. Why kill these kids just because they’ll never be brain surgeons?
;
Children should not pay for our actions or inactions. Willfully terminating a pregnancy is an act of selfishness and blame-shifting. It is not the removal of a mass of tissues; it is the murder of a child. It is the taking of a life. If you can’t afford a baby right now, don’t have sex. If a baby would interfere with your schooling, don’t have sex. If you’re having problems with your significant other that a baby would worsen … you know what I’m going to say.
I believe that each person has the right and the responsibility to make decisions for her or his life. We need to be making well-considered choices for ourselves, and no one else can live our lives for us. We must all live by our decisions, and no one else can make them for us (unless, of course, there is genuine incapacity or inability). It is the choice of each adult to have sex or not have sex. It the choice of each adult whether or not to engage in activity that would create another life. But it is not our right to say “Oops” and end a life we didn’t want.
;
So there you have my opinion. I think that abortion is wrong in nearly every case. I think that the solution is not pills, barriers, condoms, or spermicide but abstinence. I think that the solution requires greater strength of character than we’ve been showing. I think that we must stop killing babies just because they’re unwanted. If you don’t want a baby, then don’t make one.
Sex in DC: What’s Love Got to Do with It?
28 Sep 2011 Leave a Comment
in Fiction, Sunday Morning Tags: character, choices, comics, love, plot, sex, sexuality, story, writing
This is me, jumping on the currently-most-popular bandwagon in internet geekdom.
The DC Reboot.
If you don’t follow the comics industry, DC is one of the two biggest publishing houses (the other being Marvel). DC brings us Batman, Superman, Catwoman, Teen Titans, and a slew of other heroes and villains. Due to the decline in readership and sales, DC decided to recreate, or “reboot”, 52 characters and storylines.
The first few titles released over the last two weeks have met with a backlash of public outrage. The reason? The female characters are now mere porn stars.
Everyone knows that sex sells, and that isn’t really the issue here. What the internet is screaming over is the treatment of sex and sexuality in these volumes. And it isn’t just the women in the audience spewing vitriol; a large part of the male readership is also disgusted.
****
DC stated that it wanted to create, among other things, sexually liberated female characters. I heartily support sexual liberation; I believe that we labor under a great deal of bondage regarding our sexuality. The difference is in how I and DC define “liberation”.
Is it liberating to put a woman in an outfit that would not survive a shallow, indrawn breath? I can assure you that even for the alien female characters, those outfits would not survive a single step in the dressing room, let alone a battle. Why give her that outfit? It does her no good in any portion of the storyline, and she would not choose it for herself because she knows that needs a garment that will hold up under whatever activity she does. Ah; it isn’t for the story. It’s for the audience. When a woman is dressed by someone else to sexually provoke the audience, is she liberated?
Is it liberating to put a substantial amount of focus on a woman’s sexuality? If she constantly moans about not having or boyfriend or lover, to the point that half the pages include at least a mention of it, I doubt she is liberated. If a goodly portion of her screen-time revolves around enticing men or engaging in sex, it falls flat in the reading. We readers feel that the editor is a pimp requiring the characters to put for the audience, and we are about as satisfied as if we were Johns.
Is it liberating to require a woman to demand sex? Women do have natural sexual urges, but I would argue that a truly liberated woman can say “No” as easily as she can say “Yes.” A liberated woman can choose her partner(s) as carefully as she wishes. Writing a character who cannot refuse any opportunity to get laid is not liberating. Additionally, writing a character who is incapable of caring about her sexual encounters is not writing a liberated woman. Whores and slaves cannot care about who bangs them; free women do care about those with whom they make love.
****
Why do we read comics at all? What started the fandom? I would venture it was the characters and the stories. We all want a hero, someone to save us from torment and show us how to stand tall. We want inspiration and encouragement and hope that a brighter day can and will come. We needed larger-than-life, beyond-human figures to provide perspective on daily human life. Aliens come to our world show us how human we are and how we can maximize our humanity.
Superheroes are those individuals who decided to use what they had to do what they saw needed to be done. They showed us the best and worst of themselves, thus enabling us to see the best and worst in ourselves. They usually won, but not always. Evil had a face, a name, and it could be stopped by someone determined enough to figure out a way.
Even the shift to allow for villains to have their own stories maintained the driving force of character. We want an interesting protagonist, one we can in some way identify with. Sometimes, we want to know more about the ones we vilify so that we can better root for the hero. Sometimes we have compassion and understanding for these archetypes of people. We want to know what they’re up to and why they’re doing it, and we wonder how much longer they will survive against the good guy.
Through it all, what keeps readers coming back is the character and the story. We find our entertainment in all the complex simplicity of heroes who fight crime and struggle to keep the rent paid. And yes, we want our heroes to look good. They are, after all, the ideal we strive for.
How many of us grew up wanting to be Superman or Batgirl? How many of us wanted to be the hero fighting Bad Guys, Saving The Day, and Getting the Girl/Guy? We wanted to be as attractive as they are, and we wanted to be as good as they are. Reading their stories inspired us and told us what to look for in ourselves and in others.
****
The shift we see in the DC reboot is troublesome because readers are so invested in the characters and stories. Yes, we want attractive characters who live The Good Life, and most of us don’t mind being able to sigh (or whatever) over just how attractive a character is, but that’s not our real purpose in reading comics.
We want stories.
We want realistic characters.
We want to be able to see ourselves in the panels.
Those of us who are liberated from sexual bondage know that sex is a beautiful thing that must be honored in order to be enjoyed. When love turns to gratification, there is no purpose. When sex does not further the character’s development or the plot, it becomes cheap and meaningless. And we are bored with that.
We do not want gratuitous shots of anatomy that give us no idea of who the character is.
We do not want ridiculous poses that serve no developmental purpose.
We do not want shallow, callow characters who don’t connect with the other characters or the audience.
If “sexiness” is integral to the story, then let it have an actual function! Sprinkle it in like choice seasoning; don’t dull us with too much spice and not enough meal. If there is more pepper than potato, we have a problem.
****
I find it interesting that as many men as women are disgusted with the recent comic issues. Many of the comments I have read state outright hatred for the female characters, frustration with the lack of coherent story, confusion about how the sex scenes are portrayed (as in, that’s not even anatomically probable), anger at the removal of all that made the characters wonderful to begin with, exasperation at wooden characters, and despair at not feeling comfortable with introducing their children to the comics they once enjoyed so much.
Numerous comments also revolve around the supposed target audience for this reboot. Stereotypically, older boys and young men read superhero comics. What DC seems to have missed is that those original 14-35 year-olds are now husbands and fathers and grandfathers. They still love their childhood favorites, and they don’t want to see them destroyed for the sake of a new crop of sexually-jaded post-pubescents.
What continues to amaze me is how few of the traditional comic publishers grasp the size and variety of their female readership. There are a lot of female readers out there who are every bit as invested in superheroes as the males. And we don’t appreciate having our own sexuality trashed.
A sexually liberated woman understands her body well. She knows what is normal, what is pleasing, and where the proper boundaries are. She knows how far to push and when to say, “Here and no further.” She appreciates what makes her female and refuses all attempts to make her less, in any form or fashion. And the sexually liberated male is, not so coincidentally, of the same mindset. He respects himself as much as he respects her self. Together, they create a healthy balance.
****
When a character’s main selling point becomes her ability to gratify “natural urges,” she can no longer be “real.” We can no longer identify with her and we can no longer care about what happens to her. She becomes an inflatable doll that we keep in the corner or under the bed and would really rather no one knew we had. Comics become that dirty habit that we hide, giving fuel to the argument that only masturbating boys living in Mom’s basement read that stuff.
Earlier I mentioned that most of us started reading comics because we learned more about ourselves through them. What do these new versions tell us about ourselves? Who can we be, according to this?
I see a tale of twisted expectations, wherein the most desirable individuals are the least real. I see a tale of hollow existence, where right and wrong don’t matter and sexual gratification trumps passion and love. I see a world become The Wasteland in which humanity is utterly lost.
Are there any heroes left?
Recent