The semester starts this week...
If I get sporadic in posting, it's because I'm being diligent. (Send me some love.) If I post a lot, it's because I'm procrastinating. (Send me some love anyway...)
Initial look at the syllabi is scaring me. As I pray and steep in reminders of this all being GOD'S idea, it calms and encourages me to take it a nibble at a time... with God's help and grace every step of the way...
I am pressed but not crushed!
From our home to yours...
Deb
Some call it "shifting baselines" while others say it is "the decay of morality" in our society. I'd like to say it's a blip in the cultural radar screen, but I don't think so.
As Lawrence Downes wrote in his opinion piece in the New York Times, "Middle School Girls Gone Wild," there is a trend towards middle schoolers doing the "dirty dancing" that we never dreamed of back in the day! He writes:
"The scene is a middle school auditorium, where girls in teams of three or four are bopping to pop songs at a student talent show. Not bopping, actually, but doing elaborately choreographed re-creations of music videos, in tiny skirts or tight shorts, with bare bellies, rouged cheeks and glittery eyes."
You might be wondering, as I did, "where are their parents?" or perhaps you had this vague feeling of being a social dinosaur... It's not the music. It's not even the dancing so much. It's PARENTS allowing CHILDREN to engage in such a sexual display. I call them "children" because they are: middle schoolers are as young as 10 years old, and by the time they finish 8th grade, many are still only 13! Straight from MTV to your school's stage, it's allowed because it's "self-expression." We're not "hopping and bopping to the crocodile rock" but instead are "Gettin bodied (Im the only one tonight gettin bodied)" with Beyonce.
These girls are, in Downes' words, steeped in "the culture of boy-toy sexuality" of popular music culture. The parents think it's fine? The school allows it?
I'm aghast. I'd say it doesn't happen here in suburbia, but it does. I've seen the poms shake, and the cheerleaders do everything but cheer... I know what the teen norms are for what is worn at school, at the mall. I don't live in a Christo-bubble!
The norms have changed. Little girls aren't so girlie any more. Barbies are passe by age 5. Now the hip dolls are "BRATZ" with super made-up eyes and lips, slinky hips, and sultry clothes and attitudes. Their posture and their self-descriptions (check out their website) are decidely all grown-up. We seemed to skip from baby doll clothes to baby doll negligees in just a breath! Downes calls it "The Three Ages of Woman: first Mary-Kate, then Britney, then Courtney."
Realize two things:
First of all, we are raising girls. We have a middle schooler and a high schooler in public school. We do not let them wear belly shirts, show cleavage down to the nipples (whether or not they have cleavage!) or prance around in tight, short clothing. We just don't. We haven't forbidden make-up, but perhaps since I'm not much for make up, they aren't either. (Hey that could change... we'll deal with it.)
Secondly, I know we are raising them up to be WOMEN in every sense of the word. I don't want them to wear a full niqab or put on the potato sack wear of "Little House on the Prairie." I don't want them living in a Christian ghetto. Nor do I want to keep them in pigtails. They are growing up. Fast. And hopefully with a better self-image than being a 3-D boy magnet. (And as an aside, what do you suppose the parents of BOYS think about this? I wonder if it bothers them as it does me...)
So what can I do about it? Do I run for the copy of "Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm"? Do I forbid all the music with slutty lyrics? Keep them from hearing, seeing or watching Courtney, or Janet or Beyonce?
No, it's more practical to talk about what "modest" means (it doesn't equal "prude" - look it up!) We offer them ideas, concepts, and Truth that lasts. We look at culture and try to see its lessons and its mis-steps. It helps that they have great role models around them at school and church. (A BIG shout-out to Sarah, Mandy, April, Dana, Jen, Christie, Kristen, Barb, and everyone I am forgetting at the moment - YOU ROCK!) But first and last, I pray. For God's guidance. For discernment. And for ways to celebrate the women they are becoming, in every way, as God has created them to be. We throw out ideas of where they could use their talents in the workplace, in the home, in the church. We celebrate their interests and enjoy their accomplishments. We worry, cry, pray, hug and love them.
A full-time job, to be sure... easier, and not impossible with God's help!
Jesus said: "My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one." [John 15:16]
yeah. I'm up with that.
From our home to yours...
Deb
From RevGalBlogPals: A Friday Five, "Birthday, Redux"
1. "It's my party and I'll [blank] if I want to..." Favorite way to celebrate your birthday (dinner with family? party with friends? a day in solitude?) The Social time is great - I love it! Family, friends, dinner out, dinner in. Postpone it, celebrate it on time, whatever.
2. "You say it's your birthday... it's my birthday too, yeah..." Do you share your birthday with someone famous? (Click here to find out!) Yup, me and Pres. Bush (the First) share a birthday on June 12th, as well as Jim Nabors (Golll-ee!) and Anne Frank. In cruising the website I found out that I have the same birth month and year as Jimmy Smits. (Yum...) AND the same month as Sir Paul... who really IS 64!
3. "Lordy Lordy look who's forty..." Milestone birthdays: a) just like any other birthday--they're just numbers, people. b) a good opportunity to look back/take stock c) enjoy the black balloons--I'll be hiding under a pile of coats until the day is over d) some combination of the above, or something else entirely. Well actually, I was 8 months pregnant when I was 40. So for all of those T-shirts designers out there, I wanted one that said, 'I'd rather be 40 AND pregnant'! Now that I've had kids, I try like mad to remember to call my mom on my birthday instead of the other way around. (Thanks Mom...)
4. "Happy birthday, dear... Customer..." Have you ever been sung to in a restaurant? Fun or cringe-worthy? The worst was having to "kiss the moose" (a puppet) at Bugaboo Creek. I don't really mind it otherwise.
5. "Take my birthday--please" Tell me one advan
tage and one disadvantage about your particular birthday (e.g. birthday in the summer--never had to go to school; birthday near Christmas--the dreaded joint presents) EDITED TO ADD: This could also simply be something you like/dislike about your birthday (e.g. I like sharing a birthday with my best friend, etc.). It was (and is) always during finals week at school (June 12th). Soooo "Happy Birthday to Me" occurred in the midst of finals, or driving kids to finals, or caught up in the craziness of end-of-the-year activities. However, growing up I often "shared" my birthday with my grandmother, who had her birthday on Flag Day. And I also found out that there is a holiday in my honor! National Machine Day!
Yahooo and a party hat to you and yours...
Deb
I commented on a RevGal blog that I had a "Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm...." file. And that has led to questions and comments from fellow RGBPs. SOooo what is it and where does it exist?
Well for starters, one day I was bored surfing and found this website! (You knew there just HAD to be a website somewhere!) My HMMMmmm's had nothing to do with that. But it cracked me up that someone has a website (and that they bought a domain name to do it??? hilarious!)
Mostly, I'm just collecting scribbles in a file folder. It's articles from magazines, pictures that grab my attention, and things that I hear or read in every day life. It's short vignettes and stories from my life or my family and friends (used with permission, of course...) It's the things that I think about trying to "answer" sometime, someday, somewhere if I ever get a chance to preach on them. Things like:
Gerald Rudolph Ford
We're the new "ears" in town... We have been at our present church about a year now. We are getting to know different members and staff personnel. We've been welcomed and loved and encouraged. It's been a good change. I've been allowed to jump in as deep as I care to using my gifts... music, writing and just being "Deb".
And, as I'm in seminary, I know I'm being watched. There are people who go out of their way to be encouraging. (God bless them! They have NO idea how much their prayers and hugs mean...) There are others who wonder why "at my age" I would go back to school. (Yeah. well. Talk to God, I'm just following!)
We have changed churches before, so the predictable is happening. We are learning "who's who" in the church...
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