In the next section of “I Kissed Dating Goodbye,” Joshua Harris introduces two concepts which prove foundational to the rest of the book: “Smart love” and “emotional purity” [although he doesn’t use the actual term “emotional purity” in this section, this is the term most often used to refer to JH’s concept of “purity and blamelessness in our motives, our minds, and our emotions” (25)]. It’s my opinion that these two phrases are oxymorons, or self-contradictory statements (such as “pretty ugly” or “an honest lawyer” [jk!]).
Anyways. JH says that, “To truly love someone with smart love, we need to use our heads as well as our hearts” (22). He goes to say that one way smart love can be applied specifically is coming to the realization that “I have no business asking for a girl’s heart and affections if I’m not ready to back up my request with a lifelong commitment” or, more succinctly, “Waiting until I’m ready for commitment before pursuing romance” (23). He gives a few more examples, such as when he “stopped viewing girls as potential girlfriends and started treating them as sisters in Christ” and when he “stopped worrying about who I was going to marry and began to trust God’s timing” (24).
(And just a note. If you hear anyone use the phrase “God’s timing” in regard to relationships, then run. Just run.)
So. What is contradictory about this “smart love” concept? Well, if you look at the examples thereof that JH gives, while some of them are IMO legitimate, like the not sleeping with your girlfriend one (22), a lot of them have at their core the assumption that “love” involves protecting one’s emotions from being hurt or strained, at all cost and above all other considerations. JH evidently believes that ensuring that one lives life in a safe, protected, risk-free emotional bubble should be the goal of every Christian and is the epitome of the abundant life that Jesus came to give us. And here’s the funniest part: he believes that through the courtship system, such a thing is actually possible.
I think “smart love” is an oxymoron because such a thing (true love that loves only as much as it is safe to love) simply cannot exist. I know this verse gets quoted a lot, but think about what it’s really saying in regard to the nature of love:
“If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge…but do not have love, I am nothing…[love] bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” (I Corinthians 13:2, 7).
Now. Obviously, if a spouse or boyfriend is abusive to you, you NEED to get out of that situation and not stay in the abuse because it seems like the “loving” thing to do. If your relationship situation involves any sort of abuse, you should get out. But what I and presumably JH also is talking about here is a normal, non-abusive relationship. And I just can’t reconcile the idea of love “believing all things” with the idea that true love means emotional self-protection at all cost.
As much as JH wishes to distinguish himself from American culture, I think one of the key motivations behind his relationship philosophy is in fact a very basic American cultural trait: the tendency to “worship safety” or to believe that safety is the primary goal of life and that it is actually possible to ensure one’s safety at all times (which, of course, it isn’t, because we do not “command the morning” etc. and no one knows what will really happen to them at any given time.)
When I went on this missions trip this summer, we had to read a book called “Crazy Love” by Francis Chan. This book challenged so many of my assumptions about the Christian life, and I felt like one part of it particularly applied to courtship:
“We are consumed by safety. Obsessed with it, actually…I am questioning how we’ve made safety our highest priority. We’ve elevated safety to the neglect of whatever God’s best is, whatever would bring God the most glory, and whatever would accomplish His purposes in our lives and in the world…People who are obsessed with Jesus aren’t consumed with their personal safety and comfort above all else” (133).
Now should you deliberately run out there and put yourself in a relationship you know will fail, just to make a point? Um, no. What I’m trying to say here is that an approach to relationships (which shapes a heck of a lot of stuff about your life) that is based on a fundamental error (the idea that safety is God’s priority and that it’s even possible to attain it) will obviously end up with some erroneous practices.
Now here’s the real shocker. Suppose you disagree with all of the above. Suppose you believe that emotional safety and “smart love” really is the ultimate goal of Christian living. Well, guess what: even if you follow the strictest courtship practices and jump through all the correct hoops, there is absolutely no guarantee that this approach to life will prevent you from experiencing emotional, relationship-related pain. Take me, for instance. All my life I’ve been incredibly sheltered from guys, from knowledge about guys, and from a chance to dress stylishly and attractively. No guy has ever dated me prematurely and broken my heart, but I’ve sure as heck experienced a TON of loneliness, feelings of unworthiness, insecurity, and even fear (because as much as we’d like not too, we all fear the unknown). I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen a romantic movie or a real-life couple in love, and experienced pangs of intense sadness because I’ve never been able to experience that and fear that I may never get to. At times I’ve even questioned my basic identity as a woman because I’ve had to ask myself what is wrong with me, because guys have never seemed attracted to me.
If that doesn’t convince you, consider this: a very close friend of mine was “courted” by this guy for several years. Of course I don’t know all the juicy details but as far as I know, they did everything “right”: spent time at each other’s family’s houses, asked parental permission first, didn’t kiss, etc. They even got officially engaged and were planning the wedding, when, guess what. They ended up breaking the engagement off. Using courtship practices to define their relationship did not give them one bit of protection from the emotional pain they experienced with this break-up. In fact, I would suggest that in some ways, courtship sets a couple up for INCREASED emotional pain if they ever break up, because when you “court-someone-with-the-intention-of-marriage” you practically guarantee the other person that this relationship will end in marriage down the road. Whereas with a dating relationship, you of course don’t want to be aimless and directionless, but there’s not this like official promise that you will marry the other person one day, and so if you decide you need to get out of the relationship, it’s not as traumatizing.
Wow, this post is getting long. I will save the second oxymoron for next time. I’ll close with this quote by C.S. Lewis (again, this gets quoted a lot, but I think it really applies to the irony of “smart love”, and anyways, how can you say no to a little C.S. Lewis?) :)
“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable” (C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves).
-Violet
Monday, August 2, 2010
Monday, July 26, 2010
Hey I'm Back!
Hello All!
I am back from my trip, which was AWESOME, and ready to dive back into the dicussion of "I Kissed Dating Goodbye"...and maybe more good stuffs after that! So yeah! :)
-Violet
I am back from my trip, which was AWESOME, and ready to dive back into the dicussion of "I Kissed Dating Goodbye"...and maybe more good stuffs after that! So yeah! :)
-Violet
Monday, June 7, 2010
Sadness :(
So I regret to say that I will not be able to post here for a while since I am going on a trip! Of course, I'm super-excited about the trip, but I hate to break off from the discussion just when I was really getting into it :( At any rate, if you all will be kind enough to return in late July I shall be back then as well! Thank you all so much for your comments, they were very much appreciated!
-Violet
-Violet
IKDG Part 2: Definitively Dating (p. 18-21)
In this section, JH shares a bit of his personal testimony of how he got burned out and discouraged with short-term teenage dating relationships. I have to agree with him that in some of the stories he shares here, the people were acting rather immature (like the girl who dumped her boyfriend and kissed JH literally the next minute). And I can understand how JH would feel fed up with all that.
However, this section is where one of the biggest flaws with his argument arises. JH shares these few examples of his own negative experiences with "dating," and goes on to talk about all the problems with "dating." However, he never sits down and says exactly what dating is. So without being given a clear definition, we're left to believe that these immature junior-high relationships are the only kind of "dating" that there is.
Check out this other blog post on "I Kissed Dating Goodbye: Wisdom or Foolishness?" http://ikdg.wordpress.com/2009/02/27/what-is-%e2%80%9cdating%e2%80%9d-and-what-did-harris-supposedly-%e2%80%9ckiss-goodbye%e2%80%9d/
This post describes various types of dating and how "it is quite possible for a couple to be involved in any of the above scenarios and do it in the purity that God commands us to." I'm sorry that JH had only negative experiences in his dating life. But it's not fair of him to assume that everyone's experiences are going to be like his. And his vague definition of "dating" (short-term, physical-based, immature teenage relationships) is NOT a complete or accurate definition of the term!
You know what I think is really going on here? JH says "I felt discouraged, confused, and desperate for an alternative to the cycle of short-term relationships in which I found myself. 'God,' I cried, 'I want your best for my life! Give me something better than this!' " (21). I think JH was experiencing a syndrome I have noticed a LOT in the conservative Christian community. They look around at our culture (or their ill-conceived ideas of it), see the whole world as going down the tubes, and desperately wish to distinguish themselves from "all that." Therefore, you get these over-the-top situations like familes who, instead of simply just skipping the R-rated sex comedies, buying TVGuardian, or fast-forwarding the "bad parts," go overboard with their media pickiness and can't even enjoy a totally fun and entertaining movie like Indiana Jones because they feel "disturbed" by the idea of Indy having multiple girlfriends. Or parents who don't want their daughters to look immodest or provocative in their personal appearance, and so forbid them from wearing makeup or dying or straightening their hair, and dress them up in unflattering, ill-fitting outfits that were out of style 80 years ago. (See my post, "Butterflies," for more about this.)
Now, to some people, this approach to life may seem right and good. But I've seen this "throw out the good with the bad" method create a lot of problems for people, especially in the area of dating. Allow me to illustrate with a personal tale: the tale of the closest I ever came to having a "date."
About 3 years ago, some people I know started a Bible club thing on Sunday afternoons for kids in a largely Hispanic, lower-income trailer park. I am a Spanish major and was really interested in using the language, and had done things with these people in the past, so a friend and I eagerly jumped on the bandwagon and began helping with the club. Now, one of the people who helped start the club was actually someone that I had not met before, and was this guy about a year younger than me whom we shall refer to as Adam (that's not his real name, but deal with it.) Anyways, Adam turned out to be this super-nice Christian guy who had a lot of similar interests as I did--he had been going to Guatemala every summer for several years (I think his uncle was a missionary there or something) and doing missionary stuff down there, he spoke Spanish fluently, was great with kids, etc. Now, (and this is not one of those romantic denial things, but the truth) despite the mutual interests and all, I geniunely did not feel any sort of romantic interest in Adam. Maybe it was because he dressed like solely in camo, and there ain't a thing wrong with camo, but I've always favored the more jeans/hoodie/Star Wars T-shirt type myself. And yay for being shallow. But. Anyway. I would have loved to know Adam better as a friend, because of the Spanish and stuff, and because he was just an all-around nice person, easy to talk to, etc.
Well. Like I said, he helped start the club, but wasn't able to attend consistently because he lived pretty far away from town and was involved with a lot of other church stuff. But he would still show up from time to time and help out, and we were friends on Facebook. One day we happened to both be on FB and were talking via FB chat. He asked if I had any exciting plans for the summer, and I said that I was going to Guatemala on a short-term missions trip, because I was at the time (this was last summer). Well like I said he had been to Guatemala a ton so we were talking about it and stuff, and then FB chat decided to be...well...FB chat, and malfunction. So we switched to FB email to finish the conversation. Via email we talked a bit more about the trip and then he closed by saying, "If you ever want to grab a coffee and talk more about Guatemala, that would be fun" or something to that effect.
OK, freak mode! What was I going to do with that? Well, obviously, I couldn't say "yes," or my parents would absolutely freak out and think this was a "date," and want to meet him and have him talk to my dad, etc. (Actually they would probably have said a flat-out NO, or suggested something stupid like inviting him over for family dinner or something.) But on the other hand, I couldn't say "no," because I would have to explain WHY I said no, and I couldn't do that without introducing into the conversation the idea that said coffee-getting was a "date." Now like I said I did not like this guy in the "like-like" sense, and I honestly do not think he made the offer with any sort of romantic or relationship intent in mind. So not only would it have been very presumptious of me and unfair to him to introduce this "date" element that he did not bring up, it would also have been really, really awkward. I mean, imagine it. "Hey, Adam, my dad wants to meet and interrogate you, and how are your finances right now? And while you're at it, I like crimson and rose for wedding colors." When all he had done was offer to grab a coffee together!
(And just to clarify. I live at home with my parents, and they are very aware of everywhere. I. Go. So if I had gone away to college or lived with a roommate or something, I'm sure I could have gone for coffee without any problems. But, that is not possible in my current situation.)
So, what did I do? I'm ashamed to admit that I did nothing. I couldn't see any way out of the situation without causing a major problem, so I just never replied to his email. I was hoping that since Chat had been malfunctioning so much a few minutes ago, he would assume that the email had malfunctioned and I had just never gotten his email. And nothing ever happened, so maybe he did assume that, and then forgot about the offer. Do I think this was a good choice? No. But it seemed the only option possible at the time.
I still feel sad about this. If we had been able to meet for coffee, it would have been a great opportunity to learn more about the culture of the country I was going to, since he knew so much about it. We could even have practiced speaking in Spanish. And it might have been the beginning of a very nice friendship. And who knows, if we had been able to spend more time together as friends, not to flatter myself but maybe we would have discovered that we DID like each other, and I might be a much happier person than I am now. (Of course, I probably wouldn't be writing on this blog. But. You know.) And if my parents had been less of the "omg they're meeting for coffee to have an imformative chat about a mutual interest, therefore it's a DATE, and that's BAD, because they are committing themselves emotionally and she's leading him on, and they're probably going to start having sex in the middle of Starbucks" mentality, all of that would have been possible.
But, no, alas.
This is why I think one's definition of "dating" is crucial. Especially if they are going to "kiss it goodbye." We don't have to define "dating" the way JH does--immature, young teenagers coupling up sexually, based on good looks & popularity, with no sense of responsibility or thoughts for the future. We were 2 college-aged adults who had a lot of things in common and could have had a perfectly innocent coffee & conversation. That wasn't a date, or a boyfriend-girlfriend relationship. And even if it had been a "date," I don't think there would have been anything bad about it.
(As a side note, what is WITH Josh Harris's apparent advice to 100% break off a relationship the minute troubles arise or sin issues crop up? This is something I saw popping up again and again in IKDG. Does he think that with Mr. or Miss Right, you would never experience any temptations or difficulties?)
-Violet
However, this section is where one of the biggest flaws with his argument arises. JH shares these few examples of his own negative experiences with "dating," and goes on to talk about all the problems with "dating." However, he never sits down and says exactly what dating is. So without being given a clear definition, we're left to believe that these immature junior-high relationships are the only kind of "dating" that there is.
Check out this other blog post on "I Kissed Dating Goodbye: Wisdom or Foolishness?" http://ikdg.wordpress.com/2009/02/27/what-is-%e2%80%9cdating%e2%80%9d-and-what-did-harris-supposedly-%e2%80%9ckiss-goodbye%e2%80%9d/
This post describes various types of dating and how "it is quite possible for a couple to be involved in any of the above scenarios and do it in the purity that God commands us to." I'm sorry that JH had only negative experiences in his dating life. But it's not fair of him to assume that everyone's experiences are going to be like his. And his vague definition of "dating" (short-term, physical-based, immature teenage relationships) is NOT a complete or accurate definition of the term!
You know what I think is really going on here? JH says "I felt discouraged, confused, and desperate for an alternative to the cycle of short-term relationships in which I found myself. 'God,' I cried, 'I want your best for my life! Give me something better than this!' " (21). I think JH was experiencing a syndrome I have noticed a LOT in the conservative Christian community. They look around at our culture (or their ill-conceived ideas of it), see the whole world as going down the tubes, and desperately wish to distinguish themselves from "all that." Therefore, you get these over-the-top situations like familes who, instead of simply just skipping the R-rated sex comedies, buying TVGuardian, or fast-forwarding the "bad parts," go overboard with their media pickiness and can't even enjoy a totally fun and entertaining movie like Indiana Jones because they feel "disturbed" by the idea of Indy having multiple girlfriends. Or parents who don't want their daughters to look immodest or provocative in their personal appearance, and so forbid them from wearing makeup or dying or straightening their hair, and dress them up in unflattering, ill-fitting outfits that were out of style 80 years ago. (See my post, "Butterflies," for more about this.)
Now, to some people, this approach to life may seem right and good. But I've seen this "throw out the good with the bad" method create a lot of problems for people, especially in the area of dating. Allow me to illustrate with a personal tale: the tale of the closest I ever came to having a "date."
About 3 years ago, some people I know started a Bible club thing on Sunday afternoons for kids in a largely Hispanic, lower-income trailer park. I am a Spanish major and was really interested in using the language, and had done things with these people in the past, so a friend and I eagerly jumped on the bandwagon and began helping with the club. Now, one of the people who helped start the club was actually someone that I had not met before, and was this guy about a year younger than me whom we shall refer to as Adam (that's not his real name, but deal with it.) Anyways, Adam turned out to be this super-nice Christian guy who had a lot of similar interests as I did--he had been going to Guatemala every summer for several years (I think his uncle was a missionary there or something) and doing missionary stuff down there, he spoke Spanish fluently, was great with kids, etc. Now, (and this is not one of those romantic denial things, but the truth) despite the mutual interests and all, I geniunely did not feel any sort of romantic interest in Adam. Maybe it was because he dressed like solely in camo, and there ain't a thing wrong with camo, but I've always favored the more jeans/hoodie/Star Wars T-shirt type myself. And yay for being shallow. But. Anyway. I would have loved to know Adam better as a friend, because of the Spanish and stuff, and because he was just an all-around nice person, easy to talk to, etc.
Well. Like I said, he helped start the club, but wasn't able to attend consistently because he lived pretty far away from town and was involved with a lot of other church stuff. But he would still show up from time to time and help out, and we were friends on Facebook. One day we happened to both be on FB and were talking via FB chat. He asked if I had any exciting plans for the summer, and I said that I was going to Guatemala on a short-term missions trip, because I was at the time (this was last summer). Well like I said he had been to Guatemala a ton so we were talking about it and stuff, and then FB chat decided to be...well...FB chat, and malfunction. So we switched to FB email to finish the conversation. Via email we talked a bit more about the trip and then he closed by saying, "If you ever want to grab a coffee and talk more about Guatemala, that would be fun" or something to that effect.
OK, freak mode! What was I going to do with that? Well, obviously, I couldn't say "yes," or my parents would absolutely freak out and think this was a "date," and want to meet him and have him talk to my dad, etc. (Actually they would probably have said a flat-out NO, or suggested something stupid like inviting him over for family dinner or something.) But on the other hand, I couldn't say "no," because I would have to explain WHY I said no, and I couldn't do that without introducing into the conversation the idea that said coffee-getting was a "date." Now like I said I did not like this guy in the "like-like" sense, and I honestly do not think he made the offer with any sort of romantic or relationship intent in mind. So not only would it have been very presumptious of me and unfair to him to introduce this "date" element that he did not bring up, it would also have been really, really awkward. I mean, imagine it. "Hey, Adam, my dad wants to meet and interrogate you, and how are your finances right now? And while you're at it, I like crimson and rose for wedding colors." When all he had done was offer to grab a coffee together!
(And just to clarify. I live at home with my parents, and they are very aware of everywhere. I. Go. So if I had gone away to college or lived with a roommate or something, I'm sure I could have gone for coffee without any problems. But, that is not possible in my current situation.)
So, what did I do? I'm ashamed to admit that I did nothing. I couldn't see any way out of the situation without causing a major problem, so I just never replied to his email. I was hoping that since Chat had been malfunctioning so much a few minutes ago, he would assume that the email had malfunctioned and I had just never gotten his email. And nothing ever happened, so maybe he did assume that, and then forgot about the offer. Do I think this was a good choice? No. But it seemed the only option possible at the time.
I still feel sad about this. If we had been able to meet for coffee, it would have been a great opportunity to learn more about the culture of the country I was going to, since he knew so much about it. We could even have practiced speaking in Spanish. And it might have been the beginning of a very nice friendship. And who knows, if we had been able to spend more time together as friends, not to flatter myself but maybe we would have discovered that we DID like each other, and I might be a much happier person than I am now. (Of course, I probably wouldn't be writing on this blog. But. You know.) And if my parents had been less of the "omg they're meeting for coffee to have an imformative chat about a mutual interest, therefore it's a DATE, and that's BAD, because they are committing themselves emotionally and she's leading him on, and they're probably going to start having sex in the middle of Starbucks" mentality, all of that would have been possible.
But, no, alas.
This is why I think one's definition of "dating" is crucial. Especially if they are going to "kiss it goodbye." We don't have to define "dating" the way JH does--immature, young teenagers coupling up sexually, based on good looks & popularity, with no sense of responsibility or thoughts for the future. We were 2 college-aged adults who had a lot of things in common and could have had a perfectly innocent coffee & conversation. That wasn't a date, or a boyfriend-girlfriend relationship. And even if it had been a "date," I don't think there would have been anything bad about it.
(As a side note, what is WITH Josh Harris's apparent advice to 100% break off a relationship the minute troubles arise or sin issues crop up? This is something I saw popping up again and again in IKDG. Does he think that with Mr. or Miss Right, you would never experience any temptations or difficulties?)
-Violet
Sunday, June 6, 2010
IKDG Part I: I Dreamed a Dream (p. 17-18)
Well, here we go! The first bit of my "series", "Alternate Realities: A Personal Response to Joshua Harris's I Kissed Dating Goodbye."
The book begins with the story of a dream, had by Anna, one of Josh Harris's many elusive friends. In the dream, Anna is getting married to this guy David, but, alas and alack, six other girls show up and stand next to David for the wedding ceremony. David informs Anna that they are "girls from [his] past" to each of whom he has "given part of [his] heart" in dating relationships. The dream concludes with David telling the languishing Anna, "Everything that's left is yours."
Now, there is probably no more interesting way to start a book than by telling a dream. Because, who doesn't like to talk about dreams? I have often found that a dream-telling session is practically a no-fail conversation creator when you're running out of things to talk to someone about. One of my favorite dreams to tell is when I dreamed that I accidentally got involved in the plot of this evil spy dude (he stumbled into my apartment by mistake because he thought it was where he was supposed to meet someone). We actually ended up falling in love, even though he was evil. But he had curly hair. So what did you expect me to do?
Anyway. As fun as dreams are, I'm not sure that it's very accurate to take a dream and extrapolate it to apply to real life as JH does in the first chapter of IKDG. Because dreams AREN'T reality. Even the least nightmarish dream has something bizarre and odd about it. I've no doubt that the dream!Anna was very sad about the six dream!girls who showed up with the dream!David, but that honestly has no correlation to the real!Anna or anyone else real.
Because, the dream makes it sound like "giving your heart away" to someone that you don't marry is unfair and cruel to the person that you eventually do marry. Of course, I believe that it's wrong to have sex before marriage, but "giving your heart away" is NOT the same as sex. I've noticed this confusion among many in the pro-courtship crowd. It's like they assume that your feelings and emotions are something you can package up neatly on a shelf and take down and unpack at will. But in real life, emotions are messy and complicated. Sometimes you feel something even though you really, really don't want to. Sometimes you feel something even if you believe it's wrong. Sometimes you feel something and don't even know that you feel it. I'm sure that some people would sleep better at night if they could tell their spouse 100% truly "I've never loved anyone in the world but you," but that is simply an unrealistic, and certainly an unbiblical, expectation.
I remember in the Mahaney's book "Girl Talk," which my mom once went through with me as a study, Carolyn Mahaney would have her daughters come to her periodically during their adolescence and "confess" to her which boys they had a crush on. In addition to being extremely invasive and embarrassing, this system makes no sense to me because the way we feel about people is simply not that simple!
Anyway, the point. JH is wrong to blame "David" for having attatchments to other girls before marrying Anna. People have crushes. People experience attraction. And people get in relationships, realize they're making a mistake, get out of the relationship, and start over again. (In fact, I know someone who was engaged and the engagement ended up getting broken off. And they were a courting couple!) And, if anyone here is nerdy enough, I'm sure we could hear some stories of "giving our hearts away" to a book or movie character. (hee...) And all of this is not equivalant to fornication or adultery. Believing that it is makes people awkward and repressed, afraid to even talk extensively to the opposite sex because that might be too much of an investment if they don't end up marrying that person. But how can you know that someone would be a good marriage partner if you don't invest in them prior to walking down the aisle?
-Violet
The book begins with the story of a dream, had by Anna, one of Josh Harris's many elusive friends. In the dream, Anna is getting married to this guy David, but, alas and alack, six other girls show up and stand next to David for the wedding ceremony. David informs Anna that they are "girls from [his] past" to each of whom he has "given part of [his] heart" in dating relationships. The dream concludes with David telling the languishing Anna, "Everything that's left is yours."
Now, there is probably no more interesting way to start a book than by telling a dream. Because, who doesn't like to talk about dreams? I have often found that a dream-telling session is practically a no-fail conversation creator when you're running out of things to talk to someone about. One of my favorite dreams to tell is when I dreamed that I accidentally got involved in the plot of this evil spy dude (he stumbled into my apartment by mistake because he thought it was where he was supposed to meet someone). We actually ended up falling in love, even though he was evil. But he had curly hair. So what did you expect me to do?
Anyway. As fun as dreams are, I'm not sure that it's very accurate to take a dream and extrapolate it to apply to real life as JH does in the first chapter of IKDG. Because dreams AREN'T reality. Even the least nightmarish dream has something bizarre and odd about it. I've no doubt that the dream!Anna was very sad about the six dream!girls who showed up with the dream!David, but that honestly has no correlation to the real!Anna or anyone else real.
Because, the dream makes it sound like "giving your heart away" to someone that you don't marry is unfair and cruel to the person that you eventually do marry. Of course, I believe that it's wrong to have sex before marriage, but "giving your heart away" is NOT the same as sex. I've noticed this confusion among many in the pro-courtship crowd. It's like they assume that your feelings and emotions are something you can package up neatly on a shelf and take down and unpack at will. But in real life, emotions are messy and complicated. Sometimes you feel something even though you really, really don't want to. Sometimes you feel something even if you believe it's wrong. Sometimes you feel something and don't even know that you feel it. I'm sure that some people would sleep better at night if they could tell their spouse 100% truly "I've never loved anyone in the world but you," but that is simply an unrealistic, and certainly an unbiblical, expectation.
I remember in the Mahaney's book "Girl Talk," which my mom once went through with me as a study, Carolyn Mahaney would have her daughters come to her periodically during their adolescence and "confess" to her which boys they had a crush on. In addition to being extremely invasive and embarrassing, this system makes no sense to me because the way we feel about people is simply not that simple!
Anyway, the point. JH is wrong to blame "David" for having attatchments to other girls before marrying Anna. People have crushes. People experience attraction. And people get in relationships, realize they're making a mistake, get out of the relationship, and start over again. (In fact, I know someone who was engaged and the engagement ended up getting broken off. And they were a courting couple!) And, if anyone here is nerdy enough, I'm sure we could hear some stories of "giving our hearts away" to a book or movie character. (hee...) And all of this is not equivalant to fornication or adultery. Believing that it is makes people awkward and repressed, afraid to even talk extensively to the opposite sex because that might be too much of an investment if they don't end up marrying that person. But how can you know that someone would be a good marriage partner if you don't invest in them prior to walking down the aisle?
-Violet
Saturday, June 5, 2010
IKDG: Initial Impressions
So I just finished reading the infamous I Kissed Dating Goodbye. I was actually very surprised--he never once in the book used the word "courtship"! I wonder who was the first author/speaker/pastor to attatch the word "courtship" to the principles and methodology advocated by JH in this book.
Also, he looooooves numbered lists. Just thought I'd mention that.
And to be fair, this book in and of itself is NOT as bad as the things that people have done with it are. It would have been totally possible to read this book and come away with an approach to relationships that, while still fundamentally problematic, is far less extreme that the approach you usually see among IKDG fans. Which begs the question, has anything been done to address these excesses? I can't find much evidence of it. I think this book desperately needs a new edition with updated examples (for instance, he talks about letter writing with that one girl he met at camp. How would such a situation differ today with e-mail, Facebook, etc.?) and that also addresses the problems that result from kissing dating goodbye, especially in the extremist courtship form. Because, if people want to refrain from dating, that is their personal choice. But they need to be aware that non-dating will NOT make them immune to emotional pain, immaturity, temptation, and (gasp) it might even make them miss out on God's timing for their lives. And don't I know it.
Anyways. More detail to come!
-Violet
Also, he looooooves numbered lists. Just thought I'd mention that.
And to be fair, this book in and of itself is NOT as bad as the things that people have done with it are. It would have been totally possible to read this book and come away with an approach to relationships that, while still fundamentally problematic, is far less extreme that the approach you usually see among IKDG fans. Which begs the question, has anything been done to address these excesses? I can't find much evidence of it. I think this book desperately needs a new edition with updated examples (for instance, he talks about letter writing with that one girl he met at camp. How would such a situation differ today with e-mail, Facebook, etc.?) and that also addresses the problems that result from kissing dating goodbye, especially in the extremist courtship form. Because, if people want to refrain from dating, that is their personal choice. But they need to be aware that non-dating will NOT make them immune to emotional pain, immaturity, temptation, and (gasp) it might even make them miss out on God's timing for their lives. And don't I know it.
Anyways. More detail to come!
-Violet
Friday, June 4, 2010
Coming Soon!!!
Dear readers, I now wish to announce to you my goal for another "series" on this blog: a personal discussion of/response to Joshua Harris's book I Kissed Dating Goodbye. But first I have a confession to make. Although I've read bits & pieces of this book in the past and am very familiar with its general concepts & effects, I don't think I've ever actually sat down and read the entire thing! *runs away and hides* So I've started reading through it, and I really want to start a series of posts looking at this book in depth, evaluating JH's ideas and sharing the (a clue: negative) effects that these ideas have had in my family and community.
Obviously, IKDG has been around for a while (because at one point he talks about VCRs! Gosh!) and while it is not the only anti-dating book out there, has certainly been very influential in setting the whole courtship trend. So I've dug out our family's copy, which has random parts underlined in pencil by an unknown entity which I thought was maybe my mom, until I came across a comment written in the margin which was in a handwriting I did not recognize AT ALL. Weird. But anyway. When I finish reading the entire thing (it's a pretty quick read though) I shall be posting about almost everything in it! Smart love, the gift of singleness, the shopping cart of doom, it's all happening, right here!
I've been partially inspired in this effort by this blog: http://ikdg.wordpress.com/. I hope this guy won't mind if I quote him a little bit (cited, of course)--his basic point is that some of what JH says in IKDG can be helpful for younger teenagers, but that when the book is applied to older singles it causes a lot of problems. Which I would totally agree with.
I haven't decided yet whether to just go through the book chapter by chapter, or go for more of a topical approach. I'm sort of leaning towards the former at this point.
So I think that's everything about it, except for one small yet crucial detail. I'm leaving very shortly on a short- (actually kind of long-) term missions trip, and I probably won't have much time to work on this while I'm there. However, I'll be back in late July, and hopefully ready to jump right into it! (My goal is to get the first installment or two up before I leave though.) So, pray do not abandon this blog--it is merely a temporary delay. And please feel free to share your opinions, critiques, testimonies, etc. I am actually super-excited about doing this!
Oh, and the name of the series will be: "Alternate Realities: A Response to Joshua's Harris's I Kissed Dating Goodbye."
Long titles ftw!
-Violet
Obviously, IKDG has been around for a while (because at one point he talks about VCRs! Gosh!) and while it is not the only anti-dating book out there, has certainly been very influential in setting the whole courtship trend. So I've dug out our family's copy, which has random parts underlined in pencil by an unknown entity which I thought was maybe my mom, until I came across a comment written in the margin which was in a handwriting I did not recognize AT ALL. Weird. But anyway. When I finish reading the entire thing (it's a pretty quick read though) I shall be posting about almost everything in it! Smart love, the gift of singleness, the shopping cart of doom, it's all happening, right here!
I've been partially inspired in this effort by this blog: http://ikdg.wordpress.com/. I hope this guy won't mind if I quote him a little bit (cited, of course)--his basic point is that some of what JH says in IKDG can be helpful for younger teenagers, but that when the book is applied to older singles it causes a lot of problems. Which I would totally agree with.
I haven't decided yet whether to just go through the book chapter by chapter, or go for more of a topical approach. I'm sort of leaning towards the former at this point.
So I think that's everything about it, except for one small yet crucial detail. I'm leaving very shortly on a short- (actually kind of long-) term missions trip, and I probably won't have much time to work on this while I'm there. However, I'll be back in late July, and hopefully ready to jump right into it! (My goal is to get the first installment or two up before I leave though.) So, pray do not abandon this blog--it is merely a temporary delay. And please feel free to share your opinions, critiques, testimonies, etc. I am actually super-excited about doing this!
Oh, and the name of the series will be: "Alternate Realities: A Response to Joshua's Harris's I Kissed Dating Goodbye."
Long titles ftw!
-Violet
Sunday, May 30, 2010
"Butterflies"
So these are some song lyrics I wrote for our as-yet-nonexistent band. (Pray do not ask me for the tune, as I am utterly incapable of creating a tune of any kind, lol) And I do have to admit that a little John Keats snuck in there, but it's not scamming, it's a reference, right? ;)
It's vaguely based on a girl that I have never met, but that 2 of my sisters have and whom I have heard about and seen photos of on other peoples' Facebooks (she doesn't have her own account, naturally).
"Butterflies"
VERSE 1
So I’ve just seen the strangest sight
‘Cause I saw you at church last night
Standing shyly there
Across the room
Your grandma’s shoes and wrinkled skirt
Four buttons on your polo shirt:
They wrapped you up
Like a cocoon.
I couldn’t smile on your behalf
But neither could I think to laugh;
I looked at me
When I saw you
CHORUS
How I wish that you and I
Were multi-colored butterflies
We’d float away forever in a jewel-like sky.
‘Cause when I look at you and I
I swear to God, it makes me cry
Let’s spread our wings and soar so high
VERSE 2
Well in a sense you’re not alone
They used to dress me, too, at home
And so I know
What you must be
They snatch your beauty and your smile
And dress you in this dowdy style
In the name of God
And modesty
But in the name of all that is
Who lets you leave the house like this?
Don’t they know how sad
You are to see?
CHORUS
How I wish that you and I
Were multi-colored butterflies
We’d float away forever in a jewel-like sky.
‘Cause when I look at you and I
I swear to God, it makes me cry
Let’s spread our wings and soar so high
VERSE 3
And soon the years will slip unseen
You’re twenty-four and still fourteen
And safe from grown-up
Life and lust,
But you will never find yourself
‘Cause you’re a doll upon their shelf
Is this right?
And is this just?
They’ll stuff your head with silly lies
‘Til real life takes you by surprise
And what will happen,
Then, to us?
CHORUS
How I wish that you and I
Were multi-colored butterflies
We’d float away forever in a jewel-like sky.
‘Cause when I look at you and I
I swear to God, it makes me cry
Let’s spread our wings and soar so high.
-Violet
It's vaguely based on a girl that I have never met, but that 2 of my sisters have and whom I have heard about and seen photos of on other peoples' Facebooks (she doesn't have her own account, naturally).
"Butterflies"
VERSE 1
So I’ve just seen the strangest sight
‘Cause I saw you at church last night
Standing shyly there
Across the room
Your grandma’s shoes and wrinkled skirt
Four buttons on your polo shirt:
They wrapped you up
Like a cocoon.
I couldn’t smile on your behalf
But neither could I think to laugh;
I looked at me
When I saw you
CHORUS
How I wish that you and I
Were multi-colored butterflies
We’d float away forever in a jewel-like sky.
‘Cause when I look at you and I
I swear to God, it makes me cry
Let’s spread our wings and soar so high
VERSE 2
Well in a sense you’re not alone
They used to dress me, too, at home
And so I know
What you must be
They snatch your beauty and your smile
And dress you in this dowdy style
In the name of God
And modesty
But in the name of all that is
Who lets you leave the house like this?
Don’t they know how sad
You are to see?
CHORUS
How I wish that you and I
Were multi-colored butterflies
We’d float away forever in a jewel-like sky.
‘Cause when I look at you and I
I swear to God, it makes me cry
Let’s spread our wings and soar so high
VERSE 3
And soon the years will slip unseen
You’re twenty-four and still fourteen
And safe from grown-up
Life and lust,
But you will never find yourself
‘Cause you’re a doll upon their shelf
Is this right?
And is this just?
They’ll stuff your head with silly lies
‘Til real life takes you by surprise
And what will happen,
Then, to us?
CHORUS
How I wish that you and I
Were multi-colored butterflies
We’d float away forever in a jewel-like sky.
‘Cause when I look at you and I
I swear to God, it makes me cry
Let’s spread our wings and soar so high.
-Violet
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Who Turned On the Control Panel?
Ihh, I do apologize for the cheesiness of this post's title. If I think of a better one I shall replace it. Anyway. You guessed it--this post is about that bane of the feminine world, CONTROL.
Not to say that men can't be abusive/oppressive/etc. But I've lately been reading the amazing book, Captivated by John and Stasi Eldredge, and one of the things they talk about is how part of "the curse" in Genesis is that women will always have a sinful desire to be in control, and how without God's grace they will ruin their own lives and the lives of others with their controlling ways.
Trust me, I know about control. Because, although my mom probably is completely unaware of what she is doing, and sees herself as training us up/upholding good standards/protecting us, etc., she is in actuality very, very controlling of my sisters and me. Oh, not directly, of course. Not with literal punishments or, most of the time, actual coherent words. Instead, the control my mom exerts is an emotional control--directing and inhibiting our decisions and actions by a disapproving look, a too pointed question, an emotional withdrawal, a deliberate silence. She's got this one particular routine that I'm trying to come up with a good name for--if she's especially displeased with something (and usually it is not known what) she'll like pass you in the hallway or something and not even say "Hi" or smile, but simply look at you with this resigned expression, like you're so degenerate she can't even talk to you about it. She makes us feel that it is almost literally a moral sin to sleep in "late" on a non-school/non-work morning (and by her definition, "late" is like, 8 AM) and also to stay up "late" (i.e. any time past about 10:00), thus controlling the hours we are available during the day and making those hours coincide with her personal schedule as much as possible. My mom constantly presents herself to us as an extremely busy woman who never, never has enough time to do all the many things required of her--and thus makes us feel that our days, just like her days, simply MUST be filled with endless and undying work, especially since, when we were little, she made the immense sacrifice for us of being a stay-at-home mom, and now we owe it to her to return the favor by devoting the majority of our free time to working in her house. She often assigns us major household projects the minute our school vacations begin--such as this time, when we were assigned to paint the office and downstairs bathroom in our house. We have a rigid system where we make food in bulk and freeze it, then pull a meal out of the freezer every night for supper--because of this, every other Saturday morning we are required to spend the morning cooking a bunch of meals. Right now, she's insisted on a major overhaul of the backyard (which we NEVER go in) and consequently my sisters, my father, and I have spent the past several weekends shoveling dirt and chopping away at trees and shrubbery until the backyard is practically a desert and we have a lovely fishbowl effect going on with a direct view of our neighbor's back yard. Awkward.
Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that we should just lounge about the house all day and never lift a finger to make supper or something--it's just that there are 5 women in our house, and there literally cannot be as much work as she believes there is. How did she take care of 4 little girls when she was the only woman around, if it was this hard? I literally feel like my mom creates jobs and perceived needs for us. And I also feel that she should understand that I am a 21-year-old single woman with absolutely no romantic "prospects" in sight, and also trying to finish college and work, and that my priorities right now might extend a little further than cleaning the bathrooms, etc.
So I seriously think it's all about control--the constant chores and work give my mom a way to keep us at home as much as possible, to monitor our activities, to mold our days and our schedules around her personal preferences, to ensure that her home is the center of our lives (not a desire to have a home of our own). I mean, if I am at home during the day and not doing some kind of useful task, I literally feel very uncomfortable! And not that everything we do at home is a waste of time--as I've described before, my family watches a precious 3-year-old during the day while his mom is at work. However, that still leaves the situation of one child and one house. Why are FIVE constantly working women required to keep this household at a functioning level? Control, control, control.
It's not just the housework, of course. Technically, we're allowed to choose our own clothing. But you can bet that if you buy something Mom doesn't like, you will be sent back to the store with a modesty lecture and a receipt marked "Return." She always said that when we were in college, we would be allowed to go where we wanted, when we wanted. But you can bet that if we just left the house without discussing our plans with her, we would return home to a "How could you not have told me?" "Where were you when I needed you?" "So where did you go?" or, if it's at any time past like 10, our poor tired dad sitting up in the living room waiting to make sure we were able to get home in the dark. And in theory, we're allowed to make our own media choices. But you can bet that if we bought an "unapproved" CD or movie, the comments would fly. This has been the consistent pattern throughout all of our adolescent and post-adolescent lives--for instance, past a certain point we were allowed to go on all the weekend & overnight youth group events at our church. But guess who always, always, ALWAYS volunteered as a cook or a driver or a chaperone.
Sometimes when I think about my mom, I'm reminded of this episode of The Dog Whisperer, where there was this beautiful collie dog (female, I think, interestingly) who felt that she had to be the "top dog" and the "pack leader" who was in control of everything that happened in "her" house. However, being in charge resulted in a lot of pressure on this dog, and she would literally freak out and bark uncontrollably at the smallest things, like the toaster popping up the toast. Cesar explained this dog's weird behavior by saying that because she felt she had to be in control, even the slightest disturbance in "her" house became a threat. It wasn't until he exerted some authority over the dog, communicating to her that she was NOT in control, that the dog started to relax and act normal. I've often wondered why my mom seems to always be so unnecessarily stressed (because, honestly, her situation, even with all the busyness, is, like 500x easier than that of the average woman worldwide). But now I think it's because she is like that collie dog--she feels she has to be in total control, and therefore anything and everything (us leaving the house without saying where we are going, us spending large blocks of time out of her sight, even me buying a new outfit) becomes a threat to that control.
PLEASE don't think that I'm writing all this to gossip or hurt or slander my mom. Because I do love my mom a lot. And there are a lot of good things about her. But, none of you know my mom and I would never say all this to her or to any of her friends or anything like that. But I feel that I need to write about this, because I grew up thinking that my parents knew "God's way" to do everything, and I think it's an important step for me to sort through my experiences and decide what was actually good and what wasn't.
Now comes the really hard part. I always thought of myself as being different than that. I always thought that because I never tell people outside of the family how to live their lives, have no sort of authority over anyone, and don't boss people around or assign them tasks, that I was not one of "those" controlling women. However, Captivated talks about another form of control--the women who become overly shy & unsocial, who never go out, who live in a very narrow sphere, and who never put themselves at risk emotionally, even for the benefit of another. And wow--that is SO me! I never realized that the whole shyness thing could be a form of control, but it's SO true! Of course, I understand that God gives everyone a specific personality, and that some people are naturally more introverted than others, etc., but seriously...I use the "introversion" excuse as a way to ensure that I have total control over my relationships with others. Even though my sister and I are visiting churches right now and thus this is somewhat justified, there's still something pretty ridiculous about the way I deliberately arrive at a church "fashionably late" and then make a beeline for the back door the moment the service is over. Am I afraid that someone new might talk to me, and thus disrupt my narrow circle of relationships? Even when I study on campus, I consistently avoid studying in more public places like the library cafe or the student center, but instead shut myself away in the "no talking" section of the upstairs library--that way I have the control of feeling certain that no one will interrupt my life by talking to me. I wear dark or neutral colors and unnoticeable clothing so I can slink around town in relative privacy (but in all honesty, anything that happens with my clothing is not entirely my fault. But that is another story.)
In the digital age, this is especially easy to do...you know, hide behind things like Facebook and email instead of actually spending time with actual people. And it doesn't help that my mother is super-incompentent socially and that I was raised with the general assumption that girls & women who spent time shopping, talking on the phone, or doing other activities with friends were frivolous, selfish, and wasteful, while "good" women stayed home with their immediate family as much as possible and spent a LOT of time doing church work and chores. (I mean literally--I still am afraid to talk to anyone on the phone for longer than 15 minutes!) Not to mention that this is one of the major cons of homeschooling (because there ARE cons--don't believe all those homeschooling advice books!)
But I want my life to be different. I want my life to center around relationships, and not around endless work. I'm not afraid to work hard, especially doing things that are actually necessary. But since I do not live on the 1800s American frontier, I believe that there is also time in life for leisure and fun and developing grace-filled relationships. But in order to do that, I'll have to relinquish the control that I have created in my life by being a shrinking violet who only ventures outside her immediate circle when she goes on a short-term mission trip. And I'll have to risk the emotional turmoil and lack of security that will inevitably result if I begin to center my weekends on something other than my mom's chore list. And both of those endeavors, are, quite frankly, rather terrifying.
-Violet
Not to say that men can't be abusive/oppressive/etc. But I've lately been reading the amazing book, Captivated by John and Stasi Eldredge, and one of the things they talk about is how part of "the curse" in Genesis is that women will always have a sinful desire to be in control, and how without God's grace they will ruin their own lives and the lives of others with their controlling ways.
Trust me, I know about control. Because, although my mom probably is completely unaware of what she is doing, and sees herself as training us up/upholding good standards/protecting us, etc., she is in actuality very, very controlling of my sisters and me. Oh, not directly, of course. Not with literal punishments or, most of the time, actual coherent words. Instead, the control my mom exerts is an emotional control--directing and inhibiting our decisions and actions by a disapproving look, a too pointed question, an emotional withdrawal, a deliberate silence. She's got this one particular routine that I'm trying to come up with a good name for--if she's especially displeased with something (and usually it is not known what) she'll like pass you in the hallway or something and not even say "Hi" or smile, but simply look at you with this resigned expression, like you're so degenerate she can't even talk to you about it. She makes us feel that it is almost literally a moral sin to sleep in "late" on a non-school/non-work morning (and by her definition, "late" is like, 8 AM) and also to stay up "late" (i.e. any time past about 10:00), thus controlling the hours we are available during the day and making those hours coincide with her personal schedule as much as possible. My mom constantly presents herself to us as an extremely busy woman who never, never has enough time to do all the many things required of her--and thus makes us feel that our days, just like her days, simply MUST be filled with endless and undying work, especially since, when we were little, she made the immense sacrifice for us of being a stay-at-home mom, and now we owe it to her to return the favor by devoting the majority of our free time to working in her house. She often assigns us major household projects the minute our school vacations begin--such as this time, when we were assigned to paint the office and downstairs bathroom in our house. We have a rigid system where we make food in bulk and freeze it, then pull a meal out of the freezer every night for supper--because of this, every other Saturday morning we are required to spend the morning cooking a bunch of meals. Right now, she's insisted on a major overhaul of the backyard (which we NEVER go in) and consequently my sisters, my father, and I have spent the past several weekends shoveling dirt and chopping away at trees and shrubbery until the backyard is practically a desert and we have a lovely fishbowl effect going on with a direct view of our neighbor's back yard. Awkward.
Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that we should just lounge about the house all day and never lift a finger to make supper or something--it's just that there are 5 women in our house, and there literally cannot be as much work as she believes there is. How did she take care of 4 little girls when she was the only woman around, if it was this hard? I literally feel like my mom creates jobs and perceived needs for us. And I also feel that she should understand that I am a 21-year-old single woman with absolutely no romantic "prospects" in sight, and also trying to finish college and work, and that my priorities right now might extend a little further than cleaning the bathrooms, etc.
So I seriously think it's all about control--the constant chores and work give my mom a way to keep us at home as much as possible, to monitor our activities, to mold our days and our schedules around her personal preferences, to ensure that her home is the center of our lives (not a desire to have a home of our own). I mean, if I am at home during the day and not doing some kind of useful task, I literally feel very uncomfortable! And not that everything we do at home is a waste of time--as I've described before, my family watches a precious 3-year-old during the day while his mom is at work. However, that still leaves the situation of one child and one house. Why are FIVE constantly working women required to keep this household at a functioning level? Control, control, control.
It's not just the housework, of course. Technically, we're allowed to choose our own clothing. But you can bet that if you buy something Mom doesn't like, you will be sent back to the store with a modesty lecture and a receipt marked "Return." She always said that when we were in college, we would be allowed to go where we wanted, when we wanted. But you can bet that if we just left the house without discussing our plans with her, we would return home to a "How could you not have told me?" "Where were you when I needed you?" "So where did you go?" or, if it's at any time past like 10, our poor tired dad sitting up in the living room waiting to make sure we were able to get home in the dark. And in theory, we're allowed to make our own media choices. But you can bet that if we bought an "unapproved" CD or movie, the comments would fly. This has been the consistent pattern throughout all of our adolescent and post-adolescent lives--for instance, past a certain point we were allowed to go on all the weekend & overnight youth group events at our church. But guess who always, always, ALWAYS volunteered as a cook or a driver or a chaperone.
Sometimes when I think about my mom, I'm reminded of this episode of The Dog Whisperer, where there was this beautiful collie dog (female, I think, interestingly) who felt that she had to be the "top dog" and the "pack leader" who was in control of everything that happened in "her" house. However, being in charge resulted in a lot of pressure on this dog, and she would literally freak out and bark uncontrollably at the smallest things, like the toaster popping up the toast. Cesar explained this dog's weird behavior by saying that because she felt she had to be in control, even the slightest disturbance in "her" house became a threat. It wasn't until he exerted some authority over the dog, communicating to her that she was NOT in control, that the dog started to relax and act normal. I've often wondered why my mom seems to always be so unnecessarily stressed (because, honestly, her situation, even with all the busyness, is, like 500x easier than that of the average woman worldwide). But now I think it's because she is like that collie dog--she feels she has to be in total control, and therefore anything and everything (us leaving the house without saying where we are going, us spending large blocks of time out of her sight, even me buying a new outfit) becomes a threat to that control.
PLEASE don't think that I'm writing all this to gossip or hurt or slander my mom. Because I do love my mom a lot. And there are a lot of good things about her. But, none of you know my mom and I would never say all this to her or to any of her friends or anything like that. But I feel that I need to write about this, because I grew up thinking that my parents knew "God's way" to do everything, and I think it's an important step for me to sort through my experiences and decide what was actually good and what wasn't.
Now comes the really hard part. I always thought of myself as being different than that. I always thought that because I never tell people outside of the family how to live their lives, have no sort of authority over anyone, and don't boss people around or assign them tasks, that I was not one of "those" controlling women. However, Captivated talks about another form of control--the women who become overly shy & unsocial, who never go out, who live in a very narrow sphere, and who never put themselves at risk emotionally, even for the benefit of another. And wow--that is SO me! I never realized that the whole shyness thing could be a form of control, but it's SO true! Of course, I understand that God gives everyone a specific personality, and that some people are naturally more introverted than others, etc., but seriously...I use the "introversion" excuse as a way to ensure that I have total control over my relationships with others. Even though my sister and I are visiting churches right now and thus this is somewhat justified, there's still something pretty ridiculous about the way I deliberately arrive at a church "fashionably late" and then make a beeline for the back door the moment the service is over. Am I afraid that someone new might talk to me, and thus disrupt my narrow circle of relationships? Even when I study on campus, I consistently avoid studying in more public places like the library cafe or the student center, but instead shut myself away in the "no talking" section of the upstairs library--that way I have the control of feeling certain that no one will interrupt my life by talking to me. I wear dark or neutral colors and unnoticeable clothing so I can slink around town in relative privacy (but in all honesty, anything that happens with my clothing is not entirely my fault. But that is another story.)
In the digital age, this is especially easy to do...you know, hide behind things like Facebook and email instead of actually spending time with actual people. And it doesn't help that my mother is super-incompentent socially and that I was raised with the general assumption that girls & women who spent time shopping, talking on the phone, or doing other activities with friends were frivolous, selfish, and wasteful, while "good" women stayed home with their immediate family as much as possible and spent a LOT of time doing church work and chores. (I mean literally--I still am afraid to talk to anyone on the phone for longer than 15 minutes!) Not to mention that this is one of the major cons of homeschooling (because there ARE cons--don't believe all those homeschooling advice books!)
But I want my life to be different. I want my life to center around relationships, and not around endless work. I'm not afraid to work hard, especially doing things that are actually necessary. But since I do not live on the 1800s American frontier, I believe that there is also time in life for leisure and fun and developing grace-filled relationships. But in order to do that, I'll have to relinquish the control that I have created in my life by being a shrinking violet who only ventures outside her immediate circle when she goes on a short-term mission trip. And I'll have to risk the emotional turmoil and lack of security that will inevitably result if I begin to center my weekends on something other than my mom's chore list. And both of those endeavors, are, quite frankly, rather terrifying.
-Violet
Poetry
Here is a poem of sorts that I wrote a few weeks ago. In all honesty, it is probably very naive and unrealistic...but I felt that I wanted to post it anyway.
"[Title That I Don't Have Yet lol]"
So late last night when I was home alone
And shaking out the laundry with a spark
You flashed into my mind and in the dark
I saw a world: talking on the phone
And walking in the rain, and telling one
By one our secrets, dining late at night
And staying snug in bed when it is light
And all those things that I have never done
‘Cause I am always outside looking in
But doing chores last night I swear I found
Our clothes together tumbling round and round
And closed my eyes and felt the world spin
‘Cause don’t you know, the night gets kind of cold
With echoes going round inside my head
I see my life and I feel kind of dead
‘Cause everything is safe and nice and old
Capri’s, vacations, pets, and weekend chores:
There must, there must be more to life than this
‘Cause it was really fun when we were six
But—dare I say it?—now I’m really bored
But maybe hope is shining like a star
‘Cause we are not entirely our fault
And just perhaps, beneath this echoing vault
Of sky you’re out there, bright and real and far
-Violet
"[Title That I Don't Have Yet lol]"
So late last night when I was home alone
And shaking out the laundry with a spark
You flashed into my mind and in the dark
I saw a world: talking on the phone
And walking in the rain, and telling one
By one our secrets, dining late at night
And staying snug in bed when it is light
And all those things that I have never done
‘Cause I am always outside looking in
But doing chores last night I swear I found
Our clothes together tumbling round and round
And closed my eyes and felt the world spin
‘Cause don’t you know, the night gets kind of cold
With echoes going round inside my head
I see my life and I feel kind of dead
‘Cause everything is safe and nice and old
Capri’s, vacations, pets, and weekend chores:
There must, there must be more to life than this
‘Cause it was really fun when we were six
But—dare I say it?—now I’m really bored
But maybe hope is shining like a star
‘Cause we are not entirely our fault
And just perhaps, beneath this echoing vault
Of sky you’re out there, bright and real and far
-Violet
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Because some people just like to have a foil...
I have recently discovered, through Facebook, a blog written by a girl that I knew in middle/high school through an extracurricular program. I'm not going to reveal this girl's name or link to her blog, because obviously I don't want her to know what I think about it, and also because I currently prefer a certain amount of anonymity on this blog. However, there really are tons of blogs like hers out there, and I think that the following sums up the essence of her blog fairly well: it consists mainly of a few snippets of home life, her convictions about modesty, her conviction that TV is ungodly, her conviction that public school is evil, her convictions about homeschooling, her convictions about childbearing, her convictions about sheltering future children, etc. etc. She has links on her blog to various organizations including Vision Forum and No Greater Joy ministries.
The wierd thing is that, when I knew this girl as a teenager, she was homeschooled/Christian-schooled sort of alternatively, and she always seemed to be one of the more "normal" hs/cs girls. If Facebook photos are any reasonable guide, she seems to have retained this normality up until the time of her marriage. She went away to a secular college, got engaged at age 19, and got married about 1 year later. Then, hey presto! she starts wearing only long skirts and dresses, wearing a head covering all the time, using less makeup, and planning to leave her part-time tutoring job in a few weeks to become a full-time homemaker (even though they don't have any kids yet--and she actually doesn't use birth control, but is having some sort of fertility issue which I didn't read about because that is a little TMI). And get this--because of an issue with her husband's job, they are going to move back to her parents' (quite rural) hometown, and will temporarily (but not that temporarily, considering the plans she has for gardens and such) live in her parent's basement. Do you see the implication there? If she is going to become a full-time homemaker, that means that when her husband goes off to work each day, she will essentially be home all day, alone with her parents.
The world is an interesting place, isn't it? I guess all I have to say is that I'm happy and all for the enjoyment she seems to be currently obtaining from the head covering, etc., but if you look at the Facebook photos you see clearly that she dressed in a perfectly fashionable, normal way while she was still single. It was only after she had successfully secured a husband that the skirts and so forth became God's will for her apparently. I'm sure she geniunely believes that she is following God by dressing in such an odd way, but it's easy for her to do, because she already has a husband who I'm sure loves her very much and thinks she is beautiful no matter what she is wearing. It's easy for her to not work at all outside the home, because her husband earns enough money to meet their expenses (not to mention the whole living-with-parents situation). But poor single moms or lower-income families who don't possess this economic luxury! And poor, poor single girls who imitate her style of dress prior to marriage, and thus get shoved even deeper into the pit of social isolation.
The really sad thing about this is that many people of my acquaintance would look at this girl's blog and remark on what a mature person they think she is (far more mature than myself, for instance). I mean, look at her self-assurance! Her convictions! Her counter-cultural stance! Her internalization of good parental values! However, just because I've spent the past three years watching Disney and BBC miniseries instead of developing a meaningful relationship, it doesn't mean that I am any less mature than she is. If anything, I would suggest that this girl is incredibly, vastly naive. To believe that a way of life completely inaccessible to the vast majority of the world's population is "God's way," IMO, demonstrates an utter lack of understanding about the basic ways in which the world operates.
Because, seriously, getting married and not having to work or save money, but instead spending the day walking around in swishy skirts, reading, gardening, and making the house pretty would not be entirely devoid of fun. But we do not all have her engaged-at-19 good fortune. And we're certainly not going to get it by means of the lifestyle she advocates.
However, I'm sure as heck going to be an avid reader of her blog in the immediate future. Because it can serve as a very instructive warning to me of a path that I should NOT go down, should I ever obtain the safety and security of a "good" marriage. And because, as one can observe from Jane Austen, some people just like to have a foil.
-Violet
The wierd thing is that, when I knew this girl as a teenager, she was homeschooled/Christian-schooled sort of alternatively, and she always seemed to be one of the more "normal" hs/cs girls. If Facebook photos are any reasonable guide, she seems to have retained this normality up until the time of her marriage. She went away to a secular college, got engaged at age 19, and got married about 1 year later. Then, hey presto! she starts wearing only long skirts and dresses, wearing a head covering all the time, using less makeup, and planning to leave her part-time tutoring job in a few weeks to become a full-time homemaker (even though they don't have any kids yet--and she actually doesn't use birth control, but is having some sort of fertility issue which I didn't read about because that is a little TMI). And get this--because of an issue with her husband's job, they are going to move back to her parents' (quite rural) hometown, and will temporarily (but not that temporarily, considering the plans she has for gardens and such) live in her parent's basement. Do you see the implication there? If she is going to become a full-time homemaker, that means that when her husband goes off to work each day, she will essentially be home all day, alone with her parents.
The world is an interesting place, isn't it? I guess all I have to say is that I'm happy and all for the enjoyment she seems to be currently obtaining from the head covering, etc., but if you look at the Facebook photos you see clearly that she dressed in a perfectly fashionable, normal way while she was still single. It was only after she had successfully secured a husband that the skirts and so forth became God's will for her apparently. I'm sure she geniunely believes that she is following God by dressing in such an odd way, but it's easy for her to do, because she already has a husband who I'm sure loves her very much and thinks she is beautiful no matter what she is wearing. It's easy for her to not work at all outside the home, because her husband earns enough money to meet their expenses (not to mention the whole living-with-parents situation). But poor single moms or lower-income families who don't possess this economic luxury! And poor, poor single girls who imitate her style of dress prior to marriage, and thus get shoved even deeper into the pit of social isolation.
The really sad thing about this is that many people of my acquaintance would look at this girl's blog and remark on what a mature person they think she is (far more mature than myself, for instance). I mean, look at her self-assurance! Her convictions! Her counter-cultural stance! Her internalization of good parental values! However, just because I've spent the past three years watching Disney and BBC miniseries instead of developing a meaningful relationship, it doesn't mean that I am any less mature than she is. If anything, I would suggest that this girl is incredibly, vastly naive. To believe that a way of life completely inaccessible to the vast majority of the world's population is "God's way," IMO, demonstrates an utter lack of understanding about the basic ways in which the world operates.
Because, seriously, getting married and not having to work or save money, but instead spending the day walking around in swishy skirts, reading, gardening, and making the house pretty would not be entirely devoid of fun. But we do not all have her engaged-at-19 good fortune. And we're certainly not going to get it by means of the lifestyle she advocates.
However, I'm sure as heck going to be an avid reader of her blog in the immediate future. Because it can serve as a very instructive warning to me of a path that I should NOT go down, should I ever obtain the safety and security of a "good" marriage. And because, as one can observe from Jane Austen, some people just like to have a foil.
-Violet
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
This Blog is Not Forgotten!
Greetings, everyone! Just wanted to let you all know that this blog is NOT forgotten...one word: FINALS. However, we shall return!!!!
-Violet
-Violet
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Happy Thoughts
So...I'm beginning to feel that this blog needs a happy post for once, one that does not attempt to address the problems of the world. So. Here is a happy thought!
Yay!!!
-Violet
Yay!!!
-Violet
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
This is Edward...my prince.
Question.
If you are a courting girl and don't like the terms "dating" or "boyfriend," then precisely what do you call your significant other? I've heard (IRL!) the terms "best friend," and yes, even "Prince Charming" (gag) used in a VERY cheesy way. (Because "best friend" has too much of a first-grade ring to it, and "Prince Charming" is a phrase that should NEVER be used outside of a Disney movie. Just sayin'.)
What lovely examples, O Reader, have you seen?
-Violet
If you are a courting girl and don't like the terms "dating" or "boyfriend," then precisely what do you call your significant other? I've heard (IRL!) the terms "best friend," and yes, even "Prince Charming" (gag) used in a VERY cheesy way. (Because "best friend" has too much of a first-grade ring to it, and "Prince Charming" is a phrase that should NEVER be used outside of a Disney movie. Just sayin'.)
What lovely examples, O Reader, have you seen?
-Violet
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Sense and Stupidity: Jane Austen and the Courtship Culture
One thing I’ve noticed about courtship families (well, I’ve noticed a lot of things, but this is one of them): Courtship families, particularly the ones with a large over-balance of girls, LOVE Jane Austen! They list her novels as their favorite books (besides the Bible and I Kissed Dating Goodbye), they sew their own Regency-style dresses (though with slightly more fabric in certain places if you know what I mean), and they even hold their own officially-sanctioned “ballroom dancing” parties (all of which are solely attended by girls in said dresses who proceed to dance with each other in a way that is not considered homoerotic at all). In the courtship world, Jane Austen is a virtual heroine!
Now. If you’ve been reading this blog at all, I hope you’ve gathered the fact that, although I was raised according to “courtship” principles, I think that the courtship lifestyle is in fact very unhealthy and I in no way wish to court anyone or identity myself as a “courting” person. Check out...well, mostly all of the previous postings for more specifics on this fact. However, would I consider myself a Jane Austen fan? HECK YES. I do own the complete collection of her novels (though I have not read ALL of them yet—silly me) and I have seen movie or British TV adaptations for, I believe, all but one of her major works. I consider Miss Austen’s witty dialog, quirky characters, sense of humor, and intricate plot lines to be absolutely irresistible. And one of my all-time favorite movies is the 1995 BBC/A&E adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. (I mean, seriously. One word. Two syllables. MR. FREAKIN’ DARCY. IN THE LAKE.)
Ahem. Anyway. Being myself something of a “Janeite,” I in no way intend to criticize Austen novels or insinuate that enjoying her works is bad in any way. Quite the contrary. Rather, I wish to ponder what it is about Miss Austen’s novels that draw the courtship crowd to her like flies to a light bulb.
I think one reason that Jane Austen appeals to the courtship culture is because a basic biography of her life (Wikipedia, hee hee) makes her appear to be the kind of “Biblically-feminine” girl that the courtship world idealizes. I mean, who could better personify the courtship culture than an early-1800s English clergyman’s daughter who was educated at home, never moved away from her parent’s house, wrote novels from a home setting, and never got married? (although she always had kind of a thing for James McAvoy, apparently, although who wouldn't, lol). However, certain ironies appear when you consider that, although Jane Austen’s novel-writing lifestyle appears very traditional and “feminine” by modern-day standards, the idea of a woman becoming famous for her writing accomplishments was actually pretty radical and risqué for her age, and poor Jane received barely any non-posthumous recognition for her works. It kind of cracks me up that both the courtship/keep-daughters-at-home-forever advocates (I don’t know what these people officially call themselves, lol) and the literary-feminist bunch both cite Jane Austen’s novels as examples of their own particular belief system (and little me just thought the books were interesting and romantic).
Another reason that courtship families embrace Jane Austen so much is because, in the upper-class Regency world of her novels, “courting” actually was a normal part of the interaction between single men and women (notice I said A PART). Jane Austen’s protagonists, though always quirky, self-aware, independently-thinking women (at least by the end of the novel) generally achieve their happy endings by learning to balance their personal needs and desires with the pre-established courtship system that their society was grounded in. Their culture was guided by certain rules of propriety that were intended to keep women from having children out of wedlock and thus disrupting the family inheritance lines. Of course, there were certainly plenty of women who got fed up with those non-negotiable rules and decided instead to obtain the man they wanted in the worst way possible (Lydia Bennett much?) But I think it’s important to remember that the upper-class world of “courting” was far removed from the laxer and less formal standards held by most of the lower- or middle-class people of that time (and I should totally provide a source for that, but I totally don’t feel like finding one right now…). Additionally, the upper-class Regency world (UNLIKE the 2010 courtship culture) recognized that men and women need some basic ways to interact prior to entering into an official courtship relationship. Hence, the reason that pretty much 80% of any given Austen novel takes place during social events such as balls or “supper and cards” parties that were deliberately designed to provide singles with a chance to meet and interact with members of the opposite sex. They also realized that allowing couples a chance to touch in non-sexual ways can actually be conducive to a good relationship; it was not considered lust-inducing or “emotionally impure” to enjoy a beautiful contradance together, and men were actually expected to offer women their arms when walking. You’d never catch a modern-day courtship parent sipping punch on the sidelines while every young man in the room dances with their daughter.
It’s also worth pointing out that many Jane Austen protagonists do things that are in fact NOT in line with the basic ideals of the courtship movement (which sometimes makes me wonder how closely the courtship/Austen fans actually read her novels). For instance, the first time that Mr. Darcy proposes to Elizabeth Bennet, he does NOT ask Lizzy’s dad for permission to propose to or even “woo” Lizzy. And after his proposal, Lizzy does NOT tell her parents about it. In fact, Jane Austen women in general do not have the intimate, transparent mother-daughter relationship that is promoted by books such as Carolyn Mahaney & co’s book “Girl Talk” (usually because their mothers are either dead, or complete and total wackadoodles). Instead, you see Jane Austen women forging their closest non-romantic bonds with young women in their same generation: Jane and Lizzy, Elinore and Marianne, etc. How are they coping without their mothers’ constant advice on every subject in the world, and without confessing their crushes and so forth to their mothers?
So, basically, the IRONY. The courtship culture presents the reading of Jane Austen as yet another thing in a long list that good, Biblical, feminine, courting women do. And yet Miss Austen’s novels were written almost 200 years before the Christian courtship movement even began, and I’m pretty sure she would never have wanted to become a sort of literary poster child for a way of life that would have prevented the successful romantic matches in her novels from ever taking place. So maybe it’s time to stop using Miss Austen’s works to make us feel better about our courting selves, and instead simply enjoy them for what they are: well-written, satisfying, and classic stories with some very realistically drawn characters, and, let’s be honest, some pretty likeable guys. :)
(De-hypocritizing side note: Once some friends [all girls], my sisters and I dressed up in Regency-ish attire and had a ballroom-dancing party of our own. [And actually half of us dressed up as guys. So. Yeah.] The reason that the ballroom-dancing parties that I mentioned in the first paragraph annoy me is because they are freely publicized events [whereas there would be several attempted-murders committed if I put our ballroom-dancing photos on Facebook] that are hosted by people who have not really made it a secret that they think their way of doing things is the only “right” way to do them. Ergo, woe to all those girls who happen to feel that attending an all-female “dance” is kind of...odd, and prefer instead to go canoeing, watch a movie, or even [gasp] go on a date with an actual guy!)
-Violet
Now. If you’ve been reading this blog at all, I hope you’ve gathered the fact that, although I was raised according to “courtship” principles, I think that the courtship lifestyle is in fact very unhealthy and I in no way wish to court anyone or identity myself as a “courting” person. Check out...well, mostly all of the previous postings for more specifics on this fact. However, would I consider myself a Jane Austen fan? HECK YES. I do own the complete collection of her novels (though I have not read ALL of them yet—silly me) and I have seen movie or British TV adaptations for, I believe, all but one of her major works. I consider Miss Austen’s witty dialog, quirky characters, sense of humor, and intricate plot lines to be absolutely irresistible. And one of my all-time favorite movies is the 1995 BBC/A&E adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. (I mean, seriously. One word. Two syllables. MR. FREAKIN’ DARCY. IN THE LAKE.)
Ahem. Anyway. Being myself something of a “Janeite,” I in no way intend to criticize Austen novels or insinuate that enjoying her works is bad in any way. Quite the contrary. Rather, I wish to ponder what it is about Miss Austen’s novels that draw the courtship crowd to her like flies to a light bulb.
I think one reason that Jane Austen appeals to the courtship culture is because a basic biography of her life (Wikipedia, hee hee) makes her appear to be the kind of “Biblically-feminine” girl that the courtship world idealizes. I mean, who could better personify the courtship culture than an early-1800s English clergyman’s daughter who was educated at home, never moved away from her parent’s house, wrote novels from a home setting, and never got married? (although she always had kind of a thing for James McAvoy, apparently, although who wouldn't, lol). However, certain ironies appear when you consider that, although Jane Austen’s novel-writing lifestyle appears very traditional and “feminine” by modern-day standards, the idea of a woman becoming famous for her writing accomplishments was actually pretty radical and risqué for her age, and poor Jane received barely any non-posthumous recognition for her works. It kind of cracks me up that both the courtship/keep-daughters-at-home-forever advocates (I don’t know what these people officially call themselves, lol) and the literary-feminist bunch both cite Jane Austen’s novels as examples of their own particular belief system (and little me just thought the books were interesting and romantic).
Another reason that courtship families embrace Jane Austen so much is because, in the upper-class Regency world of her novels, “courting” actually was a normal part of the interaction between single men and women (notice I said A PART). Jane Austen’s protagonists, though always quirky, self-aware, independently-thinking women (at least by the end of the novel) generally achieve their happy endings by learning to balance their personal needs and desires with the pre-established courtship system that their society was grounded in. Their culture was guided by certain rules of propriety that were intended to keep women from having children out of wedlock and thus disrupting the family inheritance lines. Of course, there were certainly plenty of women who got fed up with those non-negotiable rules and decided instead to obtain the man they wanted in the worst way possible (Lydia Bennett much?) But I think it’s important to remember that the upper-class world of “courting” was far removed from the laxer and less formal standards held by most of the lower- or middle-class people of that time (and I should totally provide a source for that, but I totally don’t feel like finding one right now…). Additionally, the upper-class Regency world (UNLIKE the 2010 courtship culture) recognized that men and women need some basic ways to interact prior to entering into an official courtship relationship. Hence, the reason that pretty much 80% of any given Austen novel takes place during social events such as balls or “supper and cards” parties that were deliberately designed to provide singles with a chance to meet and interact with members of the opposite sex. They also realized that allowing couples a chance to touch in non-sexual ways can actually be conducive to a good relationship; it was not considered lust-inducing or “emotionally impure” to enjoy a beautiful contradance together, and men were actually expected to offer women their arms when walking. You’d never catch a modern-day courtship parent sipping punch on the sidelines while every young man in the room dances with their daughter.
It’s also worth pointing out that many Jane Austen protagonists do things that are in fact NOT in line with the basic ideals of the courtship movement (which sometimes makes me wonder how closely the courtship/Austen fans actually read her novels). For instance, the first time that Mr. Darcy proposes to Elizabeth Bennet, he does NOT ask Lizzy’s dad for permission to propose to or even “woo” Lizzy. And after his proposal, Lizzy does NOT tell her parents about it. In fact, Jane Austen women in general do not have the intimate, transparent mother-daughter relationship that is promoted by books such as Carolyn Mahaney & co’s book “Girl Talk” (usually because their mothers are either dead, or complete and total wackadoodles). Instead, you see Jane Austen women forging their closest non-romantic bonds with young women in their same generation: Jane and Lizzy, Elinore and Marianne, etc. How are they coping without their mothers’ constant advice on every subject in the world, and without confessing their crushes and so forth to their mothers?
So, basically, the IRONY. The courtship culture presents the reading of Jane Austen as yet another thing in a long list that good, Biblical, feminine, courting women do. And yet Miss Austen’s novels were written almost 200 years before the Christian courtship movement even began, and I’m pretty sure she would never have wanted to become a sort of literary poster child for a way of life that would have prevented the successful romantic matches in her novels from ever taking place. So maybe it’s time to stop using Miss Austen’s works to make us feel better about our courting selves, and instead simply enjoy them for what they are: well-written, satisfying, and classic stories with some very realistically drawn characters, and, let’s be honest, some pretty likeable guys. :)
(De-hypocritizing side note: Once some friends [all girls], my sisters and I dressed up in Regency-ish attire and had a ballroom-dancing party of our own. [And actually half of us dressed up as guys. So. Yeah.] The reason that the ballroom-dancing parties that I mentioned in the first paragraph annoy me is because they are freely publicized events [whereas there would be several attempted-murders committed if I put our ballroom-dancing photos on Facebook] that are hosted by people who have not really made it a secret that they think their way of doing things is the only “right” way to do them. Ergo, woe to all those girls who happen to feel that attending an all-female “dance” is kind of...odd, and prefer instead to go canoeing, watch a movie, or even [gasp] go on a date with an actual guy!)
-Violet
42 Signs You Might Be Living in "the Christian Bubble"
Don't you just LOVE these list things? :) I was totally going to precede this with a bunch of disclaimers (because, lol, one of the signs you might be living in the Christian Bubble is that you have always been surrounded by so many over-sensitive people that you feel the need to "disclaim" everything you do and say) but I have class in a few minutes, so I'm just going to post this now in all its controversiality. But I will say that this is supposed to apply to people around my age (obviously, some of these things, like the non-alcoholic one, would not be a problem for someone who is, like, 12) and that it is meant to apply specifically to girls (although some of the things are non-gender-specific) and that, while my list contains original items, I totally scammed this idea from the "SGM Survivors" blog. However, this is a more general list--you may totally have grown up without any exposure to SGM and still exhibit these types of behaviors.
So without further ado...
"42 Signs You Might Be Living in 'the Christian Bubble'"
1.You think that if you ever wore pants, you would automatically cause all males within a 50-mile radius to become inflamed with uncontrollable sexual lust for you.
2.You are arrogant enough to believe that your pant-covered legs are sexy enough to generate that amount of lust.
3.The idea has never entered your head that wearing pants is a heck of a lot better than…not wearing pants.
4.You actually think that “godly” young guys would find librarian-style buns on the heads of 18-year-old girls to be remotely attractive. (hey, not to say that all librarians are unattractive or anything! Because I have noticed some pretty nifty-lookin’ [male!] librarians in my time! [OK, just one. But. Anyway])
5.You think that Jesus had blonde hair and Edward-Cullen-style skin.
6.No, you don’t. You don’t know who Edward Cullen is.
7.You can’t think of an example of your parents ever sinning.
8.You honestly believe you can tell your parents anything.
9.You think your parents’ courtship story is “so sweet,” you regularly quiz your mother about it, and you see absolutely nothing creepy about this…
10.The only Internet acronym you understand is “lol.”
11.You and your mother share an email address.
12.You mother knows the password to your Facebook account.
13.Your gender ratio of Facebook friends (female:male) is about 125:3.
14.You don’t have a Facebook account.
15.What’s Facebook?
16.You’ve never understood what people mean by “that’s what she said.”
17.You consider music by Chris Tomlin, Matt Redman, and/or Paul Baloche to be “non-Christian.”
18.You don’t judge non-homeschoolers. You just pray for them extra, extra hard.
19.You find it embarrassing to say the word “period.”
20.You think “crap” is a bad word.
21.You can’t believe I just said a bad word on my Christian blog.
22.You’ve never had a hair cut.
23.You’ve never owned a cell phone.
24.You’ve never been to a sleep-over.
25.You’re 18 years old and still don’t have a driver’s license.
26.Your parents have actually made you break off a friendship with another girl because she liked to talk about boys.
27.The past few weeks you have really been experiencing some suffering for Christ. You informed a friend at church that she was dressing immodestly, and now she doesn’t want to talk to you anymore.
28.You’ve had your heart broken once. A guy once talked to you for 20 minutes together after evening church service. Unfortunately, he didn’t propose to you the next day.
29.Stuck between the impossible options of surviving the moral anarchy and irresistible temptations of secular college, paying the GDP of a small European country for Christian college, and marrying a guy at 19 without ever talking to one, you have elected to live in your parent’s house and study the homemaking arts during your years of singleness. Oh, sorry, you knew all along that was God’s best for single daughters. My bad.
30.You listen to Majesty Music on a regular basis.
31.As a child, you weren’t allowed to watch Aladdin or the Lion King.
32.You consider the works of J.R.R. Tolkein, C.S. Lewis, and/or Madeline L’Engle to be New Age and/or demonic and/or evil.
33.You have never seen Star Wars, Titanic, Indiana Jones, The Lord of the Rings, and/or a James Bond movie.
34.Avatar? What’s that?
35.Your parents didn’t give you “the talk” until you were about 15.
36.You got an education from reading Song of Solomon.
37.You seriously feel like you have a problem with sexual lust.
38.Sure you have unsaved friends! Why else do you go with your family to the local retirement home every week?
39.Sure you’ve tried an alcoholic beverage! Your family visited a Presbyterian church once.
40.Sure you’ve been to movie theaters! Facing the Giants ftw!
41.Sure you know how to function in the “real world”—you know the right way to do everything!
And last but not least…
42.You don’t think you are living in the Christian bubble.
-Violet
So without further ado...
"42 Signs You Might Be Living in 'the Christian Bubble'"
1.You think that if you ever wore pants, you would automatically cause all males within a 50-mile radius to become inflamed with uncontrollable sexual lust for you.
2.You are arrogant enough to believe that your pant-covered legs are sexy enough to generate that amount of lust.
3.The idea has never entered your head that wearing pants is a heck of a lot better than…not wearing pants.
4.You actually think that “godly” young guys would find librarian-style buns on the heads of 18-year-old girls to be remotely attractive. (hey, not to say that all librarians are unattractive or anything! Because I have noticed some pretty nifty-lookin’ [male!] librarians in my time! [OK, just one. But. Anyway])
5.You think that Jesus had blonde hair and Edward-Cullen-style skin.
6.No, you don’t. You don’t know who Edward Cullen is.
7.You can’t think of an example of your parents ever sinning.
8.You honestly believe you can tell your parents anything.
9.You think your parents’ courtship story is “so sweet,” you regularly quiz your mother about it, and you see absolutely nothing creepy about this…
10.The only Internet acronym you understand is “lol.”
11.You and your mother share an email address.
12.You mother knows the password to your Facebook account.
13.Your gender ratio of Facebook friends (female:male) is about 125:3.
14.You don’t have a Facebook account.
15.What’s Facebook?
16.You’ve never understood what people mean by “that’s what she said.”
17.You consider music by Chris Tomlin, Matt Redman, and/or Paul Baloche to be “non-Christian.”
18.You don’t judge non-homeschoolers. You just pray for them extra, extra hard.
19.You find it embarrassing to say the word “period.”
20.You think “crap” is a bad word.
21.You can’t believe I just said a bad word on my Christian blog.
22.You’ve never had a hair cut.
23.You’ve never owned a cell phone.
24.You’ve never been to a sleep-over.
25.You’re 18 years old and still don’t have a driver’s license.
26.Your parents have actually made you break off a friendship with another girl because she liked to talk about boys.
27.The past few weeks you have really been experiencing some suffering for Christ. You informed a friend at church that she was dressing immodestly, and now she doesn’t want to talk to you anymore.
28.You’ve had your heart broken once. A guy once talked to you for 20 minutes together after evening church service. Unfortunately, he didn’t propose to you the next day.
29.Stuck between the impossible options of surviving the moral anarchy and irresistible temptations of secular college, paying the GDP of a small European country for Christian college, and marrying a guy at 19 without ever talking to one, you have elected to live in your parent’s house and study the homemaking arts during your years of singleness. Oh, sorry, you knew all along that was God’s best for single daughters. My bad.
30.You listen to Majesty Music on a regular basis.
31.As a child, you weren’t allowed to watch Aladdin or the Lion King.
32.You consider the works of J.R.R. Tolkein, C.S. Lewis, and/or Madeline L’Engle to be New Age and/or demonic and/or evil.
33.You have never seen Star Wars, Titanic, Indiana Jones, The Lord of the Rings, and/or a James Bond movie.
34.Avatar? What’s that?
35.Your parents didn’t give you “the talk” until you were about 15.
36.You got an education from reading Song of Solomon.
37.You seriously feel like you have a problem with sexual lust.
38.Sure you have unsaved friends! Why else do you go with your family to the local retirement home every week?
39.Sure you’ve tried an alcoholic beverage! Your family visited a Presbyterian church once.
40.Sure you’ve been to movie theaters! Facing the Giants ftw!
41.Sure you know how to function in the “real world”—you know the right way to do everything!
And last but not least…
42.You don’t think you are living in the Christian bubble.
-Violet
Monday, April 26, 2010
the digression of the American romance
In 1964 John Lennon listened to rock music. As a result of this he smoked pot. As a result of that he wanted a girlfriend. As a result of that he had sex. As a result of that, Bill Gothard heard about it. (Although how he did no one quite knows.....) As a result of this we have courting.
The end.
-Meg
postscript: THIS IS HIGHLY SARCASTIC. I love John Lennon.
The end.
-Meg
postscript: THIS IS HIGHLY SARCASTIC. I love John Lennon.
let's be honest here-the ins and outs of a first hand courtship mentality refugee
[And yes, the article is longer than the title surprisingly :)]
I'm almost 19. I'm single. All my friends date, or so it seems. Sadly, I will never date. Why? Because my family is a courting family.
My mom would probably never admit that we are a courtship family, even to herself. And I'm sure that that's partly because she doesn't even realize that we are. Why? Because all those "courting" families are so legalistic. You can pick out those families-and heck we ain't one. We don't wear skirts all day every day. NO, we wear jeans (just two sizes too big.) We're allowed to wear shirts that aren't t-shirts (just so long as they go up as high as t-shirts do.) We dont' have to have long hair or pin it up (we just can't straighten it or spend time on it, that's vain you know.) Sure! Mom says we can wear makeup (just be sure she'll judge you for it if you do.) And finally, YES you can date! (but here's a mile long list of rules and there's no guy good enough for you anyways.)
Do you see my point?
Basically, the parents of courtship families don't trust their kids. They have to have that control. But if their kids are such good Christians and all-shouldn't they trust them enough to let them out of their sight? These kids are supposed to be the "good kids" for crying out loud!
But OH NO! Boy and girl halfway across America and totally unrelated to you got caught having sex! FREAK!
And so the courtship method was born.
Courtship: total group activities, no guy friends, MUCH parental involvement, relationships with guys SOLELY with the end result of marriage.
But come now, let's be honest. When was the last time you were yourself in a group? Ummmm...like when you were 2 maybe? The minute we are old enough to be aware of it, no one is himself in a group. You're liable to be laughed at. We are socialized to act differently in groups (I had a sociology test on this a few weeks ago, trust me. I know.)And yeah, I've heard the argument that "no one is himself or herself on a date" Ok. So for one thing, that fact seems....poopy. And for another, OK FINE!!! YES! Get comfortable with a guy when you're just friends in a group setting so that when you're interested in each other and alone, you can be yourself. If a guy wants to get to know me, he needs to spend one-on-one time with me. We need to see a movie, read a book, go for a walk, go out to lunch, NOT be in a group setting. I'm not myself in a group, I try to fit in. (And fail miserably I'm sure.)
So maybe the "dating game" sets you up for divorce. Well, then courtship sets you up for hypocrisy. If dating is the cart that rams you into the right aisle, then courtship rams you into the left. (And betrothal shoots you into the frozen food bin, btw) There has to be a middle ground. No, I do not know what that is, nor will I expound upon it as the only way if I do figure it out. I'm just saying.
But, shopping metaphors aside, courtship sucks. The end.
(sorry for the MAJOR fail at a cool ending)
-Meg
I'm almost 19. I'm single. All my friends date, or so it seems. Sadly, I will never date. Why? Because my family is a courting family.
My mom would probably never admit that we are a courtship family, even to herself. And I'm sure that that's partly because she doesn't even realize that we are. Why? Because all those "courting" families are so legalistic. You can pick out those families-and heck we ain't one. We don't wear skirts all day every day. NO, we wear jeans (just two sizes too big.) We're allowed to wear shirts that aren't t-shirts (just so long as they go up as high as t-shirts do.) We dont' have to have long hair or pin it up (we just can't straighten it or spend time on it, that's vain you know.) Sure! Mom says we can wear makeup (just be sure she'll judge you for it if you do.) And finally, YES you can date! (but here's a mile long list of rules and there's no guy good enough for you anyways.)
Do you see my point?
Basically, the parents of courtship families don't trust their kids. They have to have that control. But if their kids are such good Christians and all-shouldn't they trust them enough to let them out of their sight? These kids are supposed to be the "good kids" for crying out loud!
But OH NO! Boy and girl halfway across America and totally unrelated to you got caught having sex! FREAK!
And so the courtship method was born.
Courtship: total group activities, no guy friends, MUCH parental involvement, relationships with guys SOLELY with the end result of marriage.
But come now, let's be honest. When was the last time you were yourself in a group? Ummmm...like when you were 2 maybe? The minute we are old enough to be aware of it, no one is himself in a group. You're liable to be laughed at. We are socialized to act differently in groups (I had a sociology test on this a few weeks ago, trust me. I know.)And yeah, I've heard the argument that "no one is himself or herself on a date" Ok. So for one thing, that fact seems....poopy. And for another, OK FINE!!! YES! Get comfortable with a guy when you're just friends in a group setting so that when you're interested in each other and alone, you can be yourself. If a guy wants to get to know me, he needs to spend one-on-one time with me. We need to see a movie, read a book, go for a walk, go out to lunch, NOT be in a group setting. I'm not myself in a group, I try to fit in. (And fail miserably I'm sure.)
So maybe the "dating game" sets you up for divorce. Well, then courtship sets you up for hypocrisy. If dating is the cart that rams you into the right aisle, then courtship rams you into the left. (And betrothal shoots you into the frozen food bin, btw) There has to be a middle ground. No, I do not know what that is, nor will I expound upon it as the only way if I do figure it out. I'm just saying.
But, shopping metaphors aside, courtship sucks. The end.
(sorry for the MAJOR fail at a cool ending)
-Meg
My Mother's Dolls
In recent years, my mom has started a small business of her own in which she sews dresses for 18-inch dolls and sells them to other moms and doll collectors. Since my mom is a committed SAHM (stay-at-home-mother), this business has been a way to generate some extra cash for the family, with my mom still barely ever having to leave the house.
The evidence of my mom’s business is everywhere—when I come home from class, the remnants of the day’s photo shoot (to provide pictures of her merchandise for clients) are usually still set up in the living room, and every time I go into the laundry/sewing room to do some laundry, I behold her collection of “model” dolls, lined up in a row on a small white shelf, their smiling, painted faces showing how happy they are to simply wear the dresses my mom has made that day for them.
Please understand that I’m not trying to condemn my mom by saying this. There are a lot of really commendable things about my mom—for instance, she made a big sacrifice to stay home with us instead of pursuing a more lucrative career, and she currently babysits a 3-year-old completely free of charge, for a single friend while she is at work. And the fact that she watches this 3-year-old in addition to making the doll dresses and homeschooling her two remaining teenagers is quite a feat in and of itself!
I’m also not saying that it’s a bad thing for my mom to make these doll dresses. In fact, the extra income from her sales enabled my family to buy a very awesome camper which we could not otherwise have afforded.
I’m merely saying that whenever I look at those dolls, neatly lined up on the shelf waiting for her next creation, they strike me as a visual representation of the way my mom seems to want her life to be—a perpetual extension of the years when “helping Mommy vacuum” was a big treat, when walking to the playground with Mom was the highlight of the week, and when my sisters and I wore matching dresses and those horrible 90s hairbows. I’ve no doubt that my mom put her entire heart and soul into giving my sisters and me the best possible childhood. But the parenting techniques and general behavior patterns that she exhibits now, while no doubt very effective when we were little girls, are simply no longer applicable or even remotely helpful, now that we are all in high school or college.
I know that, in certain respects, I have a lot to be grateful for. For instance, although I still live at home, my parents have allowed me to attend a local, secular college, and they fully expect that I will get a full-time job outside the home when I graduate. So even if I never get to have a family of my own, I will at least one day have an income of my own. But the fact is that, very often, my life feels just as static, inexperienced, and immature as the life of one of my mother’s dolls. And my sisters and I desperately need my mom to see us for what we are: two almost-adults and two literal adults, whose dreams, needs, and preoccupations extend far beyond choosing between the pink and the purple dress.
-Violet
The evidence of my mom’s business is everywhere—when I come home from class, the remnants of the day’s photo shoot (to provide pictures of her merchandise for clients) are usually still set up in the living room, and every time I go into the laundry/sewing room to do some laundry, I behold her collection of “model” dolls, lined up in a row on a small white shelf, their smiling, painted faces showing how happy they are to simply wear the dresses my mom has made that day for them.
Please understand that I’m not trying to condemn my mom by saying this. There are a lot of really commendable things about my mom—for instance, she made a big sacrifice to stay home with us instead of pursuing a more lucrative career, and she currently babysits a 3-year-old completely free of charge, for a single friend while she is at work. And the fact that she watches this 3-year-old in addition to making the doll dresses and homeschooling her two remaining teenagers is quite a feat in and of itself!
I’m also not saying that it’s a bad thing for my mom to make these doll dresses. In fact, the extra income from her sales enabled my family to buy a very awesome camper which we could not otherwise have afforded.
I’m merely saying that whenever I look at those dolls, neatly lined up on the shelf waiting for her next creation, they strike me as a visual representation of the way my mom seems to want her life to be—a perpetual extension of the years when “helping Mommy vacuum” was a big treat, when walking to the playground with Mom was the highlight of the week, and when my sisters and I wore matching dresses and those horrible 90s hairbows. I’ve no doubt that my mom put her entire heart and soul into giving my sisters and me the best possible childhood. But the parenting techniques and general behavior patterns that she exhibits now, while no doubt very effective when we were little girls, are simply no longer applicable or even remotely helpful, now that we are all in high school or college.
I know that, in certain respects, I have a lot to be grateful for. For instance, although I still live at home, my parents have allowed me to attend a local, secular college, and they fully expect that I will get a full-time job outside the home when I graduate. So even if I never get to have a family of my own, I will at least one day have an income of my own. But the fact is that, very often, my life feels just as static, inexperienced, and immature as the life of one of my mother’s dolls. And my sisters and I desperately need my mom to see us for what we are: two almost-adults and two literal adults, whose dreams, needs, and preoccupations extend far beyond choosing between the pink and the purple dress.
-Violet
boys, girls, and sex: the vicious cycle
In the whole world of courtship-minded people (basically homeschoolers who have graduated) boys and girls are not allowed to have any communication outside of a relationship. Now, parents may not say that in so many words cause when they do they sound FREAKING MUSLIM. But nonetheless, it's what they communicate. Then, because they raise their children this way, any touch between a girl and a boy-even bumping of feet say-becomes sexual. Therefore, said boy and girl can't really be left alone because they've been raised such that alone=sex, making courtship necessary. It's a vicious cycle.
I know what I'm talking about, I was raised in the courtship world. Oh-not that my mom would admit that we were-because most "courting families" are legalistic, which we certainly.are.not. (Do you hear the drip drip of sarcasm in my voice?) But nonetheless we essentially are a courting family, much to my chagrin I assure you. I was not raised to view boys as friends. In the attempt to keep my mind from thinking of boys at all, I have instead been taught to only think of boys in a relationshiop sense-and so the cycle goes on. This just simply isn't a healthy way to view guys-always weighing in my mind would I date them or not. Gosh. This is just wrong. My normally raised friends can view guys as just friends to hang out with, not potential soul mates. This oh-so-pure courtship has ultimately ruined my mind.
Courtship was created to keep girls' minds pure and their hearts on God until they are married, or so I'm sure the original intent was. And for the most narrow-minded, unindependently thinking girls I'm sure it works. But I was raised to think on my own, I am my own person. My parents were inconsistent in raising us halfway in one mentality and halfway in the other. The "freedom" of courtship has become my bond.
Vicious cycle much, right?
-Meg
I know what I'm talking about, I was raised in the courtship world. Oh-not that my mom would admit that we were-because most "courting families" are legalistic, which we certainly.are.not. (Do you hear the drip drip of sarcasm in my voice?) But nonetheless we essentially are a courting family, much to my chagrin I assure you. I was not raised to view boys as friends. In the attempt to keep my mind from thinking of boys at all, I have instead been taught to only think of boys in a relationshiop sense-and so the cycle goes on. This just simply isn't a healthy way to view guys-always weighing in my mind would I date them or not. Gosh. This is just wrong. My normally raised friends can view guys as just friends to hang out with, not potential soul mates. This oh-so-pure courtship has ultimately ruined my mind.
Courtship was created to keep girls' minds pure and their hearts on God until they are married, or so I'm sure the original intent was. And for the most narrow-minded, unindependently thinking girls I'm sure it works. But I was raised to think on my own, I am my own person. My parents were inconsistent in raising us halfway in one mentality and halfway in the other. The "freedom" of courtship has become my bond.
Vicious cycle much, right?
-Meg
Saturday, April 24, 2010
TDOC, Chapter 9: I'm Standing Here Doing Nothing But Aging
The final bit! I promise!
Whilst vigorously searching the Internet to hear other people’s opinions on this topic, I was disappointed to see that, while there are literally dozens of websites and blogs dedicated to promoting the ideals of courtship, there is virtually nothing that even mentions the possibility of courtship having a darker side (except for the occasional Christian-betrothal advocate, who believes that the courtship system is too worldly and permissive—but that is truly another story). Consequently, I don’t know if there is anyone out there (with the exception of my sister) who has the same insider view on the courtship world, and feels the same way about it as I do. So to all you parents who believe that courtship is the only option for raising godly children, do consider my story and think of me once in a while. Think of me, who was tirelessly protected from the dangers of emotionally damaging break-ups, irresistible sexual temptation, and basic cultural competence, but was left totally vulnerable to something that often feels just as dangerous: the probability of long, long years ahead filled with female friends, Christian service, parental involvement, and complete and utter loneliness. Think of me, who seriously had nothing better to do than write this stupid article. And to all you shining-eyed sixteen-somethings who think I am just being whiny: grab a coffee with me in about 5 years, and we’ll talk. However, if there is anyone else out there who reads this and can sympathize with it, know that my heart goes out to you. Know that you are not alone in your loneliness. Know that there is at least one other person on planet Earth who is trapped, like you, between the high expectations of well-meaning parents, and an outside world that was never designed to accommodate those expectations. We are capable of understanding each other, because we are the ones who sat at home on Friday nights and cleaned the bathrooms while all our friends ate in fancy restaurants or went on long walks in the park. We are the ones who have stayed up late countless nights as if we could convince ourselves that another day was not going to pass by in which nothing had changed for the better. We are the ones who will probably spend the rest of our lives babysitting our neighbors’ children and ironing our fathers’ shirts, while every hour that passes makes it more and more unlikely that a change will ever come along. And at the risk of sounding melodramatic, we are the lost generation.
-Violet
Whilst vigorously searching the Internet to hear other people’s opinions on this topic, I was disappointed to see that, while there are literally dozens of websites and blogs dedicated to promoting the ideals of courtship, there is virtually nothing that even mentions the possibility of courtship having a darker side (except for the occasional Christian-betrothal advocate, who believes that the courtship system is too worldly and permissive—but that is truly another story). Consequently, I don’t know if there is anyone out there (with the exception of my sister) who has the same insider view on the courtship world, and feels the same way about it as I do. So to all you parents who believe that courtship is the only option for raising godly children, do consider my story and think of me once in a while. Think of me, who was tirelessly protected from the dangers of emotionally damaging break-ups, irresistible sexual temptation, and basic cultural competence, but was left totally vulnerable to something that often feels just as dangerous: the probability of long, long years ahead filled with female friends, Christian service, parental involvement, and complete and utter loneliness. Think of me, who seriously had nothing better to do than write this stupid article. And to all you shining-eyed sixteen-somethings who think I am just being whiny: grab a coffee with me in about 5 years, and we’ll talk. However, if there is anyone else out there who reads this and can sympathize with it, know that my heart goes out to you. Know that you are not alone in your loneliness. Know that there is at least one other person on planet Earth who is trapped, like you, between the high expectations of well-meaning parents, and an outside world that was never designed to accommodate those expectations. We are capable of understanding each other, because we are the ones who sat at home on Friday nights and cleaned the bathrooms while all our friends ate in fancy restaurants or went on long walks in the park. We are the ones who have stayed up late countless nights as if we could convince ourselves that another day was not going to pass by in which nothing had changed for the better. We are the ones who will probably spend the rest of our lives babysitting our neighbors’ children and ironing our fathers’ shirts, while every hour that passes makes it more and more unlikely that a change will ever come along. And at the risk of sounding melodramatic, we are the lost generation.
-Violet
TDOC, Chapter 8: The Disclaimer
I’m not saying that dating, in the usual sense, is without its own set of dangers and pitfalls. Neither am I attempting to dictate to you which option you should select. I merely wish to point out that declaring your family a “courtship” family is not the problem-free, results-guaranteed, total solution that it is often made out to be. If you choose courtship for your family, you need to be aware that your children are almost inevitably going to be hurt.
TDOC, Chapter 7: A Good Man is Hard to Find
Some people seem to have the attitude that if they conform to all the high standards of courting, refrain from having any relationships while in high school, and don’t act in any way that is geared to attract the attention of the opposite sex, that God is therefore obligated to create their ideal wife or husband made-to-order, and promptly drop him or her off on their doorstep the day after high school graduation. This is perhaps one of the saddest things about the whole thing, and I don’t want to talk about it much because it makes me really depressed. And anyway I’m sure that if you have actually made it this far in the essay, you’re probably really wanting me to wrap it up. Suffice it to say that the immediate appearance of a potential spouse who will satisfy both your parent’s expectations and your own basic emotional needs is a blatant fiction. In my case, for example, there has always been a very definite lack of potential spouses, ideal or otherwise, but I know that even if one did show up, I would never want to marry the kind of guy that genuinely believes in courtship. But neither would I want to ask a guy to formulate our entire relationship around a process that he does not genuinely believe in. But, obviously, my parents would never let me have a relationship with a guy that is not a courtship relationship. And thus the vicious cycle continues.
TDOC, Chapter 6: Would You Like Some Legalism With That?
And, dear reader, the problems go on. Other courtship-related dangers have to do with the often unmentioned consequences of choosing the courting lifestyle. For instance, I believe that courting can very easily become more about one’s personal status as a family in the Christian community, rather than being about doing what you honestly believe God wants you to do. Essentially, stating that your family is a “courting” family is merely a way of stating that your family wants to belong to a certain type of peer group, and be considered as certain types of people, in a manner similar to stating “Our family is a homeschool family,” “Our girls are modest girls,” or “Our family only watches G-rated movies.” It’s certainly worth mentioning that there are tons of perfectly legitimate Christian families who love their children deeply, but have never considered the courtship system to be ideal for them, or even remotely realistic. Like quite a good number of things often lauded by some people as “the Christian way,” the courtship system is largely a white, middle/upper-class, two-parent family, American custom. So basically, I usually try to avoid using the L-word, because it has largely become one of those blanket terms that people throw around when they can’t think of a better way to insult someone, and ergo has lost most really useful meaning. So whether or not there is a possibility of legalism lurking in the dark corners of the courtship system shall be for you, dear reader, to judge.
TDOC, Chapter 5: So Near and Yet So Far
Another logical fallacy I see in the courtship-related arguments is the statement that spending time with your significant other in group settings is the best way to see their true self, whereas spending time one-on-one with the person will give you only a false, superficial image of them. This is probably not the place for impolite language, so I shall say simply that this statement is poopy. It is simply a fact of life that, even in a group of the most like-minded, accepting people, it is necessary to suppress a part of oneself and conform to outward expectations to even begin to function in that group. I have documented evidence that whenever my sister offers me constructive criticism, she inevitably starts with the accusation that “I act differently around other people.” And honestly, who among us doesn’t? Wasn’t that one of the reasons that our parents decided to homeschool us (a factor that almost always correlates to courtship)—to avoid the warping influences of peer groups? And what about those among us who, like me, are decided introverts who never really enjoyed group activities in the first place? Surely forcing ourselves to attend group activities simply for the chance to be with our significant other is not a very good indication of the kinds of things we will do together once we are married. At least for me, if someone really wants to know what I am like, they should observe me doing the sorts of things I actually like to do—watching movies, playing Scrabble, making very bad music and staging very amateur plays…simply watching me have superficial conversations with various acquaintances at a group event will in no way give an accurate picture of the true me. And anyway, it just doesn’t make sense to expect that any close relationship can survive without spending any one-on-one time together!
Of course, we’ve all seen those people whose significant others become their entire existence. If you’re ever trapped in an awkward threesome with this sort of couple, they usually fail to acknowledge your existence, and you generally end up awkwardly pretending to text someone. These people sometimes make Facebook accounts solely for the purpose of interacting with their significant other, and, on the rare occasions when you manage to get a word in edgewise, all they want to talk to you about is their significant other. This act is unhealthy in any respect, because people are only human and will always find some way to disappoint you, and thus you need a basic foundation that will enable you to move on with the rest of your life, should your relationship with that person ever come to an end. So I’m not saying that the ideal relationship is exclusive to that sort of level, and neither am I saying that you shouldn’t spend time with your significant other’s family and close friends, since what those people are like can tell you a lot about how your significant other is (or at least, they can show you the tendencies that he is violently reacting against). However, the idea that it is wrong to spend time alone with your significant other just does not make a whole lot of sense to me.
Also, I have to say that the idea of doing only group-related activities is Just. So. Lame. Courtship/dating is supposed to be a romantic and special time in your relationship that you will only have once. Simply both attending a college group event at your local church which both of you would totally have gone to anyway, and calling said mutual attendance “a relationship” is an idea that quite frankly leaves a sour taste in my mouth.
Of course, we’ve all seen those people whose significant others become their entire existence. If you’re ever trapped in an awkward threesome with this sort of couple, they usually fail to acknowledge your existence, and you generally end up awkwardly pretending to text someone. These people sometimes make Facebook accounts solely for the purpose of interacting with their significant other, and, on the rare occasions when you manage to get a word in edgewise, all they want to talk to you about is their significant other. This act is unhealthy in any respect, because people are only human and will always find some way to disappoint you, and thus you need a basic foundation that will enable you to move on with the rest of your life, should your relationship with that person ever come to an end. So I’m not saying that the ideal relationship is exclusive to that sort of level, and neither am I saying that you shouldn’t spend time with your significant other’s family and close friends, since what those people are like can tell you a lot about how your significant other is (or at least, they can show you the tendencies that he is violently reacting against). However, the idea that it is wrong to spend time alone with your significant other just does not make a whole lot of sense to me.
Also, I have to say that the idea of doing only group-related activities is Just. So. Lame. Courtship/dating is supposed to be a romantic and special time in your relationship that you will only have once. Simply both attending a college group event at your local church which both of you would totally have gone to anyway, and calling said mutual attendance “a relationship” is an idea that quite frankly leaves a sour taste in my mouth.
TDOC, Chapter 4: The Inevitable Sex Question
Of course, not all of the above is necessarily bad. For instance, fathers do have a charge to protect their daughters, and it’s really not a good idea to pursue a romantic relationship if you know there is no chance of marriage ever coming out of it. However, I would now like to highlight what I, in my totally inexperienced and hypothetical view, see as some of the very palpable dangers of the courting system. First of all, one of the main reasons cited for choosing the courting system is the belief that chaperoned courting will prevent the couple in question from giving in to their baser urges and having sex before marriage (which I do believe is wrong, so don’t go telling everybody that I advocate it). According to the courting view, ensuring that the couple never spends time together unchaperoned is absolutely essential, because, were the couple to be alone together, even if they are in their 20s and have already been pubescent for several years, they would without fail abandon their personal beliefs, loose all control of their bodily functions, and forget how very inconvenient a possible pre-marital pregnancy is in the courting community, and would promptly break out into spontaneous sex, even on the seats of the movie theater during the louder bits of the movie, and if corner booths in reputable restaurants could talk! However, this view seems to me to belie a central component of Christian doctrine: the idea that God is capable of helping you control yourself when faced with temptation. Courting parents generally expect God to help their children submit to authority, keep their rooms clean, have a patient attitude with younger siblings, and not create online internet viruses that wreak havoc on the national economy, but for some reason, they don’t trust God to help their children not have pre-marital sex. I honestly have to question what it is about this particular sin that requires such special treatment.
TDOC, Chapter 3: That's the Way We Like It
For the most part, however, when people use the term “courting,” they generally refer to anything that is not “dating,” and which often specifically involves requirement of parental permission, attendance of group activities, marriage as the end goal of the relationship, close parental supervision, no unchaperoned events, and a strictly hands-off policy.
TDOC, Chapter 2: A Date By Any Other Name
That said, allow me to begin by saying that I in no way intend to engage in a battle of verbage. You may refer to the process of social interaction between a non-related male and female as “dating,” or you may call it “courting.” I do not care. It is one of my intentions in this essay to demonstrate that “courting,” as such, is not really an actual thing, but is more like a state of mind, enjoyed by a certain subset of people who basically sleep better at night if they are able to tell everyone that their family “courts.” Consequently, you may court and call it dating, you may date and call it courting, or use any other combination you can think of, but your vocabulary has little or no correlation to what actually happens to you. Naturally, it is this “what actually happens” category that this essay is concerned with.
TDOC, Chapter 1: The Lost Generation
I do realize that I have just entitled this little number “An Essay,” but allow me to commence by asking your permission to be a little flexible with the genre and share a narrative story of sorts. The story goes as follows. There was once a girl who always did well in school, mostly for the reason that she had basically no life, and who also had big dreams of having some sort of vaguely-defined adventurous experience, probably due to the fact that she had read far too many books over the years whose titles began with the phrase “The Adventures Of.” Time, after all, being rather otherwise than static, this girl eventually graduated from high school and attended her home school high school graduation. As her various (non)classmates share their journeys, hopes and aspirations for the future, she cringes as most of them recite a long list of grades, competitions and clubs, and she looks nervously down at her statement, which according to the recommendations of her mother consists mostly of “Violet is so grateful to her family.” However, as the ceremony drags on and on in a very boring way, she begins to notice another trend in the statements of the feminine segment of the graduating class: girl after girl describes their future plans as simply wanting to get married and have children. Imagine that! The girl tosses her head and congratulates herself on the fact that she is not like those frivolous and shallow-minded other girls. She has not wasted one moment of her teenage years on boys, dating, and the subsequent emotional damage. Rather, she has spent this time on more important things, such as preventing Awana children from killing themselves in the church parking lot, watching a set collection of about 20 VHS’s, and cleaning out the family garage an insane number of times. Right now, she is going to attend a local college, write the great American novel, and participate in as many short-term mission trips as possible. As she mounts the platform to receive her hard-earned diploma, a surge of emotional elation, or maybe adrenaline, courses through her, and she realizes the immense potential that such an decidedly single individual as she is going to bring to the world.
Fast-forward to almost exactly three years later. The very same girl, once so ecstatic and confident, is now basically an insecure, confused, 21-year-old emotional basket-case who is beginning this essay, which she will most probably never share with anyone, at 1:45 in the morning on a Friday night. What happened? No one knows for sure, but it is evident that this girl has realized that a life consisting solely of college, mission trips, and yes, even writing gets really old after a while. This girl has almost no male friends of any sort, and has at least 4 unanswered friend requests on Facebook because they are from acquaintances of the male persuasion, and last time she befriended a very, very casual male acquaintance on Facebook her mother interrogated her about it. After college graduation, which will occur in approximately one year, this girl plans to get a job in town and try to earn some money. This girl looks back at diary entries she wrote around the time of high school graduation, and feels that she is reaping what she has sown. This girl, by the way, is me. And, although she asked her dad a few days ago exactly where her family lay on the spectrum of dating vs. courtship and her dad told her he hadn’t really thought about it yet, her dad stated that definitely, if the question is made into a dichotomy, this girl’s family is a courting family.
This otherwise rather pointless little narrative makes a very nice cognitive connection to the real topic of this essay, which I have entitled “The Dangers of Courtship.” Ah, I’ve tricked you there, haven’t I. You thought I was going to say “The Dangers of Dating.” Alas, dear reader, alliteration is only the first of many things you shall be forced to dispense with when reading this essay. But I feel that you are fully capable of dealing with said deprivation. After all, I now feel that I’ve been living rather some time without any indication that my life would ever consist of anything more romantic than walking the family dog.
Fast-forward to almost exactly three years later. The very same girl, once so ecstatic and confident, is now basically an insecure, confused, 21-year-old emotional basket-case who is beginning this essay, which she will most probably never share with anyone, at 1:45 in the morning on a Friday night. What happened? No one knows for sure, but it is evident that this girl has realized that a life consisting solely of college, mission trips, and yes, even writing gets really old after a while. This girl has almost no male friends of any sort, and has at least 4 unanswered friend requests on Facebook because they are from acquaintances of the male persuasion, and last time she befriended a very, very casual male acquaintance on Facebook her mother interrogated her about it. After college graduation, which will occur in approximately one year, this girl plans to get a job in town and try to earn some money. This girl looks back at diary entries she wrote around the time of high school graduation, and feels that she is reaping what she has sown. This girl, by the way, is me. And, although she asked her dad a few days ago exactly where her family lay on the spectrum of dating vs. courtship and her dad told her he hadn’t really thought about it yet, her dad stated that definitely, if the question is made into a dichotomy, this girl’s family is a courting family.
This otherwise rather pointless little narrative makes a very nice cognitive connection to the real topic of this essay, which I have entitled “The Dangers of Courtship.” Ah, I’ve tricked you there, haven’t I. You thought I was going to say “The Dangers of Dating.” Alas, dear reader, alliteration is only the first of many things you shall be forced to dispense with when reading this essay. But I feel that you are fully capable of dealing with said deprivation. After all, I now feel that I’ve been living rather some time without any indication that my life would ever consist of anything more romantic than walking the family dog.
An Essay of sorts, by Violet
Salutations! Over the past several days, Meg and I have been, for whatever reason, having various conversations on the topic of dating, courtship, and the lack thereof. I have now attempted to quantify my exact feelings on this topic in a...document of sorts, which I shall now post for your reading pleasure as a 9-part series. I suppose I should state at the outset that neither Meg nor I has a boyfriend of any sort, and neither has a boy ever been the least bit interested in dating/courting either one of us. That being said, let us commence with "The Dangers of Courtship: An Essay: By Me." The results may surprise you.
welcome!
We are Violet and Meg. Those are not necessarily our real names, but they are the names by which you will know us. We are on a mission to purge the world of stupidity in most areas of life, from the remote reaches of our laptops. You will be the judge of whether or not we succeed. We also like movies. Welcome aboard young padawans!!!
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