And Mary said...

“My soul glorifies the Lord
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has been mindful
of the humble state of his servant.
From now on all generations will call me blessed,
for the Mighty One has done great things for me—
holy is his name.
His mercy extends to those who fear him,
from generation to generation.
He has performed mighty deeds with his arm;
he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.
He has brought down rulers from their thrones
but has lifted up the humble.
He has filled the hungry with good things
but has sent the rich away empty.
He has helped his servant Israel,
remembering to be merciful
to Abraham and his descendants forever,
just as he promised our ancestors.”

Merry Christmas!

~ Hannah and Ruthie

The Dangerous, Threatening Search for True Beauty In the World of Australian Ballroom Dancing

I’ve been watching Baz Luhrmann’s incredible, eyebrow-raising movie Strictly Ballroom since I was a little girl, but it’s only recently that I have begun to see past the immediate appeal of the movie—the glitzy dancing, the ugly-duckling-transformation storyline—to what Luhrmann is trying to say. A thoughtful, innovative director who manages to avoid pretension (perhaps because he has made only 5 movies over the past 20 years), Luhrmann created the Red Curtain Trilogy (Strictly Ballroom, Romeo + Juliet and Moulin Rouge) in the ‘90s and my favorite is still the one I’ve been watching since I was little. His first, his greatest. Strictly Ballroom.

The movie is set in the over-the-top world of competitive ballroom dancing in Australia in the early 1990s, and follows Scott, a dancer who wants to compete by dancing his own moves—moves that are not “strictly ballroom.” This raises a commotion in the world of ballroom dancing, and the only woman gutsy enough to dance with Scott is a novice named Fran. As Fran transforms from an awkward beginner to a beautiful dancer, Scott has to make choices about whether he wants to take the risk of dancing his own moves.

As a little girl, the biggest appeal of the movie was Fran’s transformation and the spectacle of glittery costumes in bright ballroom lights. But when I watched it a couple days ago and Hannah and I began discussing it (this is kind of a mixture of both of our thoughts…I’m just the one putting it into words), I realized that some of the moments in the movie that have resonated the most with me over the years are actually quite intentional on the part of Luhrmann and his team. What Luhrmann is really commenting on is the presence of beauty, the purpose of beauty, and the interaction between real beauty and the cheap, glitzy substitute we often put in its place.

It’s very clear that Fran is the true beauty of the movie—with minimal makeup and normal curly brown hair she stands in stark contrast to the primped and glittery cast of female dancers who wear next to nothing. Luhrmann makes the contrast obvious by the way the other women are filmed, and even for a little girl the movie gave a clear message that Fran’s true beauty came from her character. But Fran’s story is only a second application to Luhrmann’s real message, and though both make commentary on beauty, the more important and more subtle story is Scott’s search for beauty. His desire to dance his own moves could perhaps be taken as a metaphor for his need to find freedom from the constraints of society, but I don’t think that’s what Luhrmann is going for. Scott wants to dance his own moves because he realizes the cheapness of the world the ballroom dancers have created—a world full of beauty that decays and stagnates in its own worthlessness.

                                 Fran strikes a contrast to the other women

The very first scene of the movie shows off the disparity between Scott’s world and his desires. Opening on shadowed silhouettes of Scott and his partner, it’s breathtakingly beautiful to see the outline of a man and woman preparing to step onto the dance floor, and we hold our breath as we wait for the full glory the silhouettes promise us. But when they step into the light and march onto the floor, we are presented with something brash and glittery and fake, and immediately realize that the shadows at the beginning were much more satisfying than this thing we’re watching—punctuated by Luhrmann’s abrasive, too-close shots of the over-makeuped and lined faces of the dancers and spectators.

That sense of alienation stays with us through the first part of the movie, though Luhrmann throws in enough humor and spectacle that we begin to settle into the pace of the movie and enjoy ourselves. Scott is searching for something; we don’t know what, but we definitely want him to be able to dance his own moves. Even when Fran enters the movie and begins to dance with Scott, Lurhmann keeps the shots just on the edge of something—their scenes are shot in darkened studios, shadowy and reminiscent of the very first scene. Maybe, we decide, that shadowy beauty is as good as it gets.

When true beauty first invades Scott’s world, he doesn’t recognize it, and Lurhmann portrays it as hostile, scary, and unknown. Scott is walking Fran to the house where her Spanish immigrant family lives beside the train tracks, and the setting is striking in its normalcy. The rest of the movie up to this point has been one bright, fast-paced ride on the bedazzle express, and Luhrmann uses devices to alienate us along with Scott—the barking of a dog, the frightened glance of Fran’s grandmother. Luhrmann wants us to be just as surprised as Scott when the moment comes.

In the next part of the movie, the focus shifts ever so slightly. We have been constantly barraged with close-ups, but now the ballroom dancers grow more sinister. The scenes with Fran begin to sharpen, until Luhrmann presents us with a clear parallel of the two worlds Scott is wavering between. As Tina Sparkle—Scott’s potential new partner—dances on stage with her current partner, undulating in the overly perfect and utterly fake world of ballroom dancers, Scott and Fran dance to the same music backstage, separated from the glitz only by a curtain. In one of the most beautiful dance scenes I’ve seen, and definitely my favorite, Luhrmann films the couple dancing to the Doris Day classic “Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps,” shrouding them in the shadows we’ve come to associate with real beauty.

                                       Luhrmann presents two options to us

When the couple is spotted and Scott’s family intervenes, we begin to feel claustrophobic. This is largely because of Luhrmann’s less than subtle filming, and he throws off all question of who the bad guys are as Fran sits in a chair, surrounded by women who are shot in bright lights, close-up, at an upward angle that seethes with hostility. This is the world Scott is struggling to escape. This is beauty, this is correct. But by now we know, along with Scott, how untrue that is.

                                                                Beauty?    

When Scott leaves the competition and follows Fran home, he has no idea anymore what he’s searching for. Again, we’re struck by the simplicity—the boringness of Fran’s home. Her family is having a fiesta, and Scott stands beside the garbage cans and calls to her to come join him. Come dance, he tells her. I want to dance with you. What is it about Fran that is so alluring to Scott? And then her father sees them, and his hostility is frightening after the niceness and glamour of the dancing world. But for the first time in the movie, we realize that he is sincere. This man, living a normal life, is so starkly in contrast to the rest of the characters that we’re thrown completely off balance.

When Scott tells him he and Fran have just been dancing, he asks Scott to show him the Paso Doble. This is something Scott knows. We breathe a sigh of relief. Scott knows how to dance. We’re alright. We won’t be harmed by this strange, real, too-honest man. But when Scott and Fran begin to dance, surrounded by the friends and family of the immigrants, Fran’s father and the others laugh. We are tempted to laugh too; somehow, without the bright lights and the skanky costumes, the ballroom moves are ridiculous and laughable. But we, like Scott, are frustrated. “What’s so funny??” Scott yells, and the crowd immediately stills.

“Paso Doble?” Fran’s father asks. He stands and takes off his jacket. “Paso Doble.” And then, before we’re ready, he dances. He dances a Paso Doble beyond Scott’s skill. Alien, commanding and magnificent, this man completely wipes away every dance move that has been done up to this point. When he is finished, he looks Scott in the eye and once more repeats, “Paso Doble.” Double-step. Out of your experience, and exactly what you’ve been searching for.

Luhrmann bends all his skills toward showing us that this is where the true beauty lives. From the colorful streamers to the tapping of a cigar against a cup, to the beautiful release as Scott is invited to dance with Fran’s family, we know that we have found it. Scott’s spinning, arms-raised moment of delight, punctuated by the bright light of a train passing through the train yard echoes our own delight—our realization that here, in the dirty world of real life, Scott has found the beauty he was seeking. And it’s neither in the neon lights of the ballroom nor the shadows of backstage.

What really makes Strictly Ballroom great is not just the fact that Scott finds true beauty, but that Scott does something with it. The final part of the movie is about Scott learning to dance like Fran’s father—pushing past the cheap beauty of the ballroom dance world to the harder, elusive beauty that, as Fran’s grandmother puts it, “Comes from the heart.” And lest this sound like a cheesy “believe in yourself” kind of movie, that’s not it at all. The movie isn’t about feeling good about oneself. It’s about not settling for easy beauty, and about truly searching for the things in life that are worth it and then using them to inform your art. The world of ballroom is cheap because it has settled, instead of realizing that true beauty is found not in escaping and masking the things of this world, but in taking the time to notice them and expending effort to transform them into something that’s worth it.

Luhrmann himself has done just this with his first—and best—film. He takes us on a journey with Scott, uses the beauty of the real world to showcase the cheapness of our illusions, and then makes the statement that art, whether it be dancing or filmmaking, can only truly be beautiful when it is based on things that matter. When the world of ballroom dancing makes one final last-ditch effort to draw Scott back into its embrace, the colors and the bright lights and the even more over-the-top face paint is almost nauseating, compared to the simple beauty we’ve just witnessed at Fran’s fiesta.

Though Scott still has about thirty minutes of decisions to make, we’ve already made ours. Just as Luhrmann intended, we are through with strictly ballroom. Not because we’re on a power trip, or because we’re trying to assert our free will. Because, like Scott, we’re bored with the mockery of glitz and the façade that everything is perfect. We want to see real life, and we want to stop and take the time to notice the headlights on a train and the simple lines of tree branches. We want to notice these things and then allow them to inform our art and our interactions with others, just as Fran’s father allows them to inform his Paso Doble. Just as Scott and Fran allow them to inform their final, fabulous ballroom dance together. 

~Ruthie

The Issue of the Instantaneous Significant Other

Living with members of the opposite sex - nothing new in our culture.  Whether romantically linked, sexually involved, or just friends, America does not bat an eye at the practice of unmarried men and women sharing domestic living situations.

But what about the growing trend of young Christians in "platonic" co-ed living situations?  The decision to do so and justifications for it baffle my parents' generation.  My mom and I have recently been talking about the topic and since what used to be a no-brainer (that unmarried male and female Christians do not live with each other before marriage) now is up for debate, she asked me to share with her what I would say to a friend considering such a living arrangement.

Here it goes...

1) Grey areas

The first issue is that there aren't Biblical proof texts concerning such living arrangements.  While scripture speaks in black and whites about adultery and lust, it doesn't say anything specific about this modern problem within the church.  So in addressing it, the grayness of the issue needs to be recognized up front.  My generation is always defending themselves with the grayness of a situation.  So in talking about it, we have to first establish not only that there are Biblical principals connected to such living situations, but that they are relevant and important to consider.  

I think examples of other times in life when Christians believe something is very clearly right or wrong, not because of a direct command, but because of general Biblical principals are important.  Take physical abuse.  The Bible does not anywhere give us a direct command not to harm our spouses, children, friends, etc.  But because the Bible clearly teaches the value and dignity of humanity and commands to treat others as we would be treated, we do not question the wrongness of abuse.  It's a moral decision based not upon command, but upon principal.  Could someone find loopholes?  Yes, and they do.  And we believe they are terribly wrong for it, holding them accountable for their actions.

The problem is that living with someone is not a violent physical offense, therefore making it benign to my generation.  We have been culturally conditioned to see violence as wrongdoing and anything else as personal preference.  Those within the church aren't free from this conditioning.  But according to scripture, more than just violent behavior is wrong and bad for us individually and as a community.

So people first have to be convinced that they can commit true and real offenses simply by the situations in which they put themselves, regardless of the grayness of those situations or their seemingly passive/nonviolent nature.

1) The divide of body and soul

I think the biggest problem with modern American is that we have divided our bodies from our souls (to use generic terms).  It's visible everywhere, but nowhere more so than in our sexuality.  We see ourselves as a conglomeration of two totally different things - a body and the whatever else is inside.  These two things are forced to coexist, but have little else to do with each other.  In other words, the average American sees herself as an inside and an outside.  What the two do are completely separate so that we are people divorced within ourselves.  This is one of the biggest arguments being used against sex before marriage - your acting one way with your body and another way with your soul, but it's awfully hard to divorce the two and if you do succeed, you're living in a fractured world.

I think, though, that Christians need to hear that this problem flows both ways.  In the same way that you can't divorce your soul from your body while sleeping around, you can't divorce your body from your soul while sharing living space.  The totality of our beings include different elements and they are created to work in unison with each other.  

And that's where the issue of instantaneous significant other comes into play.  People find themselves with instant significant others in many different situations, work being a good example.  All of the sudden there is another person who is significant in our decisions, space, and time.  These things lead to emotional connection and response.  Living together goes one step further in creating instant significant others.  In living together, people are creating a household.  I think that this alone is reason enough not to have roommates of the opposite sex.  On an emotional level alone, you are already divorcing yourself.  You are putting yourself in a situation that calls for certain emotions and feelings, while at the same time neutering your heart so that those feelings don't arise.  Or, if your not emotionally stunted, your heart overwhelms you and the emotions take over.  Either way, your living in a situation that requires emotionally fracturing of yourself.

But I think it goes one step further.  Sex is a natural step in domestic relationships between men and women.  It's part of life when men and women live in close and constant relationship with each other.  We all know that as Christians, if we're living with someone and sleeping with them, it's sin.  But we don't recognize that if we are living with someone of the opposite gender and not sleeping with them, we're not living naturally.  We're splitting ourselves from what we are naturally made to do.  The platonic co-ed living arrangement divorces sex from the situations in which it should naturally occur.  

2) Pop culture

The funny thing is that pop culture is actually agrees with this.  There isn't one movie or TV show about men and women living with each other that hasn't assumed they will eventually deal with the issue of sex.  In fact, it's most often the driving plot line.  A man and woman start out in a platonic relationship and then wham! sex gets thrown into the mix and the big question is will they or won't they? Friends, possibly the most culturally informative and defining sitcom of the last twenty some years, is always addressing this question.  Every single time living situations become co-ed, sex becomes involved.  It's not cast as anything strange or unusual.  It's life.  Sex is the normal outcome of domestic households.  

3) Lust

Another thing, though, is that I don't think young Christians really take lust seriously, or even have a working definition of what lust is.  The fact is, lust is so commonplace in our culture that we don't even notice it.  It's the primary responses between men and women and totally and completely accepted, if not glorified. Desire and desirability are the key lens through which my generation looks at others and themselves.  It is important to make sure people actually understand what lust is and what Jesus says about lust, because it is not a gray area.

Additionally, though, it is really important to not separate women out from dealing with lust.  It's good to talk with women about the issue as the object of male lust and helping their brothers in Christ, but it is just as important, if not more so, to talk with women about their own lust.  The church tends to desexualize women, giving it nothing to say to the trends among America's young females. Women lust far more than the church recognizes and our culture is actively encouraging it.  A woman's lust will most often look different than a man's, but it will be present.

4) Myth of the "relationship status"

The last big thing to understand is my generations inflated view of "relationship status."  Contemporary American culture is all about labeling ourselves and our male/female relationships fall especially prey to this.  We want to be able to label and define every relationship we have, thereby defining ourselves.  Where this connects to roommate situations is that we young Americans tend to believe that these labels actually mean something.  I think young Christians going into co-ed living situations really think that because they all label themselves as single and platonic, this label will somehow magically hold true.  We don't tend to understand the organic nature of relationships. Cooking dinner, doing laundry, watching TV together defines a relationship far more than whatever label might be given to it.  I think it would be helpful for people to start actually thinking about the actions they do together and what they mean and produce, rather than the superficial status they've given a relationship.  

5) Authority, convenience, and rebellion

In the end, though, I really think a lot of the problem comes down to three things.  1) Americans don't believe in any authority in their lives. 2) Americans are controlled by what is convenient.  3)  Americans are infatuated with rebelling.  You can talk about the above points with someone till your blue in the face, but unless the Spirit is leading them to let go of these three big things guiding all American youth, there is no reason for them not to live together before marriage.  

~Hannah

Disquiet

Cycling through puddles and rivers,
the toss of the ceaseless salting triumph of the ocean,
and finally the sky—
only to falllllll to earth
and meet the coldness of a city,
where even these are forgotten and wrecked.
A steel spider; a lotus flower.
A broken symbol, because shelter is something
so far out of context in the workworkwork
workworkdon’tstopdon’tstop
workworld of Chong Qing.
The distant promise of ice cream
can’t give faces to faceless people and a smileyface sign—
rain dripping on the undersides of shoes,
and bent metal, and broken faces,
and the endless search for evaporation—because
please, God, I want to be an ocean again, or a river—
or at least a puddle.

~Ruthie (photo by Hannah)

Hiatus and the Stats on "A Really Short Skirt"

Well, I never expected to stop writing for such a long period of time. And I'm not entirely sure what happened.

But a rule of thumb in life is that you cannot take someone farther than where you yourself have been. And towards the end of summer, I started to wonder if that was what I was trying to do with this blog. In order to write more, I first had to think more. The topics I wanted to discuss were ones just starting to draw my attention; sitting down to type out a post revealed how much I didn't really have anything to say yet. And thus the long hiatus.

But now I want to write again. I logged on and was quickly reminded of something I have been paying attention to since the beginning of Carved to Adorn - our stats and what they say. It is a thrill to watch our readership grow; Ruthie and I practically squeal when we get a new all-time high number of hits on a post or someone unknown stumbles across us.

The most fascinating and heartbreaking stat to follow, though, is the one for Ruthie's post "A Really Short Skirt." From the moment it was published, this post has had the highest number of hits. We thought it was a decent post, but surely, not a record breaker. But over the months, it has steadily increased in hits with over 50% more hits than the second highest read post.

The reason? A little more digging revealed some interesting things. The vast majority of its hits have been the result of searches with keywords like "really short skirt," "short skirt bent over," and "bent over crouch." Now, this is NOT a man-bashing blog and it never will be. Nor is this post. But I do find it highly ironic that a blog dedicated to talking about the dignity of womanhood is generating most of its traffic from men obviously out for little voyeuristic pleasure. Ironic and a reminder of a very sad reality.

And this gives me an idea. What if a male author joined in our discussion? Currently, it seems the majority of men stopping by our site are here interested only in using their eyes to take from the dignity of women. What if a man, or men, became a part of this site, using their voice to add to the dignity of women? If you are male, and read this blog, this is an open invitation for your footprint to be larger on Carved to Adorn than those behind the stats.

~Hannah

The Link Between In Vitro and Abortion: "Ethics Evolve with Technology"

With Hannah's previous post on my mind, I was startled to come across this in the New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/14/magazine/the-two-minus-one-pregnancy.html

It's rather long, but it's interesting, horrifying, and so worth reading. This is a very sensitive issue, especially since there are a lot of people my age who are alive today because of fertilization and in vitro treatments. But it's worth taking into account the fact that by opening ourselves up to the world of "choices" as this article calls it, we open ourselves up to the possibility of incredibly great harm. As is obvious from this article, these decisions are being made every day right here...not just in China, or elsewhere.

You should just read the article, but here are a couple key sentences that really struck me: "We've come to believe that the improvements are not only our due, but also our responsibility...limitless choice is a particularly American ideal;" and "...choices are not always as liberating and empowering as we hope they will be."

Everything has consequences. It is important to realize that even things that seem good, like fertilization treatments, can open a can of worms from which there is no coming back.

~Ruthie

"Gendercide"

While living overseas, I somehow accidentally signed up for a free subscription of The Economist using frequent flyer miles. My mom faithfully saved every issue for me to read when I retuned after two years, so recently in an effort to purge my room of junk, I sorted through the stack of magazines, saving a select few while pitching the rest.

Two copies piqued my interest. One issue blames motherhood for gender inequality in the workforce (yes, a blog post will be coming on the article once I've fully digested it and formulated my response). The other issue's cover labels its topic as "Gendercide: What happened to 100 million baby girls?" While living in Asia, I had heard from word of mouth that the gender ratio was far off balance due to the traditional preference for boys, but I never researched it myself. I was excited to finally read about it, even though the article was a good year and a half old.

This seemed like the perfect place to share the article. I can't imbed the article, so you need actually follow the link (gasp!). But as a quick taste and incentive to inform yourself concerning this issue, I've copied the first couple of paragraphs below. Read the rest at Gendercide: The worldwide war on baby girls | The Economist.

"XINRAN XUE, a Chinese writer, describes visiting a peasant family in the Yimeng area of Shandong province. The wife was giving birth. “We had scarcely sat down in the kitchen”, she writes (see article), “when we heard a moan of pain from the bedroom next door…The cries from the inner room grew louder—and abruptly stopped. There was a low sob, and then a man’s gruff voice said accusingly: ‘Useless thing!’

“Suddenly, I thought I heard a slight movement in the slops pail behind me,” Miss Xinran remembers. “To my absolute horror, I saw a tiny foot poking out of the pail. The midwife must have dropped that tiny baby alive into the slops pail! I nearly threw myself at it, but the two policemen [who had accompanied me] held my shoulders in a firm grip. ‘Don’t move, you can’t save it, it’s too late.’“‘But that’s...murder...and you’re the police!’ The little foot was still now.

The policemen held on to me for a few more minutes. ‘Doing a baby girl is not a big thing around here,’ [an] older woman said comfortingly. ‘That’s a living child,’ I said in a shaking voice, pointing at the slops pail. ‘It’s not a child,’ she corrected me. ‘It’s a girl baby, and we can’t keep it. Around these parts, you can’t get by without a son. Girl babies don’t count.’”

~Hannah

First Five Pages from a Potential New Novel

I'm starting a new story and since I haven't had any exceptionally deep thoughts about womankind recently, I thought I'd post the first few pages. It's loosely based on the life of my great-grandmother Carmel, and I'm hoping this attempt takes since I've tried to write about her several times. Any comments are appreciated!

~Ruthie

Carmel (excerpt)

There was a new man in town. I heard it from Papa, who brought the tale from the men who leaned up against the posts by the schoolhouse and watched passersby. They weren’t as watchful as the men who lined up by the tavern, but they were more reliable because they didn’t drink except out of their hip flasks. And mostly their liquor was homemade, which Papa said worked out better for them in the end.

This new man, I wanted to get a look at him because people didn’t come to stay very often in the hills. Way back when the land was settled, people thought the mountain where our farm lay was golden land, priceless. But farming ain’t what it used to be, I’ve heard Papa tell Mama. He stood by the stove in the wintertime when he was bit through with frost and went on about the cursed land, cursed right down from the time of Adam. I believed him that the land was cursed, but I think maybe it didn’t have anything to do with Adam. I think maybe it was just because of Papa.

The week before the new man came to town, I lay awake in my bed until I couldn’t see the moon in the sky anymore, and still Papa didn’t come home. Not until the chickens were beginning to stir in their coop did I hear the steady tread of the mare’s hooves on the road up the hill, and then I heard the front door open, because Mama had been wakeful all night, waiting for him. My heart sank into my toes, which were wiggling in the early breeze atop the covers, and I knew that no matter what Papa swore, over and over, even if he stacked up Bibles till they tipped over and clattered to the floor, he would never get free of the bottle.

I lay still and cold as I heard Mama’s voice rise hushed over the early light, even though we hadn’t got neighbors anywhere close by, and nobody was going to hear my Papa riding home drunk. But Mama kept her voice down, and I watched the sloping profiles of my sisters as they lay sleeping beside me. She was doing it for them, because Stella and Ruby still thought Papa got sick in the night. I wished I still believed that, and for a moment I listened tightly to the sounds, imagining that he was just sick. Mama’s gentle grunts as she lifted him from the horse, Papa’s sudden, sodden words, the accidental slam of the door, shuffling across the floor and a creak as Papa dropped into bed. That’s right, he was just sick. Poor Papa, getting sick like that.

There was silence for a few minutes, and my eyes rolled over the planks in the ceiling above my head as I wondered what my Mama was doing. And then her soft footsteps crept through to the door, and I could hear the clink of the bridle as she went to stable Annabelle. Faithful horse, bringing Papa home. I felt my blood heat and my eyes clench tight shut, waiting for the sweep of rage to pass me by on its way through my body. My little sister Ruby probably would have prayed for deliverance from the anger, but I wasn’t about to let it go. I was holding on as tight as I could, because I knew what kind of help it could give. The kind of help my Mama didn’t have, because she couldn’t summon enough anger to cure my Papa.

But Papa was better the next week. When he told my Mama the news, he cast a look in her direction that told me he hadn’t been hanging around the wrong side of the street, and then he let it out about Harry by the schoolhouse, and Mama smiled at him. I piped up quickly, easing up my fingers on the spoon I held.

“What kind of man is he, Pa?” I asked.

Papa fixed me with his brown eyes and shook his head. “Don’t know yet. Men say he’s in town looking for work, but there ain’t much round here to keep a man.”

“Is he young, then?” I asked. I glanced at Elsie, but she sat eating silently.

Papa nodded. “About all I know of him. From somewhere north, maybe Cuttersville. What he’s doing here I couldn’t say.”

The information barely registered before I looked again at Elsie. My older sister was approaching twenty years of age, and in the hills that was too old for a girl to be unwed. I made a note to speak with her later and pressed my Papa further.

“What’s he look like?”

Papa shook his head again. “Quit your questions, girl, I ain’t never seen the man.”

He said it hard, but I saw the twinkle in his eye. He knew I’d got the anger in my blood, and he knew it would keep me warm. He was proud of that.

I let my mind pass over Papa’s news as I was doing up the dishes afterwards, and my Mama clicked her tongue at me. She couldn’t abide to see my hands idle. When the water in the bucket had started to grow cold I finished wiping up as quickly as I could, but when I turned around, Mama was looking at me with her hands on her hips.

“You asked an awful lot of questions about that young man, Carmel,” she said.

I laughed. “Well someone’s got to marry Elsie.”

Mama came closer to me, and I thought for a moment she was going to put her hand on my arm. But then she passed me and picked up the dishtowel, and I saw that she was just going to give the table another wipe. She was silent, and I felt anger bubbling below my bellybutton, because she never spoke what was on her mind. But I was fifteen, and I knew better than to let my words out when they weren’t needed. So I bit them down and then I was out the back door, into the yard where the chickens Ruby was herding let out cackles of dismay at my fast feet.

“Where you going?” Ruby called after me, but I didn’t answer her. She could figure it out, if she wanted. Probably everyone knew by then where I went when I wanted to be alone. My steps took off up the line of trees, pattering softly because I wouldn’t wear the boots Mama told me I should. Behind me the white clapboard house stood soft against the brush of trees surrounding it, and to my right the fields stretched out over the gentle slopes of North Carolina hills. But ahead of me, up the mountain, the ridge of trees that separated one field from another stood like a line of schoolboys paying attention, and I cut through them and ran headlong into the waving grass on the southern slope of the hills. That ridge was too steep to grow anything but grass for the cows, and I gave them a wide berth as they crop steadily. Our cows paid me no mind, unless I’d got Ginger with me. Then they laid back their ears and listened up.

I used to hide in the trees along the ridge of that hill when Mama called for someone to help her bucket the water and bring it up to the house, or when Papa set us to bringing the cows down the slope. I didn’t hide much once I found my fifteenth birthday, but I still set off up there when I wanted to be alone with my thoughts. And my thoughts that day were all for my sister Elsie.

I knew why she didn’t want to speak about another man. I’d seen her down behind the smokehouse, making eyes with George, the man who’d been working on the farm for almost six years. That included his time in the service, when he went off and fought in the war and came back with bad breathing and a hitch in his walk. The winter before, just after he’d come home and I was taking him some soup, he showed me the scars along the side of his neck where he’d clawed at himself in a frenzy because he couldn’t breathe. I asked him what it felt like when the gas leaked through his mask.

“Like I’d swallowed liquid fire,” he said. “Like my throat was coming apart in pieces and hurrying up to come out through my nose.”

I wrinkled my own nose, but I wasn’t scared by his words. I was never afraid to talk about what people felt in their bodies. When Stella was born I watched the whole thing, and stood by with the scissors the doctor had sterilized to cut the birth cord. But Elsie wasn’t like me. She was more like Mama, and when she heard George talking to me her eyes filled up with tears and she turned to the window to wipe them where George couldn’t see. He saw, though, and his face got all concerned.

“Wasn’t so bad, Elsie,” he said. “They took me right away to the field hospital, and I ain’t none the worse for it.”

He was right. He was only lying in bed because Mama and Elsie told him to, and he was up and working again the next day. He limped and his voice came out in a thin little rasp, but he was just as strong as he was before he left. And I knew something else. He’d always been in love with Elsie, always. Before he went away to fight the Germans he used to watch Elsie from across the yard, or over the dinner table. Ever since his parents sent him to work he’d been watching Elsie and wishing she’d watch him too.

I reached the top of the ridge and lay down flat on my belly to watch the farm. The light was turning purple around the edges of the sky, and I could feel the chill breeze of early summer begin to dust up with the fading light. Maybe rain, too, though there weren’t clouds up yet. I could smell something on the air, and I knew the feel of rain when it came. Papa would probably be getting the cows in early, penning them up before one of us had to wade through the running hills.

The barn door was open, and as if I’d conjured him up with my thoughts like a circus man, George walked out into the yard. He was with Walter, my older brother, and though he wasn’t but seventeen he’d got the walk of a man. My Mama didn’t know it, but I’d seen him hanging around by the schoolhouse with his friends, and I knew it wasn’t but a few steps from there to the public house and if he started down that road, there’d be no coming back. Just like Papa. But I liked to see Walter with George because George didn’t drink nothing. Maybe because the only thing he ever thought about was Elsie.

My mind moved back to the things I heard them saying behind the smokehouse, and I blushed a little when I remembered that George had taken her hand in his. Elsie blushed too, but she didn’t mind it. She liked it, I could tell. And that was when I realized that she’d been sweet with George for a while, and she wasn’t going to get any less sweet. I had run back up to the house and found Ruby, and we tried to make sense of the fact that all it took for George to win Elsie’s affection was a war injury. He was still the same George, except now he limped. And he had a nice voice before, kind of deep with a little ache to it when he was tired.

“Maybe she just liked nursing him,” Ruby said, but I shook my head.

“She only got to nurse him for one day,” I said. “He was up and working about the next day.” But I guess I could see the romance in being sweet on a man who got hurt during a war, and I shrugged. “You can’t tell Mama,” I said to Ruby. “She might not approve.”

“Mama and Pa like George,” Ruby insisted. “They treat him like a son.”

I thought about her words and twirled my braid against my cheek. “Think he could run his own farm?” I asked. “Walter likes him just as much as Mama and Pa, but I heard him talking about the gimp in his step and saying that he might never be able to own his own land.”

Ruby was too young to have an opinion about this, and Mama soon called me downstairs to fetch her the bacon I was supposed to have brought back with me. But as I watched George and Walter I made up my mind that if Elsie didn’t take George, I would. Even if he did limp, he liked to laugh and he could tell good stories. And he didn’t drink.

Tired of watching the tiny figures, I rolled over on my back and gazed up through the branches climbing over my head. Another thing about George I liked was that he could tell the name of any tree I could find. Even Papa didn’t know as many trees as George, and he said it was because his Granny used to take him through the forest and teach him the names of everything they saw. My smile faded a little as I thought about that. George’s granny could cause trouble for Elsie and George, even though she was dead. George’s granny was a Cherokee.

I used to wish I had an Indian for a granny. I couldn’t remember either of my grannies, because my Papa’s mother died early on, and my Mama’s granny lived clear over the mountains in South Carolina. When George told us stories about his granny his voice always crept low and soft, and he didn’t speak of her when he was around my parents or any other grown-ups. It wasn’t until I was twelve that I understood why, and then I felt my welcome anger creeping up into my belly. What was so wrong with an Indian for a granny? If she could tell George the names of the trees and the difference between the wild herbs, I didn’t see what difference the color of her skin made.

But I thought Mama and Papa might not mind if Elsie married him. It had been a long time ago that George’s grandfather married his Indian bride, and things were different. Even in Birch Pass, people were starting to change their ways. There were even strangers moving through town.

I sat up quickly, because I remembered the reason I began to think about Elsie and George. The new man in town was a young man, Papa said. I began to think of all the reasons he might be in town, as I sat in the thickening dusk. He couldn’t be a schoolteacher, or we’d have all known it. Besides, we had a schoolteacher. He might have been looking to work in the general store, or one of the other shops, or even maybe open up his own business. But that didn’t seem likely, because if he had been enterprising he’d have gone to a bigger town where people needed lots of stores. Birch Pass barely kept the general store, feed store, tailor and tavern in business, and the hotel only had one bedroom right next to Mr. Wicker’s own room. He even let his cook go because she wasn’t cooking enough meals to keep herself.

So he was hoping for work on one of the farms. I grinned lopsidedly, letting my breath out in a scoff. He couldn’t have been a very bright one, that young man. Most of the farms around the mountains were small enough for family to keep them, and it was too late in the year to help with the planting and too early to help with the harvest. Anybody with sense would know to go north to the farms in the valleys the stretched toward Shenandoah, or even a few miles east out of the toughest of the hills. Unless he had kin nearby, there wasn’t any reason to stay in our part of North Carolina.

He might have kin around. I pulled my braid into my mouth and sucked on the end as I turned over this new thought. Maybe his Mama was dying, and he had twelve little brothers and sisters to care for. His Pa would be dead already, naturally, and he’d be the only man big enough to make enough money to support his family. Or maybe he had a young bride in a little cabin somewhere, and she was about to birth their first child, and their barn had burnt down with all their feed and livestock in it. He was bound to need some charity, but he was probably too proud, and he wouldn’t accept anything but good honest work.

I smiled to myself and squinted into the deepening dusk. I couldn’t tell whether Walter and George were still in the yard, and I could just barely make out the edges of the barn in the thick of dark descending. The house, hidden behind a crop of trees, was lost to me. I thought about sitting up on the ridge until it was really dark, and waiting for Pa to come looking for me. If I sat still enough, he probably wouldn’t find me at all, and I could stay out all night and sleep under the stars like George’s grandma. Maybe I’d climb a tree and sleep curled up on a branch.

But I’d tried to sleep in a tree, and I knew that it never worked out quite like I wanted it to. Before I knew it I was comparing the sharpness of the branches of a tree to the softness of my bed, and I stood up to brush my skirt off. Leave the stars to the Indians, and the trees to the birds. I wasn’t giving up my bed. I put my hands to my arms to brush away the goose bumps, and then I heard my mother’s voice rise over the hushing of the cicadas.

“Car-mel,” she called, throwing her voice up into the hills, “Car-mel…”

I started down the ridge toward her voice, and it seemed to me then that I was walking down out of the clarity of my thoughts into the reality of life—a thick web of it, up to my throat and smelly. But when I rounded the hill and saw the flicker of light in the windows, the feeling passed, or at least eased a little. Besides, my Mama was at the door, and she gave me a smile as I walked in.

“First call,” she said. “Very kind of you.”

The Apostle Paul and Alicia Keys on Submission

This post will be short and probably not altogether coherent, but these thoughts have been floating around my mind so I'll share them.

The shower is an amazing place. My most lucid thoughts seem to come to me in the shower. I don't know why I was thinking about teachings on wives submitting to husbands (I'm careful to avoid saying "female submission" because there is nothing Biblical about the idea of general and broad submission of one gender to the other), but I was pondering it while showering the other day. It suddenly dawned on me that particular words and their grammar are really important.

I think all Western women within Christianity struggle with Paul's admonition for wives to submit to their husbands. What female hasn't seriously questioned her and her sisters' places within the kingdom because of it? I have long made peace with this issue and actually find much joy in it, but I continue to ponder it every so often.

What particularly struck me about Paul's admonition to wives was the nature of the word "submit." I have been studying vocabulary for the GRE, so perhaps that brought about my thoughtfulness concerning wording. But I digress. "To submit" is not a passive verb, but rather a verb of willful choice and action. The women Paul speaks to are the perpetrators of the command, not the recipients of its action.

As daughters of the 21st century, I think when we hear "submit," we often think "subjugate." But these words have very different meanings. Subjugation is an act of the strong against the weak who have no will or rights. WIthin subjugation, women have no voice and are not addressed. If Paul were really calling for the subjugation of women, he would not have spoken to them, or if he had, it would have been to say wives must be passive as they are acted upon by their husbands. Instead the grammar calls women to act out themselves whatever this thing is called "submission." If Paul's command read "Wives be subjugated by your husbands," he would be restraining us. Rather, he speaks to the use of our individual wills, telling us to do a specific action. As much as women might react against Paul's words towards wives, we should recognize that submission as Paul talks about it is an act of a wife's own will, not the act of her husband's will.

It seems to me there is a lot more that could be added and discussed here, but since I do not have the voice of a wife, I'll close my thoughts with the voice of Alicia Keys.

I don't consider Alicia a particularly deep lyricist, but I do like her a lot one of her songs caught my attention around the same time I was pondering the definition of submission. I think some of what Paul talks about is deeply rooted in our hearts so that it bubbles through even in completely secular contexts. Both Paul's command to wives to submit and his command to husbands to love sacrificially are about using our wills to put the other person first. So let's indulge in a great 90s pop version of this idea. Enjoy!

~Hannah

The Milk Truck Breastfeeding Debate

A woman I know has started this project, and it’s really interesting to me. Some of my female friends who have seen the video love it. Some think it’s really inappropriate. Most of the men who’ve seen it just think it’s weird. Take a look:


My thoughts are a little bit conflicted. I think women should be able to feed their babies when they need to, and I have known women who were told not to feed their babies in public. I think mothers deserve some support when it comes to the huge job of taking care of their children. I think people should be okay with the natural, needed act of breastfeeding a baby. But I also acknowledge that women can be discreet about breastfeeding, and try to cause the least amount of disturbance to people when in public.

I support Jill, assuming that the women she is being an activist for are not obnoxious breast feeders. Breastfeeding is a natural part of life, and we should support the women who do it. And activism is always a little bit ridiculous in its extremeness. :)

What are your thoughts?

~Ruthie

Fenghuang as Needed Mythology

Recently, I’ve developed an interest in mythology as the imaginative representations of cultural beliefs and ideals. Beautiful pictures and stories from across the globe fascinate me, but currently, none more than the myth of the Fenghuang, or Chinese “phoenix”. Due to millennia of Fenghuang mythology, the creature’s symbolism is sometimes conflicted. But here is what I’ve gathered and why I think it matters for contemporary American women…

The Fenghuang is part of ancient Chinese cosmology and was responsible along with three other mythological creatures for the creation of the world. After these creatures had created our world, they divided it into four sectors of north, south, east, and west, each taking dominion over one. The Fenghuang’s domain was the south and as a result, the summer. This mythological creature’s body symbolizes the six celestial bodies with its head as the sky, eyes as the sun, back as the moon, wings as the wind, feet as the earth, and finally, tail as the planets.



The actual physical appearance of the Fenghuang is a composite of many different animals. The creature is made up of the beak of a cock, the face of a swallow, the forehead of a fowl, the neck of a snake, the breast of a goose, the back of tortoise, the hindquarters of a stag, and the tail of a fish. This sounds like quite the odd looking creature to me, but interestingly enough, artistic depictions of the Fenghuang never seem to show the bird’s described physical make-up. Instead it is depicted as a beautiful and graceful composite of many bird varieties, most often with a peacock tail with feathers made of the five fundamental colors black, red, green, white, and yellow (corresponding to the five elements of water, fire, wood, metal, and earth).

In China’s most ancient mythology, the Fenghuang was actually two birds united together. Feng represented the male entity and huang the female. United together to create the Fenghuang, they were a metaphor of the yin and yang, as well as the sacred union of male and female. Used to symbolize peace and harmony, the Fenghuang was said to appear only at the beginning of a new era or at the ascension to the thrown of a benevolent ruler. More recently in China’s long history, though, the Feng and Huang have been merged into one female creature, the Fenghuang, so that the ancient mythological figured could be paired with the male dragon as a symbol for the empress and emperor. In more recent centuries, the dragon and phoenix are often seen paired together as a symbol for marriage and unity.

What draws me to the Fenghuang is a particular ancient description of its symbolism. In the Shan Hai Jing (山海经), a classic of Chinese mythology, each part of the Fenghuang’s body symbolizes a word. The head represents virtue (德), the wings represent duty (義), the back represents propriety (禮), the abdomen represents belief (信), and the chest represents mercy (仁). What a beautiful symbol for femininity!

When I think about contemporary American culture, it’s hard for me to come up with any myths as deep symbols for femininity. We have larger than life caricatures of women as sex toys, power-hungry achievers, or spineless and wimpy prey, but there is a fundamental difference between myth and caricature. Caricature is based on what people perceive to exist. Myth presents what people want to be. The beauty of mythology is that it takes us beyond reality and gives us a chance to create an ideal. What does it say about us women if we do not have any collective symbols beyond our reality to remind us of what we hope to become?

If I could pick a mythological symbol to inspire modern women, I would pick the Fenghuang. The creature flies with beauty and strength, ushering in times of peace and harmony. It is virtuous as it carries out its duty. Representing a life filled with belief (I would add, belief in something bigger than itself), the Fenghuang is marked by mercy and compassion. Lastly, the Fenghuang symbolizes propriety, a lost word in contemporary times. But the word has richer meaning than its surfaces usage. In addition to referring to manners of behavior, propriety means “appropriateness to the purpose or circumstances” and “rightness or justness.” Who could argue that justness and an understanding of one’s circumstances are a beautiful component of feminine ideals?

I wish our society would dream again and intrigue us with its ideals.

~Hannah

Beauty: CS Lewis vs Miss USA

This past Father’s Day my family went to my grandparents’ house. After watching the US Open and America’s Got Talent, the Miss USA Pageant came on and we watched as each state’s representative came out and was judged and eliminated. I sort of felt like I was watching a helicopter crash…it was terrifying, yet I couldn’t look away. But what really interested me was my cousins’ responses. Alethea and Charis are ten and seven, and they were both fascinated by the show. As they were leaving (their dad good-naturedly joking about how he didn’t think they needed to watch any more of the show) Charis kept asking what channel it was on, presumably so she could continue watching when she got home (chances of that = not good…)

Her response to the show reminded me of a quote from That Hideous Strength by CS Lewis, in which he discussed female beauty. He writes:

Did men and women both feel interested in the female body and even, though it sounded ridiculous, in almost the same way? A sentence rose to her memory. "The beauty of the female is the root of joy to the female as well as to the male, and it is no accident that the goddess of Love is older and stronger than the god." (60)

Charis was obviously thrilled by the beautiful women parading across the screen, and I realized that Lewis was right—beauty is just as, if not more, alluring to women as it is to men. A woman takes just as much joy in the female body as the man does, and it is no perversion that leads women to admire the beauty of other women.

But there is definitely perversion of some kind involved in the hunger for beauty that fuels things such as the Miss USA Pageant. Otherwise why would there be such a culture of youth worship, eating disorders, consumerism and all the other stuff that eats away at women? Like Hannah said in her last post, we live in community, and what other people think matters to us. And since being thought beautiful by both men and women is important to girls, there is ample opportunity for perversions of both the standard of beauty and the means to achieving that standard.

But does that mean that competitions like Miss USA are wrong? Should beauty be something that women are allowed to be good or bad at? Beauty—as our culture perceives it—has always been something you have or you don’t, but that is changing. If you aren’t educated, you can become educated. If you aren’t funny, or graceful, or musical, or talented you can work toward becoming more so. And now, if you aren’t beautiful, you can get plastic surgery or implants or botox. Is there a difference?

I guess my real question is whether it’s okay to view beauty as something to be cultivated and judged, like anything else. In a culture of extremes, it’s probably safer to say it’s not okay. We’ve gone beyond viewing beauty as something you have or you don’t, and begun to go to whatever extremes possible to attain it. So does this mean we have to throw out the entire concept of beauty as pleasing? We can’t deny that every one of us has a built-in preference that tends toward beauty.

Maybe the problem is that our perception of beauty has grown too narrow. We have turned into the shade in another work of CS Lewis, The Great Divorce, who runs and hides from the angels sent to escort her to heaven. Like her, our perception of beauty is too narrow to believe that we are capable of giving and taking joy in the way we were created, and we are left either flaunting our bodies, or hiding and saying, like her:

"Can't you understand anything? Do you really suppose I'm going out there among all those people, like this? …How can I go out like this among a lot of people with real solid bodies? …Have everyone staring through me." (59-60)

Maybe there’s nothing wrong with Charis admiring the women onscreen—there is certainly nothing unnatural about it. But there is so much more to be said and thought about when it comes to beauty and the way we treat it, that I feel like I’ve only just scratched the surface. There is so much pain involved in the concept of beauty and how to use and appreciate it that instead of the joy that should come naturally when we’re confronted with beauty, envy, pride and bitterness very often obscure it. And that is definitely not how it should be.

~Ruthie

Female Chauvinist Pigs: A Review

In her 2005 book, Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture, Ariel Levy addresses what anyone with two eyes has noticed – American culture celebrates a raunchy version of female sexuality with gusto and flair. This isn’t new information to anyone. But what Levy does highlight in a new way is the more than willing participation (and even leadership) of American women in creating and developing an environment where prostitutes, strippers, and three-somes are considered the ideals of thrillingly liberated womanhood.

But again, this is nothing new to anyone who turns on the television or picks up a magazine once in a while. Phenomena such as Girls Gone Wild, Paris Hilton, reality tv, and pole dancing have become so integrated with pop culture that one no longer needs to read an entire book (nonetheless a review!) about the trend to notice it. So what is this review about?

What kept me reading Levy’s book and caused me to furiously underline almost every paragraph was her own response as an avowed feminist to the problem. The reader senses Levy’s natural outrage at what she investigates, particularly in her chapter concerning the effects raunch culture (female exhibitionism) has on teenage sexuality, but she cannot bring herself to give moral weight or significance to the cultural trend. Levy’s worldview does not provide her with a strong enough reason to reject what bothers her so intensely. She feels something is wrong, but has only shallow arguments with which to try and persuade a self-indulgent culture that porn stars really are not the ideal images of female liberation.

Levy’s one and only argument against raunch culture is interestingly post-modern. The stereotypical post-modern argument for female liberation starts with the individual creating her own truth and happiness. Because Levy agrees, she carefully repeats throughout her book that raunch culture does not bother her in and of itself. According to Levy, what bothers her, and deeply so, is the way in which she feels all women are pressured into such trends, often by other women. In other words, Levy wants to say some women do naturally desire to be porn stars and flaunt certain kinds of sexuality, but she personally does not want to, so it should not be a cultural standard for women. Levy views sex as a mysterious thing that every person should experiment with in order to discover her personal preferences. Therefore, society should have no culturally prescribed expressions of it. The only criticism Levy makes of raunch culture is that all women are expected to participate in it as a collective standard for female sexual liberation.

Female Chauvinist Pigs displays Levy’s passion concerning female sexual trends, but it is exactly that passion which weakens Levy’s actual argument against raunch culture. Almost every page of her book belies an outrage and disgust at something Levy cannot seem to fully accept even despite her stated qualifications. The book’s central argument at times seems completely lost as Levy first works to document trends and occurrences she finds outrageous and then quickly inserts her relativist objections. She repeatedly shows the unhappiness, dishonesty, and lack of sexual pleasure the women she interviews experience, and yet she is constantly stating that she is sure some woman somewhere actually enjoys such sexual exhibitionism. Additionally, she dedicates a significant portion of her text to arguing that most people, male and female, do not like the current trend. In a book where the philosophical stance is that there should be no overarching standards or sexual ideals, her arguments against the trend because “most” people do not like it does not fit. Levy waffles between her passionate dislike of raunch culture and a highly intellectual and relativistic criticism of it.

But even Levy’s philosophical objections to the current trend do not deal with the real problem: the communal nature of humanity. Her argument is based solely on the individual. What the individual wants and likes, she should get. There is no consideration made for the fact that very few women, let alone people, make decisions based solely on what they want or like without any influence from peers. There is no realm of life where this is more true for a woman than in the realm of sex.

Female sexuality is grounded on being delighted in and admired by the partner. When the number of sexual partners is limitless, though, so are the number sexual competitors. Life does not give women a relational vacuum in which to decide what they want and like in order to then just go out and get it. The things we learn about ourselves and the things that define us exist against the backdrop of every person, male and female, we are connected to and engage with throughout our lives. And as our world gets smaller and smaller, the number of people we interact with increases. For a woman desiring to be sexually admired and valued in a world where there are no expectations for the responsibility of doing so belonging to one person, the push towards exhibitionism is only natural. The larger the pool for competition, the more a woman must do and display to single herself out as desirable.

Oddly enough, Levy adds an afterword in which she argues that the thing to combat the tide of raunch culture is a new generation of idealists. I assume she means to promote the ideal of each woman’s prerogative to define sex for herself. As I just argued, though, it does not work. Levy is right that what we need is a new idealism. But instead, I propose the old fashioned ideal of one woman and one man, for life. Women do want to be admired and delighted in sexually, but if we make sex a limitlessly individualistic endeavor, we also make it a limitlessly competitive endeavor. People do vicious things when in boundary-less competition with one another; on the other hand, rules provide safety and promote consideration within a community. I even venture to say that rules are what create community. The difference between a society of individuals competing endlessly for attention and a community living in harmonious respect for each other is often the rules and agreements by which the community lives. Concerning female expression of sexuality, the only thing that will halt the current trend will be a rise of communities committed to following shared rules for the benefit each individual.

~Hannah

The Bling Without the Sting

A few weekends ago, my brother married his longtime sweetheart and our close family friend. These two are some of the most beautiful people I know, inside and out, and they put a lot of careful thought into the details of their wedding. Aesthetically, they have an eye for beauty, and spiritually, they have a heart for justice.

This was particularly evident in their choice of engagement ring. I interviewed my new sister-in-law recently and thought you would be interested in hearing her answers concerning the issues surrounding diamonds. And make sure you check out the Marlene Harris website...

1) Dish about the ring! What do you like about it?

"Exquisite" is the word I think of when I think of my engagement ring. It is a new ring designed in an antique style. The thing I like the most about this ring is that I have never seen another quite like it and there is a lot of beautiful detail work. I also like the effect of having many small diamonds surrounding the larger diamond; making it extra sparkly.

2) Did you choose it or did your fiance choose it?

My husband (then fiancé) chose the ring with the help of two very tasteful sisters who both knew me well.

3) Where was the ring bought? And why?

The ring was purchased from Marlene Harris who is a small business jeweler in Blawnox, PA (right outside of Pittsburgh). I believe Daniel chose to go there because a number of our friends had bought their engagement and wedding bands from Marlene and he had heard good things about her collection.

http://www.marleneharriscol.com

4) Are you happy with the ring?

I am happy with the ring. I do not know if I would have picked it because I had something much more simple in mind but I am very happy with it.

5) Why did you want a conflict free diamond?

A conflict free diamond was very important to me because, particularly in Africa, diamond sales have been known to support slavery, violence, and in general the exploitation of communities and peoples. I knew that this ring is likely the most expensive item that I will own and I did not want the money to support the suffering of individuals. I also did not want to feel guilty about something that so beautifully symbolizes the covenant that Daniel and I were to make to one another and to God.

6) How important was it to you to have a conflict free diamond?

I felt very strongly that I wanted a conflict free diamond. Daniel and I had a conversation about it so I was confidant that he would keep my concerns in mind. I definitely would have been disappointed if he had not gotten a conflict free diamond.

7) When did you first think about wanting a conflict free diamond? What caused you to consider it?

My family has a good friend from Sierra Leone and I remember him talking about how his country had very valuable resources, particularly in diamonds, and yet his people were living in severe poverty and devastation because of exploitation and oppressions that had taken place in that land. I believe that was the first time I was made aware of the issues surrounding the diamond industry.

8) Can you explain the issue of conflict free diamonds to us?

A conflict diamond is a diamond that has been illegally smuggled and sold on the open market. The proceeds of these sales have been known to financially support violence, slavery and manslaughter. In Sierra Leone the diamond industry supported a brutal civil war that devastated the country and destroyed the lives of many. The rebel forces that had control of many of the diamond mines would smuggle the gems to dealers who would then place them on the open market. The money from these sales went to support the rebels in their merciless campaigns. These forces were known to use amputation as a weapon against villagers and would also enslave their captives forcing them to dig, at gunpoint, in search for gems. Although the civil war is now over, the effects and devastation remain. In a 2007 National Geographic documentary called Diamonds of War: Africa's Blood Diamonds, it was estimated that 60% of Sierra Leone’s diamonds are sold illegally and placed onto the open market. In addition to supporting potentially dangerous organizations and groups, the profits from these diamonds are not shared with the people of Sierra Leone because there is no way to tax the profit sales or registration of the stone. This is just one example of the devastation that conflict diamonds can have on a country and its people. Other African countries have also experienced the effects of this illegal market. Here is a link to a page that has more information on this topic.

http://www.un.org/peace/africa/Diamond.html

9) What advice do you have for couples thinking about buying a diamond?

Do your research. This may be one of the biggest purchases that you make, so just think about it and make sure you are on the same page.

10) What thoughts do you have for someone who does not have a conflict free diamond and starts to feel concerned about the issue? How should they feel about their ring?

Well if you really want to find out what the origin of your diamond is then talk to your jeweler. No matter its origin, the diamond that your husband/fiancé gave you has meaning because it symbolizes his commitment to you. That alone makes it special and the chances that your diamond was illegally sold onto the market is still relatively low.


~Hannah

Pandora's Curiosity, Eve's Willfulness, and Spiritual Misunderstanding

For two and a half years now, I've been discussing Christianity with Chinese friends. In these discussions, my understanding of my own worldview has grown in unexpected ways due to difficult or complicated questions posed to me by my friends. Usually a topic is brought up, they express their reservations about it, and I am forced to admit I don't have a ready answer.

One such confusing topic is Eve's involvement in the fall of mankind. What surprises me when discussing this topic with my Chinese friends is that they think Eve was condemned for curiosity. Growing up in a Christian home, I was always told Eve was condemned for rebellion against God, not human curiosity. Additionally, my Chinese friends quickly jump to the conclusion that Eve receives the entire blame for evil entering the world, another contradiction to what I was taught. It bothers them to see the female sex blamed for the world’s evil and problems. After all, isn’t curiosity a natural part of human existence?

A few weeks ago, I read something that shed light on this topic for me and has caused me to contemplate the Western worldview’s conflicting influences. I climbed into bed and took out Bulfinch's The Age of Fable for light reading before sleep. Remembering a painting depicting the story of Pandora I once saw and loved, I decided to educate myself and actually read the myth. In one short paragraph, my mind was filled with thoughts that kept me awake for some time. The Greek myth of Pandora relates how evil was brought into the world by the accident of a woman. In some ways, it resembles the Biblical account of Eve's participation in bringing evil into the world, and yet there are crucial differences. Within the West’s literary and religious heritage, we find competing descriptions of womanhood.

Bulfinch's recount of the myth reads as such:

"Woman was not yet made. The story (absurd enough!) is that Jupiter made her, and sent her to Prometheus and his brother, to punish them for their presumption in stealing fire from heaven; and man, for accepting his gift. The first woman was named Pandora. She was made in heaven, every god contributing something to perfect her. Venus gave her beauty, Mercury persuasion, Apollo music, etc. Thus equipped, she was conveyed to earth, and presented to Epimetheus, who gladly accepted her, though cautioned by his brother to beware of Jupiter and his gifts. Epimetheus had in his house a jar, in which were kept certain noxious articles for which, in fitting man for his new abode, he had had no occasion. Pandora was seized with an eager curiosity to know what this jar contained; and one day she slipped off the cover and looked in. Forthwith there escaped a multitude of plagues for hapless man, -such as gout, rheumatism, and colic for his body, and envy, spite and revenge for his mind, -and scattered themselves far and wide. Pandora hastened to replace the lid! but, alas! the whole contents of the jar had escaped, one thing only excepted, which lay at the bottom, and that was hope. So we see at this day, whatever evils are abroad, hope never entirely leaves us; and while we have that, no amount of other ills can make us completely wretched."

In Pandora's tale, the creation of woman is a punishment, which is alone cause for concern, but even more interesting is the relationship between woman and evil. Evil is a problem that comes from outside of Pandora, rather than something that lies within, thus making the release of evil into our world an excusable mistake. The justifiable act of curiosity gets the better of woman by accident. Though woman herself is a punishment for an act of treachery, the action that brings evil upon humanity is not condemnable. Evil's entrance to the world is grieved and regretted, but not condemned because the culprit made a mistake rather than a choice. Pandora is a victim who is not held accountable, thus stripping her of a protagonist’s role. In short, woman is a curse without moral accountability for her decisions.

In the Biblical narrative, we see almost the exact opposite. Genesis 2-3 reads:

"And the LORD God said, 'It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him.' Out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them. And whatever Adam called each living creature, that was its name. So Adam gave names to all cattle, to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper comparable to him. And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place. Then the rib which the LORD God had taken from man He made into a woman, and He brought her to the man.

And Adam said:
'This is now bone of my bones
And flesh of my flesh;
She shall be called Woman,
Because she was taken out of Man.'

Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.

Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said to the woman, 'Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden?'' And the woman said to the serpent, 'We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.’' Then the serpent said to the woman, 'You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.' So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings. And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden."

Here, Eve is a protagonist, someone capable of making important decisions. In the beginning, Eve is in her being and essence a blessing to mankind. Her purpose and existence is to fill a void, the answer to a felt need recognized by God. With her arrival, human relationship begins and she is recognized for her physical, mental, and moral comparability to Adam. Most importantly, she is a responsible being who will be held accountable for her actions. In Genesis, curiosity in not the cause for evil's entrance to the world. Evil enters by willful action, a choice to disregard the truth and forget the promises of God. There is no victimization by others, rather a sad and despicable rebellion.

This distinction is incredibly important to the way we view ourselves as women. One of the most common misunderstandings of Biblical Christianity that I've come across in my relationships with Chinese women is that Eve ate the fruit and fell from grace because she was curious. And how could God punish someone for being curious? For my friends, it’s like asking, how could God punish woman for being human?

We women need to reexamine what our inherited Western worldview tells us about Eve, learning to distinguish between the dignity given to woman in the Biblical account and the assumed Pandoraish version of the story we’ve inherited and is passed on to those outside the West. If we think of Eve as a Pandorian mistake-maker, then God’s condemnation of mankind truly does smack of injustice. But if I look at the Biblical account without the centuries long influence of Greek mythology, I find a much more dignifying, though terrifying, explanation for the state of woman’s sorrow and of the world.

The picture of womanhood given us by Pandora is the globally common and pagan one, and it is this version that has helped create the marginalization of women. A summation of this view goes, "Women don't know what they are doing, they can't be trusted, so to keep them from making harmful mistakes, keep them out of the loop." To say our involvement in the destruction of mankind was a mistake is the first step to giving up our dignity, our rationality, and our voice.

Interestingly, this is the first thing the Biblical account describes Eve doing after her eyes are opened to evil. Eve’s first statements after eating the fruit pass the blame of her actions on to someone else. She removes herself from the protagonist’s position and assumes the role of victim. Man was not the first to victimize woman, keeping her from being an active participant in the world’s decisions. Woman was the first to do so. Our mother Eve victimized herself and the rest of us when she told the first myth that it was someone else’s vault she ate the fruit. Since then, every victimizing myth, every story or fable that has made women helpless and stupid is only a retelling of what Eve herself declared to God when asked who was responsible. Pandora was Eve’s creation.

So how do we respond? By no means am I writing that women should be proud of Eve's actions. But I do believe that if women want to claim "comparableness" to Adam, our first step should be to stop passing the blame were it isn’t justified. Our second step should be to stop blaming the Bible for the victimization of women, for in its texts, even in woman’s worst moment, she is given more dignity than the world’s myths provide. And lastly, through my conversations with Chinese friends, I’ve learned that the third step is to grieve the reality in which we live and to reach out for the overwhelming grace given woman by her Creator.



~Hannah