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
Showing posts with label marriage. Show all posts
Showing posts with label marriage. Show all posts
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Thursday, May 27, 2010
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
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