This American Life

I have an addiction to "This American Life" on NPR.

At first, I was just a casual user. On Saturdays, I would be driving, and suddenly find myself listening to the melodic tones of Ira Glass. Soon, though, I started scheduling time to listen. Before I knew it, I was downloading podcasts every day and listening to them everywhere. It didn't matter where I was--in the car, before class, waiting at the doctor's office...I had to listen.

And now I find that I want to write my own segment for "This American Life."

The only thing is, where do I start? Should I start with some of my favorite episodes, like the one about how childhood misunderstandings carry over into adulthood? (Oooh, then I could tell my story about how I thought that fire trucks started fires.) Or about how "No One's Family Will Ever Change"? (Then I could talk about when I first realized that my family was a bit...unusual.)

Please, Ira. Call me.

Post Con update

After Comic Con, I've become aware of all the tv shows that I should be watching. Now, I know what you're saying...who needs to become addicted to more tv shows? Well, after going to panels, I've become aware that there are some amazing shows out there that I've been missing. Like "Weeds," for example, which we watched on the plane there and back. I don't get Showtime, so DVDs have been a fantastic option. So here's a list of other shows that I need to start watching:

1. Pushing Daisies

2. Saving Grace

3. The Closer

4. (Not out until 2009) Dollhouse

5. Mad Men

6. Breaking Bad

7. Chuck

Geek-tastic

We got back from Comic Con last night at about 10 pm, after having spent four days in geek heaven. We saw Kevin Smith, Judd Apatow, Frank Miller, and Zac Snyder, all in one panel, and I had my very own fangirl moment when I met Gail Simone. But that's not when the geek-o-rama started.

Technically, our geek fest started the previous sunday, when we went to see The Dark Knight (along with everyone else in the world). It's difficult to describe the experience of watching The Dark Knight, even when one is talking to someone who has already seen the movie. I've seen every Batman movie since 1989's Batman, and until the Christopher Nolan/Christian Bale Batman Begins, I saw all of them with my father. Seeing as how I was 9 when the first Batman movie came out, I shouldn't have been shocked that people brought their kids to see The Dark Knight. And yet, because I knew that it closely followed Alan Moore's The Killing Joke, I also knew that The Dark Knight was not "suitable for children."* It's not that the movie is particularly violent--300 and other recent graphic novel-into movie projects have had considerably more violence. (Hey, The Dark Knight isn't even as violent as the trailer for The Punisher, but I'll cover that later.) What would make me reluctant to take a child to see The Dark Knight is that it is deeply psychologically disturbing.

And for some children, the psychologically disturbing nature of the film would bring up interesting and difficult questions--about the nature of heroism, about hero worship in itself, and about the nature of madness. Hopefully, the same questions were brought up for adults who saw it. (I almost believe this, just based on the number of people who've seen it multiple times.) 

This is why I read comic books. Because they're not just stories with pictures. They're not just for kids. (In fact, most of the authors that I adore--Frank Miller, Gail Simone, and Alan Moore, among others--are definitely not for children.) They're intense stories with cultural icons and archetypes, accompanied by illustrations that, outside of printed books, could be displayed as art work--if the stigma of being a "comic artist" didn't exist.

And this is why I loved going to Comic Con. It wasn't just the panels that we went to (which included Kevin Smith's "Zac and Miri Make A Porno," a panel that featured Frank Miller, Judd Apatow, Kevin Smith and Zac Snyder, "Battlestar Galactica," and "Doctor Who") or the people we saw (Jeff had his fanboy moment less than 2 feet from Ed Brubaker); it was the overall experience of the Con. People are committed to their love of the medium, and they're unabashed in their joy. More than that, everyone we met was genuinely nice. Despite the fact that there were over 200,000 people at the San Diego Convention Center and it was almost impossible to get anywhere without bumping into people or walking through groups of people, everyone apologized for bumping into one another and everyone was generally quite polite. Overall, Con attendees are awesome. 

And the Con rocked.

---

* Note: Because, after all, children are different from one another, what might be inappropriate for one child might be perfectly accessible for another. I'm generalizing here, of course. 

Knitting in public

I'm going to try to blog more, particularly about my knitting projects. Right now, I'm making a scarf for my sister out of bamboo yarn, a lovely grey blanket for myself, and seafoam green socks. The socks are not going too well--I got the ankle part done, but have come to a full stop at starting the heel. Not good. Everything else is going well, and the blanket will probably be done soon.

My biggest concern right now is not being able to take my knitting on the plane with me. Must look into that.

I think I like blogger better

I'm all but one week done with my first level of ASL. I've learned some new signs, and (more importantly) have had a lot of opportunities to practice. More than that, though, I've figured something out that I didn't know when I was an undergrad--what you do, how you behave in class, whether or not you show up prepared...all of it matters. Not just to you, but to your classmates as well. When you have a bad attitude, not only are you cheating yourself out of class, but your bad attitude affects everyone else.

I really don't think I knew this when I was an undergrad, and I'm certain that my attitude rubbed people the wrong way again and again. Sometimes I wish I could do it over again, knowing what I know now about personal responsibility and what one is supposed to get out of college. Maybe in a few years I'll have a better attitude about my college experience, too.

I haven't posted for over a year...

So I thought I'd drop a little rant.

Two weekends ago, I was at a knitting group and was "awwing" over someone's baby. I mentioned that my godson was a very, very quiet baby, and that was because later they discovered he was deaf. Her reply was, "Oh, that's terrible."

Why is that terrible? He happens to be deaf. (He's not culturally deaf, because both of his parents are hearing, and he's mainstreamed as much as possible, with him also being autistic.) I realize that this is wrapped up in the audism that is omnipresent in our culture, but, really, what's so bad about not hearing? He's well-adjusted, happy, and seems to be pretty much ok.

What is the central tenet of feminism?

"But it's hard not to wonder if those positions aren't just a beard, along with the term, "feminist," for the hard-core, misogynist agenda of the Vatican. The organization's no-exceptions anti-abortion position follows Catholic doctrine to the letter, a doctrine that has always demanded of women that they bear whatever burden men place upon them, and that they not soil the altar with the very bodiliness they represent by virtue of the means by which children are born."

(from the article "The Stealth 'Feminists' that Oppose Abortion")

Is a pro-choice stance necessary to calling oneself a feminist? Feminism is such a diverse collection of philosophies and beliefs that I don't think it's necessary to have any opinion about the right to obtain a legal abortion. There are so many things that (should) go into forming an opinion about abortion. For example:

• The fact that comprehensive sex education isn't being taught in schools, so at the beginning of their reproductive life spans, students are ill-informed about the alternatives to abortion. (Abstinence-only is the only sex ed that is funded and approved by the government, despite numerous studies that prove that unwanted pregnancy and abortion rates have risen since the abstinence-only was mandated.)
• Currently, abortion isn't available to all women because of financial and cultural restrictions. When you factor in lost pay, time off work, and/or daycare plus the cost of the procedure itself, abortion is cost-prohibitive for many of the nation's lowest income women. Additionally, most abortion clinics aren't prepared to deal with people from a non-English-speaking background, who are hearing-impaired or d/Deaf, or have other cultural particularities.
• The number of people seeking a child for adoption is far greater than the number of healthy white babies available for adoption. But the number of non-white babies and children over the age of two remains steadily high.

As a Catholic, I'm disheartened that "the last acceptable prejudice" is alive and well in the feminist community. Part of the anti-Catholic comments made in the article are based on the essential misunderstanding of Catholic doctrine. Say what you will, but the pro-life stance of the Church is at least consistent across all ages and circumstances. Yes, the Church asks women to carry the larger part of the burden when it comes to children, but "the bodiliness" of women isn't maligned. (In fact, if anything, the Church has strayed away from its Jewish roots, which really emphasized a woman's bodily uncleanliness. We don't have to have monthly mikvas any more, and there's no religious/cultural shunning of menstruation any more, either.)

One of the things that touches me most deeply about the Church is its long history of women's involvement. In the Church, I found a tradition of scholarship, of mysticism, of charity, and of ritual that filled in the missing pieces. I found a tradition where women were important to the life of the Church, as educators, as mothers, as mystics, and as saints. With the rich history of women in the Church, I can't believe that misogyny is as omnipresent in the Church as the article's author believes it is.

And for that, I am glad.

Rant: Fat and happy

Ack. Where to begin...

descriptions of the way fat people, although occupying a great deal of physical space, actually become 'invisible' - to the shop assistants who stare through them to the men who pretend you don't exist - made me realise that the best thing I ever did to lose weight and keep it off was to stop beating myself up about it.

This just in: fat people have super powers! An extra ten pounds gives you the ability to become invisible!

Being overweight affected every single day of my life. It isn't easy starting the day with a smile when all you can pull on is a pair of size 22 stretch black trousers and a T-shirt that could shelter a dozen earthquake victims.

In all seriousness, I blame the fashion industry for not providing acceptable clothing for women over a size 14. Everything "plus" sized is shapeless, flower-covered, black, or overly matronly. Or all of the above.

If I had my life to live all over again, I'd re-direct all the time and money that I spent dieting toward learning how to create fashion for fat women. That would have been a productive use of my time.

You feel wretched. When you displace all the water in the bath and no towel will wrap around you, you feel utterly exposed.

Here's an idea: Get a bigger bath towel! People come in all sizes and shapes. I personally love the giant bath sheets, because I can wrap them around myself like a cape. (See above, re: superpowers.)

I used to look in the bathroom mirror and despair. Never mind shaving or waxing my bikini line - I couldn't even see it. Try painting your toenails when you have three folds of stomach in the way.

Sounds like a flexibility problem, rather than a weight problem. I know some other people who can't paint their toenails or shave their bikini line (side note: didja ever think that the hair "down there" is natural and performs a necessary function?), and they'd love to be fat. They have degenerative neuromuscular diseases.

I'd lost the same four stone four times. I'd spent most of my 40s yo-yo dieting. At 15 stone 10lb, I thought I'd never beat it and would become a fat old lady. I was beginning to have aches and pains generally suffered by the overweight: niggling backaches, swollen ankles at night, breathlessness and high blood pressure.
Was I going to develop diabetes? Was I increasing my risk of cancer? Would I keel over from a heart attack or stroke? Was I going to die before my time?

It's the old "See?! FAT=DEATH!" arguement!

Actually, yo-yo dieting decreases your life span more than carrying around an extra 50 pounds does.

That's when I realised how important your body is; it's your life. You can't be a mother, wife or career woman if your body is compromised.

And your body isn't compromised by spending all this time obsessing about your weight? What about all the time you spend hating your body? What kind of example is that setting for your children?

I stopped beating myself up about my weight and resolved to take action.

(Here's where I had a moment of hopefull-ness that she would "take action" by actually [i]stopping[/i] the "beating herself up" bit. As my best friend once said, "These people, they give you a little flicker of hope, so you lean in...and it singes your eyebrows.")

Recently, I also took a health and weight-loss show on tour - to pass on my message to thousands of men and women who are concerned about their weight.

And that message is: Get surgically-induced anorexia! Live with protein and vitamin deficiencies for the rest of your life! Have your hair fall out! Experience "dumping"!

Part of me wants to say, "Well, it's your life. Have weight loss surgery if you feel that's the best choice for you. It may be, as long as you have all the facts." But most of me just looks at my aunt, who had a gastric bypass three years ago and has lost around eighty pounds. But she's gained other things, too: three more surgeries to correct "side effects" of the surgery (a hernia, gallbladder infection & necrosis, excess tissue), repeated severe bouts with depression, debt from medical expenses and missed work, and a host of other common aftereffects of weight loss surgery.

I wake up every morning and say, "I LOVE MY BODY." Some mornings I believe it a little more than other mornings. But I do it, because in this world, loving your body as it is is a truly revolutionary act.

What do I do with all the time in which I don't obsess and hate? Only time will tell what my revolution will bring about--in me, in my family, and in our world.

Rant: What is child abuse?

I'm disgusted by what is going on. Big Fat Blog, which I read regularly, is running a piece on another blog, purportedly written by doctors, that ridicules fat people, compares fat people to animals, and accuses parents of fat children of child abuse.

Where is the child abuse? Granted, feeding your child nothing but donuts and cheetos is neglectful--not because the food is "junk" food, but because it's not nutritionally sound. The thing is, people will gravitate toward their natural body types. This means that if your parents are muscular, large-framed people with the tendency to build muscle easily and gain weight in certain spots, you're never going to be Twiggy. We need to stop looking at weight from a willpower perspective and look at it from a genetic perspective, like height. And much like negative nutrition can negatively effect height, negative nutrition can negatively effect weight. Whether this means that the negative nutrition leads to emaciation or obesity depends--people can be horrifyingly thin with the same poor nutrition habits that fat people are supposedly all guilty of.

I'll tell you where the child abuse is. It's in putting a five year-old on a restricted calorie diet, attaching shame, guilt, feelings of inadequacy and of needing to "earn" food to an inanimate object that otherwise has no association. It's in teaching a child to hate his or her body. And comparing fat people to animals, referring to their "blubber" and expressing your disgust with what are simply vessels for human beings tells us all that in order to be accepted, in order to be loved, we must be thin.

A title

It's all coming together now. I have a title for my dissertation (the one that I haven't started, because I have not, as of yet, been admitted to a PhD program). The title will be:

Consumed: Internet Culture and Bodily Deviance

Thoughts?

Field research

One of the great things about being a social scientist is field research. One of my hobbies has always been people watching. I like going to Border's after church on Sunday, sitting outside with a cup of coffee and a magazine or book, and watching all the people go by. There's something reassuring about the infinite variety of bodies in the world, and I always see a kid or a dog who makes me smile.

Which is why it's no great surprise that I love field research. Because most of my research has been historical, I haven't had much of a chance to really perfect my field experience. There's a huge difference between "people watching" and doing real, heavy anthropological/sociological research.

With my doctoral thesis, I had planned on focusing on surveys and interviews. But today it occurred to me that I could do field research on the social perceptions of thin people. We've all seen the (obnoxious, in my opinion) pseudo-field research talk show bits where someone svelte like Tyra Banks puts on a fat suit and suddenly "understands" what it's like to be a fat person in a society that loathes fat people. But how do you do the reverse? And since that's so extreme, how do you do the reverse in extreme? They make fat suits, but they don't make deathly-ill suits. (There's some commentary right in that.) Surely "underweight" people are treated with the same presumption of deafness that "overweight" people experience.

Thoughts are welcome.

Preliminary survey design

The following is a rough idea of what I will ask in my survey. I'm trying to create a computer program that will create a database from the provided answers, as well as allow users to digitally "sign" their surveys. I welcome all feedback and ideas, either in formatting of the quiz or in questions asked.

Page 1: Adobe acrobat signature consent page
Page 2: Demographics:
• Gender
• Age
• Average household income
• Highest level of education personally achieved
• Highest level of education achieved by parent
• Metro area
• Citizenship
Page 3: Vitals—internet usage (in hours)
• How much time to you spend online?
• How much of this time is spent on eating disorder-related websites?
• What are your favorite eating disorder websites?
• Have you visited pro-ana/mia sites?
Page 4: Vitals: personal internet
• What do you use for inspiration?
• Which of the following are on your website?
o Stats
o Pictures of yourself at various weights
o Thinspiration
o Quotations
o Tickers
o Food diary
Page 5: Personal stats
• High weight
• Low weight
• Current weight
• Goal weight
• Goal reason
• Height
• Which of the following do you do?
Restrict
Vomit
Exercise
Laxatives
Medication (what kind?)
Pick certain foods
Fast
Add your own
Page 6: History
• Diagnosis
• Was this diagnosis rofessional or personal?
• What age did you start developing food issues?
• Why?
Teased
Wanted to look good for an event
Write your own
• Anyone else in your family with an ED?
• Seen a doctor?
• How long?
• Been hospitalized?
• Been in a group?
• In recovery?
• How long?
• Medical problems related to ED: osteoporosis, hair loss, stomach problems, heart palpitations, etc.
Page 7A: Pro-ana/mia
• Number of visits in past week
• In past month?
• What have you learned: restricting, covering, exercising?
• What do you think the purpose is?
• If in therapy, does your therapist know about your web visits?
• Volunteer for phone interview?
Page 7 B: Pro-recovery
• Number of visits in past week
• In past month?
• What do you think the purpose is?
• If in therapy, does your therapist know about your web visits?
• Volunteer for phone interview?

Statement of purpose: I want to finish my damn PhD

Within the past decade, popular media has begun to pay attention to the websites of young men and women with eating disorders. One of the most sensational type of these websites is the pro-anorexia or pro-bulimia (“pro-ana” and “pro-mia,” respectively) site. These sites function to either encourage those with eating disorders to continue to starve themselves, or they function to tout anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa not as diseases, but as lifestyle choices. Traditionally, eating disorders are the territory of psychologists. Psychologists studying eating disorders focus on the environment in which the disorder develops and exists, but this usually refers to the nuclear family or the visual media that they contend spawns this bodily deviance. I plan to use symbolic interaction to study anorexia and bulimia in a sociological context, first examining how one becomes diagnosed with an eating disorder, then to examine the recovery movement within eating disorders.

From there, I plan to examine how communities of those with eating disorders function, particularly in the use of electronic media. While media studies and journalism have examined the impact of general media on the wider community, I am particularly concerned with recovery and pro-ana/mia websites, web logs/online diaries, and message boards and how they function to help or hinder recovery. In order to assess how these web groups function, I will invite people who have eating disorder websites (either pro-anorexia/bulimia or pro-recovery) to complete an online self-assessment of their eating behaviors, onset of behavior, time spent online visiting other pro-anorexia/bulimia or pro-recovery sites, and other questions to assess how they think the online community has impacted their eating disorder. I will offer an option to complete a further interview via telephone, for further assessment.

In my MA thesis, which focused on eugenics decisions in the US from 1880 to 1920, I argued that shifting social mores created an environment where a woman’s deviant behavior of any kind could have her labeled as incompetent and sterilized against her will. I used symbolic interaction, labeling theory, and social psychology to explain that sterilization was a punishment meted out by parents to control their daughter’s bodily deviance. While that project focused on deviance of a sexual nature, my proposed dissertation project will focus on extreme weight control as a form of bodily deviance, and the pro-recovery and pro-eating disorder communities as filters through which this deviance is processed.

I am especially interested in this subject area because of my experience with eating disorders, both personally and professionally. While an undergraduate at Purdue University, I assisted in writing a handbook about eating disorders that was targeted toward the gay and lesbian community.

The University of Maryland appeals to me because of the work of Professor Melissa Milkie on pervasive beauty images and their effect on girls, and Professor John Robinson’s work on the social implications of the internet.

Music for all seasons

(I'm really proud of how I avoided a Rent homage.)

At the prompting of Chris, I felt compelled to create my own seasonal soundtrack. Some are recent acquisitions, and some are old favorites. So here we go:

Spring
Jack Johnson: Brushfire Fairytales
Norah Jones: Come Away With Me
KT Tunstall: Eye to the Telescope
John Coltrane: The Ultimate Blue Train

Summer
Miles Davis: Birth of Cool
Meatloaf: Bat out of Hell
Willie Nelson & Waylon Jennings: Waylon & Willie
Bob Marley & the Wailers: Legend

Winter
Vince Guaraldi Trio: Greatest Hits
Sarah McLachlan: Surfacing
Cabaret: Original Motion Picture Recording
Joni Mitchell: Blue

Fall
Barenaked Ladies: Maybe You Should Drive
Nick Drake: Pink Moon
Melissa Ethridge: The Road Less Traveled
James Taylor: Greatest Hits

Art

I re-read one of my posts about working at a performing arts camp, and remembered some of my conversations about the nature of art. The answers we came up with were, no one really can say what "art" is. (Isn't that just the perfect non-answer that you'd expect from self-described artists?) But, like pornography, we know it when we see it.

And when I see exhibits like this, it makes me want to paint, draw, and write. Check it out--it's pretty powerful stuff.

Rant: Since when is a number an accomplishment?

"Losing weight is what I consider to be my greatest accomplishment." - Oprah Winfrey

I want you to go back and read that again. And then ask yourself what your greatest accomplishment is. Maybe it's finishing school, or doing a bang-up job on a project, or raising wonderful children, or being a good friend, or doing something no one else thought you could do. I hope it's not attaining a set of "ideal" numbers, where you had to count each gram and calorie to attain that number and then had to continue counting to keep that number. I hope it's not not eating something because it wasn't on a list of "approved" foods. I hope it's not the coveted "compliment" of "Oh my God, you look so skinny! Almost anorexic!"

"Anorexic" isn't a compliment. I know that if any pro-anas come across this site, they'll accuse me of being jealous of their willpower and lithe figures. And maybe I am, a little. But I also know the other side of the coin--the eroded tooth enamel and holes in the esophagus, the heart palpitations, the light fur on the body, the social isolation and fear, the hospitalizations, and even the funerals where girls (who should have been women, by all rights) were so thin they were put into caskets made for children.

The fact that Oprah lists this as her greatest accomplishment--a set of numbers--perpetuates this cultural disease, this cult of thinness. She's provided scholarships for countless students, opened schools and orphanages in towns across the world, has prompted people to read, to leave abusive relationships, to conquer their fears; has run a marathon, and has risen to heights previously unavailable to anyone, much less a Black woman from the South.

Look, I'm all for the fact that Oprah is encouraging people to live healthy lives. But you don't have to be thin, or reach a certain number, to be healthy. Active people are healthier than inactive, regardless of weight. Which is more important: healthy and happy, or thin, sickly, and miserable? So give it up.

You are more than a number.

Rant: The weight of it all

"Fat is not a four-letter word." - Camryn Manheim

I read an article yesterday that really did seem like a good idea at the time. Dr. Matthew Anderson, a psychologist, emphasizes the role of body image in weight loss. I'm not going to argue that body acceptance isn't important to losing weight, but I will argue that body acceptance is important, full stop. Why does this acknowledgement of the mind/body connection come from a weight loss doctor on a weight loss website?

Then I read another disturbing article about people's perception of overweight and obese people, which disturbed me even more. The article doesn't talk about how self-loathing can damage a person's self-esteem, turning them toward extremely unhealthy, dangerous weight loss measures to acheive some ridiculous goal. Instead, it focuses on how the negative stereotypes and self-loathing can help patients lose weight.

Even the "fat positive" articles have a strange sort of bias to them. "It's okay to be overweight, but not too much." What's "too much"? For that matter, what's "overweight"? I stopped trusting BMI charts when I learned that the entirety of the women's Olympic rowing team was obese, according to their chart. Of course, there's the little disclaimer of "not for use with athletes or pregnant woman." But who really pays attention to that?

Women's Health magazine, which I normally like, is running a blog of its editor's "weight loss journey." Her most recent entry is about sneaking food and binging. Surprise, surprise: the most common result of dieting is binging.

I'm not saying that eating healthy and exercising is bad, or anti-feminist, or a sign of self-loathing. But is dieting really the way to be healthy? Is being thin a reliable indicator of health? (Hint: It isn’t.) I’ve been thin, and I’ve been fat. Both measures are based on my own opinion and my frame and body type. What I know is that I was most unhappy and most unhealthy when I was at my thinnest. I think this awareness is the beginning. So the next time you get on the scale, think about it:

• Are you exercising because you want to, or because you feel the need to punish yourself?
• Do you eat what you want, when you want, because you want to nourish your body?
• Do you enjoy your food, or are you just enjoying the control you’re exercising over it?
• What would you be doing with your time if you didn’t spend it obsessing over your body?
• How much do your physical and intellectual role models have in common?
• What would happen if you stopped counting calories (or carbs, or fat grams) for a day? A week? A year? What if everyone stopped?

The Real Mystery of the Da Vinci Code

(Warning: Contains spoilers)

I've read the book, and I saw the movie last weekend. I still have some unanswered questions, though. Namely: What's the big deal?

Both in the book and in real life, the Code has rocked some worlds. People are floored by even the idea that Jesus might have had a wife and child. In the book, this leads to the deaths of several people. In real life, this has led to thousands of books written refuting the fictional Code and protests outside several movie theaters showing the movie. And still, what's the big deal?

Sure, the idea that Jesus might've been a husband and father deviates from traditional church teachings. But so what? If Jesus was a husband and father, does that make him any less divine? To me, it makes him more accessible, and it gives the story of the crucifixion even more impact. It's not as if the book and movie say that Jesus was a manwhore, flitting from town to town and impregnating women across the Roman prelature.

Is the idea so rocking just because it's not what we're used to? Church teachings have changed in the 2000 year history of organized Christianity, so the things we're absolutely certain about now weren't so much so one thousand years ago.

More than that, it's startling how much hoopla there is about this because it's a work of fiction. Meaning not real. It's not an historical document, so are people so worked up about it because it makes them think? Because it encorages people to ask questions they might not have before? If so, it really is a revolutionary book. Any book that can get people talking and researching and questioning is.

Even if it's not very well written.

Theological ramblings

I’ve only been vaguely aware of the “confessing movement” in the UMC. Recently, however, I came across the organizational website and learned of the perceived crisis in the United Methodist Church. This came right after a conversation I had with Jeff the other night about the “hey, you know…whatever” attitude of many in the UMC. Part of it has to do with us not having a figurehead to definitively say what it is that we believe. (You can find the general guidelines here.) I think a lot of it is dependent upon individual churches, as each church is dependent on a district that may be hundreds of miles away, in contrast to having an archdiocese in a nearby city. (The exception, of course, is with Kentucky—there are only two archdiocese, so many Catholic churches in Kentucky are hundreds of miles removed from their governing body.) When your ecclesiastical authority is hundreds of miles removed from you, not only do they not have a real finger on the pulse of their congregants, but their congregants aren’t particularly inclined to abide by the letter of the law that the church has proscribed. This makes it very hard to know what the church believes, and if I don’t know what my church believes, I’m not sure what I can accept or reject. It makes the faith journey hard, and my faith journey is complicated enough as it is.

All this has come up recently because of my disillusion with my church at this time. For quite some time, I’ve been having objections about our pastor. He’s a very good preacher, and he definitely knows his stuff. But his people skills are so lacking that people have literally fled the church in droves. This isn’t just regular church members—his reach has extended into the loss of our youth pastor, our director of family ministries, and our church secretary. Fortunately, his time with us is almost up. (UMC preachers in the South Indiana conference are appointed for six years at a time.) And for some of us, it’s none too soon. However, there’s a petition circulating to keep him. I suppose it’s the theory of “better the devil you know…”

I tell you all this to place my faith struggle in the larger context. I haven’t been to my church since Easter, though I have been to Mass with Jeff nearly every weekend. And I find a bit more meaning in Mass, though I’m not sure if it’s because I’m surrounded by people who I love, and who love me, when I’m there. (Which is not to say that I’m not surrounded by love when I’m at my own church—in that case, I love the choir so much that the thought of leaving that church makes me exceptionally sad.) The first church I went to (that I chose myself) was a very conservative Episcopalian one. (So conservative, in fact, that they later went to Roman Catholicism.) Perhaps being familiar with that, I have a more ecumenical view of faith. The book that I’m reading right now (Why Be Catholic) asks the question, “What’s the difference in being Catholic these days?”

Since Vatican II, the Church has been more focused on healing the rift between Catholics and Protestants. Both Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI have given communion to Protestants in ecumenical services (including the funeral of JPII). Early in his ministry, Pope John Paul II wrote:

“It is a source of joy to note that Catholic ministers are able, in certain particular cases, to administer the sacraments of the Eucharist...to Christians who are not in full communion with the Catholic Church but who greatly desire to receive these sacraments, freely request them and manifest the faith which the Catholic Church professes with regard to these sacraments." John Paul II, Ut Unum Sint, reiterated in Ecclesia Eucharistia).

As I understand it, the main reason for withholding communion from faithful Protestants is because of the doctrine of transubstantiation. That’s one piece of doctrine that the UMC is actually very clear on:

Article XVIII—Of the Lord's Supper
“The Supper of the Lord is not only a sign of the love that Christians ought to have among themselves one to another, but rather is a sacrament of our redemption by Christ's death; insomuch that, to such as rightly, worthily, and with faith receive the same, the bread which we break is a partaking of the body of Christ; and likewise the cup of blessing is a partaking of the blood of Christ.

Transubstantiation, or the change of the substance of bread and wine in the Supper of our Lord, cannot be proved by Holy Writ, but is repugnant to the plain words of Scripture, overthroweth the nature of a sacrament, and hath given occasion to many superstitions.

The body of Christ is given, taken, and eaten in the Supper, only after a heavenly and spiritual manner. And the mean whereby the body of Christ is received and eaten in the Supper is faith.
The Sacrament of the Lord's Supper was not by Christ's ordinance reserved, carried about, lifted up, or worshiped.” (From The Book of Discipline of The United Methodist Church - 2004)

(Lest we forget, John Wesley was an Anglican priest his whole life. He never “converted” to United Methodism. The Anglicans have always had an issue with the RCC. That’s their basis.) Yet here’s my issue with rejecting transubstantiation: Who am I to limit the mysteries of God? Clearly, history and modern times have both reflected God’s presence in the world. Now, I imagine it would be a bit creepy to find actual fleshy tissue in one’s hand as one received Communion, but what’s to say that God will not make God’s presence accessible to the faithful in this manner? I think there’s more of a problem in those who receive communion thoughtlessly, without preparing themselves to participate in one of the loveliest expressions of faith.

Based on that, you’d think that I should just go ahead and become Catholic. There are a few things I’d miss, though. I’d miss my hymns. The Catholic hymnal does have a few hymns by John Wesley, but there are no hymns by Fanny Crosby, whose work speaks to a deep place in my soul. I would miss that. I would miss the sermons, since RC priests give short homilies rather than sermons. (That’s what actually makes some UMC services longer than RC Masses.)

I’ve always thought that faith is a continual process, and belief that does not grow and change is a stagnant, useless faith. But I do wonder what is “too much” change, or when it’s appropriate to change. I do wish I had a sign, or at least a better way to understand where the path on my faith journey leads.

God and the Feminine

Today at work, The Huguenot was in rare form. Normally, I'm able to ignore him and do my work, but today he wanted to share his "unique" brand of evangelical conservative christianity. He sees that the church is troubled, and that the trouble is based on what he sees as the "feminization" of the church.

This isn't about the emergence of iconography in the Protestant sects. It isn't about the return of saints of the church to Protestant culture. It isn't even about the "Mary movement" or the exploration of Mary's role in the Nativity. What he's upset about is his perception of the "touchy-feely" turn of hymns, sermons, and church culture. To combat this, he wants more of an emphasis on what he perceives as the masculine: self-sacrifice, pain, and giving of the self for others.

First, he assumes that the church has become feminized. I don't see that as being true. The church as a whole still functions in a male role, meting out rules and regulations. Christianity is still male-structured, especially in comparison to Eastern religions with their focus on how members can help each other and help the community. Second, he assumes that a feminization of religion is a bad thing. For me and for many other women, the lack of the feminine in Christianity was a big stumbling block. Only with the introduction of the saints and the return to the ungendered God could we truly understand the divine.

And what could be more feminine than self-sacrifice, pain, and giving of the self for others? Is that not the definition of the feminine? What could be more self-sacrificing than mothering? More painful than childbirth? More dangerous than labor? I know that as feminists, we want to deny the traditional role of women because, historically, it has been exploitative and dangerous. Childbirth is beautifully self-sacrificing when it is entered into freely, but often it is a decision that is either forced upon a woman or is something that just "happens" to her. Caregiving skills can be exploited, especially with lower income and minority women. Nurturing capabilities can be used as an excuse to prohibit women from obtaining leadership positions, because we are obviously not "tough enough" to make the difficult decisions. Putting that all aside, the dual problems in both arenas (feminist and non-feminist) is that the traditionally gendered female is devalued. We as women are so focused on being "the same" as men that we forget that it is difference that makes us valuable. This is not to say that all women are giving and nurturing, or even want to give birth, or that all men are not self-sacrificing or giving. In fact, that is the problem--this dichotomy of either/or, male/female, giving/selfish, caring/cutthroat. Things are never that easy, but we often fool ourselves into believing that they are because it makes classification easier.

And limiting the holy to either masculine or feminine is a mistake. God is bigger than that, wider and more capable. At the same time, forgetting that there is so much both feminine and masculine about the divine ignores the believers who need all those qualities to worship and live fully. Whether it's at a certain time in the life course that one might need a more feminine than masculine god (or vice-versa) or whether it's that a feminine divine speaks more clearly to you in general, this cyclical gendering of the divine is as over-simplified as it is dangerous.