Power

You know what’s really cool about this whole political contest? The Labor caucus may be the ones voting this morning, but it’s God who’s in control of the outcome. 

It’s a truth that’s brought me bundles of peace over the last few days and will continue to sustain me even if Tony Abbott (please, please no) beats Julia Gillard in the next election.

P.S. Albanese's on Rudd's side. It's probably unrelated, but I'm secretly convinced it was my email that made the difference.

Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

Okay, so my opinion about this series has vacillated a bit. I may have gotten a little caught up in the suspense and excitement of the second book (or was possibly temporarily hijacked by The Capitol) but now that the third one’s done and I’m starting to breathe normally again, I think I was right the first time round. A warning: I’m going to be as vague as I can be, but I really, really don’t want to spoil anything about the books for you, so if you haven’t already read this series but may want to someday in future then perhaps you should stop reading here and come back to this post after you’re done (like, tomorrow. They really don't take long to read). 

Ignoring my conscience, I really did enjoy this series. The suspense is handled superbly and the writing is clever and surprisingly fun and the characters are layered and interesting and mostly (the goodies, at least) likeable. Plus, there’s nothing like finishing a three-part series of novels in a week to make you feel like you’re being incredibly productive with your free time. I’ve heard that some people don’t like Mockingjay, the third and final book in The Hunger Games series; I did. I thought that by the end every knot had been tied and every ’t’ dotted, or whatever it is they say.

However, one can only suspend one’s morals for so long before one starts to get a royal headache, and mine woke up almost as soon as I jumped into bed after finishing this book (I stayed up; it’s almost impossible to put this book down after the halfway mark*). Katniss does a lot more thinking about killing and consequences in both the second and third books, and struggles with what (she feels) she’s been made to do, as well as the impact of her actions on the safety of others. But alongside these ponderings, throughout this whole book, she’s focussed on killing the person who orchestrated it all, while somehow not seeing how illogical it is to want to murder someone because they murdered someone else. It’s like smacking a child in an attempt to teach them not to hit: It just doesn’t make sense. 

What makes your murder okay, but theirs wrong? And why are your loved ones more important than the loved ones of those you kill on the way to fulfilling your goal? Huh, Katniss? A person may love their family and seem all concerned about the right things, but if they’re willing to sacrifice other lives/relationships for the (perceived) sake of a sibling, they’re actually not concerned about the right things at all, nor are they a particularly nice or trustworthy person. I’m still not sure how I feel about Katniss; she may be a little too human for my liking: Unforgiving, self-centred, unapologetic. Part of me kinda wants my heroines (and heros) to be better than I am, someone I can aspire to be.

The books have interesting things to say about war and power and humanity and the nothing-new-under-the-sun-ness of Ecclesiastes 1: “No one remembers the former generations, and even those yet to come will not be remembered by those who follow them” (1:11). Considering everything, I’d probably recommend this series to others, with a warning about the violence, of course, as well as a long but riveting lecture on literature for young people these days.

* Sonia, I can’t believe you were able to go to sleep and work a whole day with only two chapters left!! I admire you. You’re a much stronger woman than I.

#ALPocalypse

I wrote my first letter to Anthony Albanese this morning about my thoughts on the Gillard/Rudd showdown. I was inspired by this post to take advantage of the fact that I'm able to.

It's fairly clear that Rudd doesn't have the numbers to win and therefore may not even challenge Gillard on Monday, but I'm still feeling ridiculously nervous. In 2010 I sat on the couch for hours watching the whole drama unfold; it's much harder to stay on top of it all this year, with a toddler around. My son was unimpressed with Gillard's speech at her press conference yesterday, loudly demanding Postman Pat instead. Twitter's getting me through, though. For those who missed it, here's an overview of the last few days in Australian politics:

I really don't mind who comes out as leader of the ALP after Monday*, so long as Tony Abbott never, never, never takes over as Prime Minister. That guy gives me the willies.

* This is not true. Love you, Kevin.

What Uralla taught me about myself

Us in front of Uralla's famous Thunderbolt's Rock

This is my 100th post. :o)

There is a small town in country New South Wales called Uralla. Besides maybe being the lesbian capital of Australia,* it also happens to be somewhere I spent a chunk of time growing up (physically, if not emotionally). It’s the place that helped me learn a valuable life lesson; a lesson I probably wouldn’t have needed to learn had I not spent a chunk of time growing up in a small town like Uralla.

I went to primary school there for around 3 full years, during which time I impressed everyone with my bucket-loads of amazing abilities. I won the cross-country and accumulated trophies from swimming races at the annual carnivals. In athletics, I made it to state level with 3 other girls to compete in the 100-metre relay. I sang in the choir and played a lead role in the big play and won prizes at eisteddfods. My year 6 teacher once walked me from one classroom to the next, making me read each class a story that I’d written because he thought it was wonderful. One of the boys in my class started calling me Shakespeare. Basically, I was awesome. At, like, everything.

It was surely a blessing that I went to high school in nearby Armidale or else who knows what would have happened to my self-esteem; I’d probably have ended up auditioning for Australian Idol and making a fool of myself. In high school I soon realised that I wasn’t really that good at stuff, I just wasn’t really bad at stuff and hadn’t been competing with that many people. I was actually disappointingly mediocre at, like, everything. Well, nearly everything. I have surprisingly speedy reflexes, which allow me to catch whatever’s whizzing toward my head at short notice or grab hold of my baby after I’ve accidentally let him slip off the freezer where I was dressing him, thus rescuing him from splattering on the tiled floor below (LET’S NEVER SPEAK OF THIS AGAIN). Basically I’m mediocre at everything that would be in any way helpful in leading me to discover my life’s vocation.

The problem with being mediocre at nearly everything is that I’m left with a sense of having nothing to do or to aim for or to be. I majored in the most impractical subject it’s possible to take at university (Linguistics) and have now forgotten almost everything I learned about it anyway, so I’m left with absolutely no brilliant talents (aside from my speedy speedy reflexes) and absolutely no idea of what life may look like for me in the years ahead. If I knew how to run, Sweet Virginia**, I would run. If I knew how to play, I’d play. If I knew how to teach, I’d teach, and if I knew how to not gag when confronted with blood or vomit, I’d nurse (or at least approach this whole mothering thing with far less anxiety).

But I don’t do any of these things particularly well, nor do I do them particularly badly. And I don’t even know that I want to do these things well. Frederick Buechner said, “The place God calls you to is where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet.” I feel like I’ve been wandering for a long time now, waiting to spot that intersection, hoping it appears before my little boy skips off to school, leaving me alone with my fears and boredom and lack of helpful abilities.

I wait for some gift that’s been lying dormant within me to spring to life and declare, “I am what you’re good at, what you should pursue!”, so that I can enrol in a course and finally be able and therefore worthy and useful. So that I have direction rather than passively being pulled wherever my husband leads and wondering, every so often, if I’m still fully me or if what’s left is just a wisp of me, floating whichever way his breeze blows.

I wait for an opportunity, a moment when God will finally whisper, “This is what I’ve prepared you for! This is where you’ll find joy and purpose in your short time on this earth!“

At the moment, the wait is hard and my mediocrity feels like a heavy burden to have to carry.

Cruel, Uralla. So cruel.

My husband standing on the rock, being a tiger.

*I’ve heard rumours, but Wikipedia doesn’t mention it at all so they mustn’t be true.

**This is a shout out to an awesome Gomez song that you should listen to some time.

Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

So the second book is awesome. Katniss does do a lot more reflecting this time around. Read this series.

Two words

Kevin. 12.

The Descendants (a post for Sarah)

I try to avoid watching movies when my husband’s around. He doesn’t understand that for me, movie-watching is like a waterslide; if anything interrupts me along the way, I lose momentum and don’t enjoy the ride as much as I could have distraction-free. My husband has a knack for choosing exactly the wrong moment to laugh hysterically over something he’s reading on the computer behind me, or to walk in and ask, “Why is that girl about to jump off the bridge?” or other similar questions that I’m unable to answer because I’m choking back loud sobs. This is why I like the cinema, because he’s usually not there with me.

I really love going to the movies alone. I planned to do just that to watch The Descendants, but my husband kept making comments about seeing it with me so I eventually gave in and planned for us to go together. I find movie dates scary because I’m usually the one who chooses what we’ll see and therefore feel solely responsible for how much my husband enjoys the evening out. We really don’t date well.

This time around, my husband was completely on board with the idea of seeing the film until my mum mentioned (less than an hour before we left) that we may want to take tissues. It turns out that when he looked surprised and asked, “It’s not an action film?” at this point, he was not joking (this may explain his confused face as we laughed heartily). He seriously thought there’d be gangsters involved. And this is when the whinging began. Below is a sample of the kinds of conversations we had before the movie started (as I remember them):

(On the way there)

Him: It’s going to be all depressing. Why are we even going when we already know it’s going to make us feel all depressed?

Me: We don’t know it’s going to make us feel anything! We know absolutely nothing about this film.

Him: Your driving is scaring me.

Me: Be quiet and eat your dinner.*

(In the long queue)

Him: You were supposed to bring the ticket in for them to validate it.

Me: You could run back to the car and get it?

Him. But it’s tooooooooo faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar.

(Having purchased our tickets)

Him: THIRTY SEVEN DOLLARS FOR TWO TICKETS?! That’s RIDICULOUS!!!

Me: [Breathing deeply]

(Sitting through the trailers)

Him: This movie looks so stupid it’s making me laugh.

Me: If the next thing you say isn’t something positive, I’m going to stab you in the face with a fork.

He was quiet after that, except for one point during the movie when he leaned over to whisper that he was enjoying it, bless him.

So, The Descendants. 

I loved this movie. It was funny and painful and heartwarming and heartbreaking all in one, as life tends to be. The characters were real (the acting was so good!) and the story was simple but meaty. I enjoyed seeing George Clooney in a non-heartthrob role. He’s been in so many movies I’ll continue to re-watch because they’re just gold: One Fine Day, Ocean’s Eleven, Intolerable Cruelty, Fantastic Mr Fox, Up in the Air, and this one. It seems he’s getting better with age. And it wasn’t necessarily a tearjerker; I cried because I cry in all good movies (the end of Cool Runnings, anyone?), but it wasn’t emotionally manipulative. Just a glimpse into someone else’s crisis for a bit.

After the review for this film on the At the Movies site, someone called Matt has commented that “film is supposed to be life with the boring bits removed.” If you agree with Matt, don’t go see this film. If, like me, you want the films you see to reflect what life’s really like, boring bits and all*, this one’s for you.

I’m giving it 23 potatoes.

* Earlier in the afternoon, my husband had asked me if I could drive to the movies so that he could have a beer, and I was like, “That's so bogan, getting your missus to drive so that you can drink beer in the passenger seat!“, and he was like, “Nooooooooo, I meant have a beer with dinner before we leave!“ But then we were running late so we packed our meal in a Tupperware container and I drove while he drank beer in the passenger seat. We're so ready for you, Penrith.

** Although, really, I didn’t think there were boring bits in this one, it’s pretty perfect. There are definitely no gangsters, though.

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

I finished reading The Hunger Games this morning. I’m not sure how I feel about it, though I was certainly hooked. The book was structured well and the writing was good enough not to distract me from the suspense-filled plot. But it’s the suspense-filled plot that’s disturbing and violent, and I’m not sure that I should want to see what happens in books two and three of the series.

My biggest problem isn’t that the story’s disturbing and violent, it’s that the books are written for young adult readers; the main character in The Hunger Games, Katniss Everdeen, is 16 in the first book. I know only old people are supposed to reflect on the past as if life was better back then (“When I was younger, all children obeyed their parents”, etc.), but when I was younger, my favourite books followed the adventures of a feisty redhead named Anne, and the drama in these stories revolved around the main character accidentally dying her hair green or breaking her writing slate over the head of a boy who teases her in class (aaaah, Gilbert! Good times!). These days it seems the drama in popular fiction for young people revolves around finding and killing things: The evil dark wizard, bloodthirsty vampires, other children in a gruesome competition.

There’s always justification for the actions of the main character, as if the murder of what is bad has to happen for good to prevail, but innocent people get killed along the way and there’s not too much reflection on the part of the protagonists about the ethics of what’s going on. There’s no pause in which they grapple with what it means to take a life, no apparent psychological malaise about what they’ve done or are about to do. I shouldn’t speak for Harry Potter, having read only two of the books, and Twilight seems slightly different because there’ll always be a fantasy element to stories about vampires and werewolves, no matter how well-disguised they are and how much they interact with ordinary people. The Hunger Games, on the other hand, is disturbing mostly because it describes humans destroying other humans to win a competition, with only brief and shallow considerations of how wrong it all is.

I get that the Suzanne Collins may be saying some profound things about the nature of reality television and the extent to which people will go for entertainment, or to keep hold of their power; it’s a message that adds an interesting layer of meaning to the book. But none of the characters are opposed enough to what’s going on to teach the reader any valuable lessons about these issues. Katniss appears to possess little integrity, shows no remorse about her behaviour, and is really not a character worthy of teenage idolisation, though she’ll probably be worshipped because she’s portrayed as being so strong and capable (the opposite of Twilight’s Bella). It’s also possible she starts her more serious reflecting in the second book.

I think my main worry is that the books we feed young people seem to send a message that killing is okay, whether it’s to rid the world of evil (until the next book), or to protect oneself (or one’s family, or one’s country, or one’s planet) from harm. I’m not sure whether it’s the pacifist in me or the parent that freaks out more. Maybe it’s the Christian? Maybe it’s the grumpy old lady. Whichever it is, I plan to irritate my kids by forcing them to think through what they’re reading, rather than allowing them to suck it all in without consideration. I don’t care how much they whinge, we’re totally having those discussions about whether murdering something is the way to solve a problem, about Harry’s disobedience and Bella’s neediness and Katniss’ manipulative ways, about what the author might be saying about life, and whether or not they say it well.

I think it’s what Anne would do.

For and against

I’ve been challenged a couple of times in the last few months to consider whether I was letting my mind/heart/blog be shaped by things I was against rather than for (the most recent was this post). Both times I felt a pang, a hard-to-describe twinge which felt a little like guilt but more like the need to chew on the idea for a while. After hours of unrelated (I think!) sleeplessness, I’m fairly confident - only now that I’ve forced myself to shake the words out of my head - that I’ve found the cause. Here’s a drawing to explain:

I hope that clears things up.

As I’ve mentioned before, I‘ve spent many years struggling under the weight of teaching about women that didn’t line up with what I believed to be true about God from my experience of Him and from what I understood of the Bible. It was a long time before I realised that not all evangelical Christians agreed with this view of women, and slightly longer before I dived in to investigate the debate for myself. As those of you who’ve been around for a while know, this blog has been my forum – a much-appreciated forum! – for spewing out my discoveries and responses as I’ve worked to understand God’s purpose for all of us – women and men – revealed in Jesus and the Bible.

My initial diagnosis of the pangs was that they were convictions over writing on aspects of this teaching about women that I disagreed with; some of my posts on this topic may have come across as very ‘against’-y as I’ve taken down and confronted particular issues before casting them aside. But I wrestled and I prayed and I lay awake a couple of nights ago and knew that my pangs weren’t guilt to be repented of. My posts may have seemed ‘against’-y, but the direction in which I’m heading is undoubtedly ‘for’. I’m on the bright side of this journey, “forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, [as] I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus” (as Paul says in Philippians 3:13-14). I’m not bitter, and my intentions are as pure as my this-side-of-heaven heart can get. My posts have been as much my processing as me wanting you to come along for the ride, and I unabashedly admit my desire to spark a debate and to get you thinking afresh about this issue.

I’m still not entirely sure of how best to sum up the pangs I’ve felt when I’ve heard the exhortation to be “defined by what we’re for rather than what we’re against”. Ickiness? Worry tinged with discomfort? And here’s the cause: While I understand the positive purpose of the exhortation, and while I’ve appreciated the prods to examine my attitudes and motivations, I feel uncomfortable about the way this idea could be (and probably is) interpreted and used. I worry that it will silence some who need to process their journey out loud, and that it will quench hard (but respectful) debates that really need to be had. I feel icky about some people having yet another tool they can use to make passionate people feel as though they should be quiet and doubters feel as though they’re alone with their questions.

I don’t mind being defined by what I’m against because the things I’m against necessarily highlight the things I’m for. I hope I’m known as someone who is against reading the Bible as if it were a dusty old rulebook rather than a living guide to point us in the right direction as we live out its story today. I hope I’m known as someone who is against injustice, including the teaching that women are equal-but-actually-not-really-equal to men. And I hope I’m known as someone who’s against the suppression of Spirit-given gifts and the silencing of many who should be speaking, to name just a few (don't even get me started on bad punctuation or The Biggest Loser).

I pray that God will keep me always moving forward even as I examine and cast aside each ’against’ I find weighing me down. And I pray that He will keep me always aware of my pangs and give me wisdom to diagnose them as I continue to work out my faith, struggling up mountains and skipping down the other side, fors, againsts, and all, for many debates and God-filled years to come.

Weaning

My son could very happily spend entire days holding on to one - or both - of my breasts, and he has started trying to get his hand down my top at every opportune moment. Carrying him is now far more difficult as it leaves me only one free hand with which to carry shopping/unlock doors/switch on lights/grab snacks and swat away his searching fingers. If there was ever going to be a signal to let me know that our breastfeeding days are over, this, most certainly, is it.

I found myself arguing with a pregnant friend recently when she mentioned the convenience of breastfeeding - ‘convenient’ is not a word I've ever associated with it - and my negative reaction forced me to consider how I chose to feed my son, and whether I'd repeat that choice for future children, should God bless us with more. Despite having no problems early on with supply or my son’s latching on, I couldn’t help but feel as though I’d been cruelly tricked by the whole “breast-is-best” spiel. I still think it needs disclaimers: 

Breast is best*

*except for night times, when you’re the only one who can get up with the baby.

Breast is best*

* except for weddings, when all of your breastfeeding-friendly tops look drab and match none of your skirts - NOT ONE.

Breast is best*

*only after you work out how to feed discreetly, because, as much of a feminist as you fancy yourself, the thought of your father-in-law seeing you partially naked makes you feel slightly ill.

I realised not long after my son’s birth that the posters all over the walls in the birth centre were just as misleading as the ads I saw on TV: “If you breastfeed, you too can look this happy and at peace and bonded with your baby!” Those posters never showed the mother wincing in pain while feeding her newborn, as her nipples, after so many years of unemployment, adjusted to their sudden full-time load. She didn’t look exhausted. She didn’t appear to feel as though the food she was continually shovelling into her body was being immediately converted into “liquid gold” for her child to suck out, leaving nothing to energise and nourish her. She didn’t look like she wanted to rebel against the perpetual 3-hour curfews, the neediness of the small creature she’d recently given birth to. Instead, those posters portrayed a scene of utter serenity.

Of course, time has helped my feelings about feeding, as it usually does. These days I don’t question God’s decision to keep men boob-free, and I swapped my bras with trapdoors for normal ones months ago (it was liberating, you should have been there). These days our bedtime feeds are just another part of the routine; I neither look forward to nor dread them.

I’ll celebrate a little after our last feed; my boobs will be all mine again, for the first time in 17 months! But right now I’m remembering the many, many times I’ve spent gazing at my gorgeous boy and playing with his teeny feet and praying for him and imagining him with a monobrow and a gruff voice and feeling my heart overflow with love each time he smiles at me as he sucks, and a part of me wishes that he could stay this young a little while longer so that I could postpone having to let go of these close moments.

There will be tears. Oh, will there be tears.

John Piper's "Masculine Ministry"

I love John Piper. He – via podcasts of his sermons – played a huge part in shaping my theology years ago, when I was a baby Christian. Perhaps that’s why the realisation that he may be wrong about some things has been as mind-blowing and painful as it was to discover that my parents are flawed.

There’s been some talk in the United States in recent times about the “feminization” of the church as a negative phenomenon. I’m not sure where the label came from, but probably not from females. Most of us women-folk like to believe that God created and enjoys feminine stuff too. Disappointingly, John Piper has joined those on the ‘Ew, Girl Germs!’ team by calling for “masculine Christianity” at a recent Desiring God conference for pastors (his talk is called “The Frank and ManlyMr. Ryle” — The Value of a Masculine Ministry). 

Summing up, Piper gives eight traits of a masculine ministry; among them is this one: “A masculine ministry welcomes the challenges and costs of strong, courageous leadership without complaint or self-pity with a view to putting in place principles and structures and plans and people to carry a whole church into joyful fruitfulness.” Although he is speaking about J. C. Ryle and not about women, it’s almost impossible not to infer from his statements that a feminine ministry couldn’t or wouldn’t accomplish the same things, and that women are whiney and weak.

I mention this talk because I fear the same topic will begin to seep into the language of Christians here in Australia; like a devoted younger sibling, we seem to follow America wherever they lead. There are also a lot of John Piper fans in this country who unquestioningly believe everything he says. I won’t go all Piper-y and farewell him; I will, however, take on board this necessary reminder (and warning) that the only guy in all of the universe who is worthy of our idolisation is Jesus Christ.