saving me (revolution)

Find something new, something that excites you. Find something old, something that bothers you. Find something you want to change. Find a change being made that you want to get behind. Find something you want to oppose. Find something you want to support. Find something to be passionate about. Revolt. And in so doing, revolt against the darkness.

Reason #15 Why I Should Live With My Boyfriend

I live with all girls. I have three roommates, and they are all female. So who the hell bought fucking single ply toilet paper?!

what i wish i'd said on the phone just now

Yes, Ma'am, i understand your question. But this is the Admissions office -- I don't have access to your daughter's financial information. I can transfer you over to Student Accounts or Financial Aid.

I'm sorry that you called them this morning and have yet to hear back. But i can't access your daughter's bill, so i can't confirm the amount that she owes us monthly.

I would be more than happy to help you if i could. But i don't have access to that part of her file. I don't know what financial aid she has or what her balance is or what the monthly payments would be. That information is only accessible to a few people.

We do this to protect the privacy of our students and their families. I work in the Admissions office. No part of my job involves payments or budgets or financial aid or balances. Now that your daughter is an enrolled student here, now that she has passed through the Admissions office and we have admitted her, the best i can do is transfer you to the appropriate office.

Here in the Admissions office, i can help you become a student. I can look up students who are interested in attending here. I can tell you what parts of the process they have completed and what we are still waiting for. I can tell you about visit days, how to get admitted despite low academic performance, what our Honors program is like, what kind of academic support is available, where all of the buildings are. I can tell you who your child's enrollment counselor is. I can tell you which offices to contact with your questions. I can give you names, departments, supervisors, phone numbers, and email addresses. I can help you become a student here.

But once you are a student, once you have moved into the dorm and started classes, once that first week of classes is over and we are no longer accepting students into this semester, the only thing i can really do for you is transfer your call to another department.

I'm sorry. I would help you if i could. But i do not have access to your daughter's financial information, because there is no reason for me to need access to your daughter's financial information. If we don't have a reason to let someone access information, we don't give them access. Again, this is for your security. Aren't you relieved to know that the receptionist in an unrelated department can't access your daughter's financial information? Doesn't it make you happy to know that there are only about half a dozen people on this entire campus who know what your bill is and how prompt you are with payments and how many times you have called to ask if there is any way your bill can be lowered or postponed or forgiven? Do you really want everyone who works here, including other students, to know your family's financial situation?

Don't give me that attitude. I'm doing my job. I am doing exactly my job. Even if i wanted to do more, even if i wanted to go above and beyond, even if i wanted to do someone else's job for them, i do not have the clearance. I can't see that part of the electronic file. I don't know where those paper files are. I literally cannot do anything except exactly my job.

Have a nice day.

College 101

Okay guys, it's time for some tough truth: not everyone should go to college.

My dad is a genius. Literally. He's taken the IQ tests and was a member of Mensa until he opted out because he was tired of all the flyers they kept sending him. He skipped a grade in school, he coasted through high school, he was admitted to Dartmouth as a chemistry major, and he got kicked out in his freshman year because his depression was so crippling that he couldn't even get out of bed. He transferred to a small Christian school in Massachusetts, where he met my mother, and when they got married and moved to Baltimore, he got jobs and worked while she finished school. He never graduated from college, and is still one of the most brilliant, talented, educated people i know.

I know someone who is borderline retarded. I'm not being insensitive or politically incorrect -- she is actually close to being intellectually disabled. She told me this herself. Her IQ is 85 (mental retardation is 70 or below, 100 is considered average). She spent some time in rehab as a teenager. She did a lot of drugs and drank a lot of booze when she was younger, and she didn't get a chance to start college until she was well into her twenties. But she finished her degree in four years, and last i heard she was checking out grad schools.

Here's the thing: we've all seen the articles about how people with graduate and postgraduate degrees earn more money over their lifetime than those without. But the important part of that phrase is "over their lifetime". When you graduate from college, you have two choices: find a job immediately and start paying off your student loans, or take out more loans to go to grad school so that you can postpone paying your student loans and also postpone finding a full-time job with good pay. Jobs that require degrees are harder to get than jobs that don't, and they often don't pay as well at the entry level. Once you've earned more degrees and advanced your education (and your debt) further, you can get promotions and raises, and by the time you retire you'll be making bank. But you still have to pay off your student loans, and you may find yourself eating ramen and cold pizza for several years after obtaining your BA or BS. College is expensive, and it will be a long time before you see any financial benefits from your degree.

If you want to go to college so that you can make more money, turn back now. It will be a long time before you can realize that dream. Your best money-making bet is to get an Associate's degree in business from a community college, find a good internship or entry-level position in a financially stable corporation, and work your way up. When you've been there long enough, they may help you pay for additional classes, which can also be taken at a community college or even online. If all you want is to make money, don't travel out of state to a private, liberal arts college and pay for four years of tuition, room and board, student fees, and books. It will likely be many long, hard years before you see any return on that investment. Some people are luckier than others and fall into their dream job immediately after graduation, and they make six figure salaries after two years and pay off all their student loans in fifteen months. Do not assume that this person will be you. The only reason that they got that lucky is because they never assumed that they would get that lucky. They worked hard, they took chances, they pursued the things they wanted. And for every one of those stories i can tell you ten more of people who took years to get any luck, of people who slacked off and never achieved their dreams, of people who worked as hard as they could but still had to settle for second best, or even third.

I know that culturally, college is viewed like thirteenth grade. It's sort of assumed that you'll be going to college, studying for four years, getting a bachelor's degree in something. But i have seen so many people graduate with a degree in liberal arts, or business, or English, just because they picked something they liked in high school or something their roommate was studying or something that sounded easy to get a degree in. Those people ended up working in pet grooming shops, or in a department store, or as someone's secretary or receptionist. If that's what you want to do, you should do it right out of high school, instead of wasting four years and tens of thousands of dollars. If you work in a pet grooming shop for a few years and then suddenly realize that you want to be a vet, or a research biologist, or an architect, you can always go back to school. Yes, it's harder to go back when you've been gone for a while. But it's also hard to pay rent and student loans at the same time when you're working 35 hours a week at Dunkin Donuts. And if you work at a pet grooming shop for a few years and then suddenly realize that all you want to do is groom pets, start taking night classes, or online courses, and get a business degree and open your own pet grooming shop.

Don't let anyone pressure you into college, including your parents. Ask them if they really want to pay for four years of education when you don't know what you want to study. Make a deal with them: you can live at home and work and save money for one year. If at the end of the year you know what you want to major in, you'll go to school. If you don't, you'll move out and support yourself. Do some research: show them statistics about student loan default rates, about how much money you can expect to make your first year after graduation, about the average debt of college students after graduation. Tell them that you are making the responsible decision to hold off on spending money for college until you're sure it will be worthwhile.

If you know exactly what you want to major in and where you want to work and what you want to do with your life, you may still want to consider a state school or community college, or postponing college for a year or two. College is fucking expensive, and it takes a long time to pay off. Even if you are one thousand percent certain and committed and motivated and driven, it will take a long time to realize your dreams. It will take a long time until you can live the life you've dreamed of. Do not get drunk in a hot tub three months after graduation and start crying in a fake British accent about how you've been waiting "so long" but you can't find a job (yeah, Fay, thanks for ruining my 21st birthday). It's been three months. This is going to be a long, expensive, difficult, stressful, exhausting struggle. Be patient, work hard, and understand that you're going to face a lot of failure before your "big break".

Think of it this way: if you inherited some sort of legacy that gave you an allowance of $100,000 a year, what would you do with your time? Would you still want to write? Would you still want to teach? Would you still want to clean teeth? Would you still want to sell clothes? What is the one thing you could see yourself doing for the rest of your life, even if you didn't need any money? Now imagine that you are getting an allowance of $30,000 a year. It's enough to make ends meet, as long as you don't have kids. But working would give you some extra income, would help you save and afford big purchases and maybe even support a family. What is the one thing you would want to do? Now imagine that there is no allowance, no inheritance. It is up to you, to your talents and skills and passions to support yourself and your future family. What do you want to do?

If the answers you're coming up with are things like "socialize", "something that would give me lots of vacation days and leave my weekends free", or "something with a good benefits package", don't go to a liberal arts college. Maybe don't go to college at all. Go to a vocational school, take business classes online, work full-time at a bagel shop or part-time as a security guard or intern at a business. But if the answers you're coming up with are things like "counsel suicidal teenagers" or "write poetry" or "teach seventh grade math", go to college. Get your degree. Just understand that, while all of the stress and money and hardship will be worth it in the end, the end is a long way from where you are now. Be prepared.

an open letter to Jesus

Hey,

Listen. You need to cut this shit out. When i stood in chapel week after week and sang, "Break my heart for what breaks Yours", i didn't mean it like this. I didn't mean that i wanted to fall to my knees in tears when someone uses their misunderstanding of science to harm women. No one has called me a slut. No one has pressured me to keep the baby of my rapist. I've never even been raped. I didn't want to feel this much for those who have. I wanted to be able to continue living my life while feeling sort of vaguely bad for people who are worse off than me, and i really think that You should have understood that.

I didn't want to be reduced to tears of rage when hate exploded toward the LGBTQ community, when a chicken sandwich became the symbol of discrimination and intolerance. I'm not a lesbian. I've never even been bi-curious. I mean, sure, it sucks that gay people find themselves disowned by their families, friends, and churches, that they lose their jobs, that they get bullied, that people are actively raising money to prevent them from accessing basic human rights, but i don't even want to be involved in this discussion, so why am i so heartbroken over what other people are saying?

Did You know that a version of Jim Crow is back? Did You know about the Invisible Children? Did You know about homelessness, malnutrition, AIDS, cancer, cyberbullying, domestic violence, mental illness? Did You know that some people preach hate in Your name?

Come on. I don't have time to worry about this. I don't have the emotional capacity to feel for all of this. I have problems of my own, You know: rent, terrible roommates, college loans, student teaching, family drama, health concerns, depression and anxiety, separation from friends and loved ones, work stress, a fight with my boyfriend, my car is unregistered and uninsured, and i hardly seem to have time for myself anymore.

When i said "Break my heart for what breaks Yours," i didn't mean actual heartbreak. I didn't want to empathize, i wanted to sympathize. I wanted to feel gently sorry for people who were worse off than me, and then get back to my caramel iced coffee and air conditioning and wishing i could buy more organic food. I wanted to cling to my first world concerns.

Empathy fucking hurts. Is it too late to take it back? Is it too late to return to fuzzy sympathy? Because You know, all these feelings are too much. If i keep feeling all these feelings, i'm going to have to do something about them.

If i keep feeling these feelings, if You keep breaking my heart for what breaks Yours, i won't ever be able to return to sympathy. I'll have to be an advocate for the voiceless, a lobbyist for the powerless, a trailblazer for those lost in the wilderness. If You keep peeling back the layers of my ignorance, removing the blinders from my eyes, softening my heart, i won't be able to feel sympathy ever again. I won't be able to return to personal, first-world concerns. If you keep this up, i will be consumed by the least of these. I will feed the hungry, instead of merely buying food from companies that promise to donate a fraction of the proceeds to a "feed the hungry" charity. I will clothe the naked, instead of merely buying shoes that promise to give one pair to a child. I will visit the sick and imprisoned, instead of merely praying that Your spirit will visit them.

If You don't cut this out, i will have no other choice than to become You, to be Your hands and feet, to love with Your heart, to see with Your eyes. I will have no choice except to be transformed into Your image, to become the light and the salt, to be Christ to a world that desperately needs a Savior. And just because that's what You told us all to do doesn't mean i was supposed to actually do it, right? I thought it was more of a combined teamwork thing where everyone does a little from their armchair and suddenly the world is in harmony? When You allowed me to be born into privilege, when You made me white and straight and American and pretty and healthy and sturdily middle-class and intelligent, You didn't really intend for me to use my position of privilege to help those of less fortunate births, did You?

Did You?

Mark 1-6

Mark 2:15-17
Now it happened, as He was dining in Levi's house, that many tax collectors and sinners also sat together with Jesus and His disciples; for there were many and they followed him. And when the Scribes and Pharisees saw Him eating with the tax collectors and sinners, they said to His disciples, "How is it that He eats and drinks with tax collectors and sinners?" When Jesus heard it, He said to them, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance."

I could write a whole series of posts about the frustrations i have with the church, but Matthew Paul Turner already has that covered. But one thing that has been on my heart a lot in the past year or so is that it seems like the Church only exists for the Church. Sure, we do missions work and give to charities and whatnot, but the majority of our programming, the majority of our funding, our time, and our energy, goes to the Church. We don't seem to want to reach out to anyone, to bring anyone in, unless they're already a Christian. It's like one big circle jerk, with everyone just making themselves feel better and accomplishing nothing.

I don't want to talk about Chik-Fil-A anymore. I'm tired. All i want to say is that it is a really good example of what i'm talking about. What did this whole thing accomplish? Who was brought to Christ because of this week's demonstrations? Earlier in the week, i read a blog post (can't remember where), where the author talked about how we push LGBTQ people away. She said to go ahead and vote your conscience, vote your morality, but when you put out that lawn sign about voting down equal marriage, did any gay people come knock on your door and say, "Thank you so much for showing me the error of my ways! Please, get your Bible and show me how I can live a better life."? That never happened. Your efforts to deny civil rights to a group of people who just want to be treated as people did nothing to further the Kingdom. 

Let me be clear: i am not advocating any particular stance about homosexuality. I've written about this before, and i stick to my position of non-position. If you think that it's a sin, that's your prerogative. But you should know that you are treating sinners the wrong way. Jesus said not to hide our lights under baskets, but isn't that exactly what we're doing? We are showing light only to those who can already see. We are comforting only those who are already happy. We are handing out Band-Aids only to those who are perfectly healthy, while all around us people are dying.

We need to stop this, guys. We need to stop scheduling church events for church people. Do we really need seven different Sunday School classes for people under 25? Do we really need six pot-lucks a year, three Sunday services every week, rotating worship teams? Might that time, energy, talent, and money be better spent volunteering in a soup kitchen, or giving blood, or playing a free outdoor concert of good music where people are encouraged to mingle and talk? Instead of evangelizing, why don't we converse? Instead of arguing, why don't we dialogue? Why are we incapable of leaving room at the table for love?

We need to end the myth of saving people for Church. We have all sinned, and fallen short of the glory of God, and we all continue to do so every single damn day. Mike Warnke, a Christian comedian, once talked about the futility of getting cleaned up to take a bath. We don't need to purify ourselves for Christ. We don't need to become perfect for the Church. We don't need to stop sinning to worship, to fellowship, to pray. Rather, we become holy through these things.

There are people in the world dying of spiritual cancer, and we keep offering Band-Aids to people with skinned knees. Let's stop that bullshit, okay? Let's focus on the things that matter, things like poverty and disease and hunger and education and discrimination and rape and murder and drugs and human trafficking. Because here's the thing: when you've healed the cancer, you don't have to worry so much about things like skinned knees. They will take care of themselves.

Human Interactions 103

At 7:20 PM Monday night, a woman called one of our enrollment counselors and left a message, asking if she could bring a large group in for a tour on Tuesday morning. Several problems with this:

1. The counselor she called is not the one who arranges the tours. She does not have access to the tour guide schedules. It is therefore difficult for her to set up a tour for anyone.
2. The person who does set up tours was not in the office at all on Monday. She works from home in the mornings on Tuesday, but she does not check her voicemail from home. And this Tuesday being the day before a national holiday, i'm not sure if she will be in at all today. There has therefore been no opportunity for the tour request to be passed along to her, leaving it to the counselor who received the voicemail to do everything herself.
3. Calling thirteen and a half hours before you intend to show up is not really ideal. Especially if you are calling after normal business hours. (Hint: normal business hours are 9-5, though 8-6 is not totally unheard of.) If you call outside of normal business hours, you should do so at least 24 hours before you plan to show up, giving the other person time to hear your voicemail, call you to confirm your visit, and set up the tour for you.
4. Group tours are harder to arrange than individual ones, and really really really need advance notice. We can throw together a really good individual visit at the last second, but group tours are very tricky. 
5. If you have left a voicemail for someone but have not yet spoken to them in person, you should not assume that they are prepared to handle your request. They may be on vacation, especially if you are calling two days before a national holiday. If their job requires travel (like, for example, a college enrollment counselor who goes to lots of college fairs and teen camps during the summer), they may not be in the office at all this week.
6. Having left a voicemail thirteen and a half hours ago with the wrong person, and having failed to talk to anyone at all to confirm your visit, when you come strolling into the office at ten minutes after nine AM, it does not behoove you to demand that the tour be "quick". Our campus is a certain predetermined size and has a certain predetermined number of buildings. In order for the tour to be worth your while, it will necessarily take a certain predetermined amount of time. But showing up ten minutes after we have all gotten to the office and demanding that we abbreviate the service that we have not yet agreed to render you is a little presumptuous. 

So what can we learn from this?


Be considerate of others, especially when you are demanding a service from them. I know this goes against much of what you were taught. You are the customer, and the customer is always right. However, this is not true. The customer is always the customer, and always deserves respect, patience, and our best efforts to make you happy. But you are not always right.

Remember that this is our job, and we know a lot more about how it works than you do. Defer to our knowledge, experience, and skills. Ask us how we can best serve you.

Give people plenty of advance notice when you are planning to visit, especially if you are asking them to do something special for you on that visit. When you drop in with no notice, you are only hurting yourself. If the abbreviated tour you demanded does not meet your expectations, that is your own fault.

Respect normal business hours. If you have to call outside of them, that's fine. We understand. But leave a voicemail with the understanding that we won't be able to even listen to your voicemail until 8 AM at the earliest, and more realistically, 9. We won't be able to return your call until after that. We won't be able to talk to you personally and set up a visit and make sure  your needs and requests are met until after 9 AM. This is just how businesses work.

Know what you're asking for. Some requests are small and some are large. And when you don't work in that particular business, you don't always know which is which. Don't assume that a request that seems simple actually will be. There might be a lot more to it than you think.

There will be a test on all of this. Be prepared. Class dismissed.

Dear Amtrak

On the evening of Sunday, June 10th, I went to the Wilmington, DE station to board my 11:36pm train back to Boston. Your website recommends arriving 30 minutes before you are scheduled to board; I was there 45 minutes early. I had already printed my ticket, and I checked the departure board before going to the platform. The board told me my gate, and had the correct time listed for my departure (11:36). By 11:45, I was beginning to wonder if there had been a delay. Although the platform had electronic message boards to alert passengers of any changes in the schedule, I had not seen anything at all about my train. By midnight, I was seriously concerned. I called my father, who went online and discovered that power outages down the line had delayed all trains by at least an hour; my train would probably not arrive until one AM.

The message boards on the platform still said nothing.

Eventually, trains began arriving. However, the message boards were not being updated properly, so they were giving last boarding call fifteen minutes before the trains had even arrived at the station. As you can imagine, this caused some confusion.

I was scheduled to be on the 66 train to Boston. Eventually, a 900-something train pulled into the station. The electronic message boards had no information about what train this was, the conductors announced nothing, and I didn't see anyone to ask. I assumed that my train would be the next one and settled down to wait. A security guard working at the station came to me after the train had pulled out to inform me that that was the last train of the night. I eventually had to pay an extra $69 for a train that left at 4:50 the next morning. I will miss a day of work, not to mention a night of sleep.

I understand that delays happen from time to time, and that they are no one's fault. I understand that there are mechanical difficulties, communications snafus, and any manner of other mistakes that cause confusion. However, it is your job to work as hard as you can to keep all of your passengers informed of any changes in their travel plans. All stations need to be made aware of delays, and need to update their passengers accordingly. When you know that there has been an issue, you need to work extra hard to ensure that everyone knows what is going on. Plans change, and it's not necessarily anyone's fault. That's okay. What is not okay is not telling anyone that plans have changed.

I have been deeply disappointed and greatly inconvenienced by your mistakes this weekend. In future, please endeavor to suck less.

Tired, hungry, frustrated, and broke,
Diana Lark

poemings

I wrote this draft as part of a multi-genre research project for one of my classes. 

#istillneedaworkshop

these birds are not angry

they’re all twitterpated

tweeting madly for followers

                John Cleese calls them “twats”

                Hannah Hart calls them “tweeps”

                i call them “fans”

                to inflate my own ego

tweet, retweet, favorite

create a hashtag punch line

hope that the Bloggess will see it

                shouting into chaos

                140 characters at a time

                how does one bird

                stand out from the rest?

at least the mafia requests have died down

should i add events before 2007?

i just edited my subscription to you

                are you only friends with me to be polite?

                what is your subscription to me?

                why did you like this picture

                and not that one?

Mark Zuckerberg keeps tinkering

so hard to control privacy

it’s not just my words, it’s my whole life

                how do i separate the ‘book’ from the ‘face’?

                how do i invite discussion without asking for a fight?

                is it better to be stalked or ignored?

                can’t i just sing my song?

everything all at once

Sometimes i think i have already written all of my words. I have been prodigal with my talent, squandering it early in my life on diary entries, unfinished short stories, and unnecessarily witty Facebook statuses. I worry that i will spend the rest of my life editing the same thirty or forty poems over and over and blogging about what other people did at work.

I feel empty, drained, squeezed, scraped, dry.

And then i'm in class watching two students present, and M is talking way too slowly and giving far too much detail while K does absolutely everything he can think of short of pulling the fire alarm to get M's attention and signal him to wrap it up. After all, part of their grade is based on the time they take.

And then i'm at home cleaning and Adam is blown up and i'm lighting candles and tattooing my flesh.

And then i'm at the beach with John eating fresh doughnuts and i am overcome with love and joy.

I'm stuck because there is too much to say. My words aren't gone, they're piling together so fast that they are clogging the funnel of my hands and mind. I can't write because it is impossible to choose just one word, one image, one moment.

Letter to My Boss

Dear Dick,

You are not as charming as you think you are. Stop trying to use your obnoxious laugh to get me to do things for you. I am your assistant. It is my job to do things for you, and your staccato chuckles are not making it any easier. Stop before i punch you in the throat to make that noise go away. Furthermore, charm is not an adequate replacement for competence. Trust me when i tell you that people will like you better if you actually do your job.

Condescension does not help people understand you. It pisses them off. Even the people who are honestly too dumb to know what you are saying will understand that you are being condescending and will hate you forever. Maybe the problem is not the other people. Maybe the problem is you not understanding the various challenges associated with being an adult and having a real job.

Where the hell are you? You have no meetings or appointments today, you just got back from vacation last week, and i have not seen you all day. I need to talk to you to get guidance on my latest assignment. Your employees need to talk to you to check in on their weekly progress. People in other departments need to talk to you so that they can better support our department and improve conditions in their own department. You are a pretty important cog in this machine. When you go AWOL, the entire organization suffers. We need to know where you are. If you want to work from Starbucks, fine. But at least tell me that that's what you're doing. If you are not in this office by noon, i am putting "WANTED" posters all over campus with a picture of you photoshopped to look like Waldo. You have been warned.

Finally, and i cannot stress this enough, you need to do your job. Two months ago, i gave you an invoice. You needed to sign off on the expense and put the correct account number on it. You emailed someone in a different department to ask them which account number to use and she responded that the expense came out of your department, not hers. You then sat on your ass for two months, eating my candy and laughing loudly as you asked me to finish your outstanding Visa statement (i was still waiting on half a dozen receipts from you). Finally, when the neglected expense had become urgent, you went back to the woman from the other department and tried to make her fix your problem. Guess what, asshole? It's still your problem. And if you had taken care of it when you were originally asked to, you wouldn't be in trouble now.

Do. Your. Job.
Sincerely,
Diana

Prostitots

You know what i'm talking about. Those little tween girls (though i've seen them as young as four years old) who wear skin-tight camisoles with flouncy mini-skirts. The girls who walk around in groups of 3-6, wearing booty shorts with words on their asses.

Prostitots: little whores in training.

When did little girls stop wearing awkward overall/dress things (jumpers? is that what they were called?) with t-shirts underneath? When did it become okay for a fourteen-year-old to sport multiple piercings and highlights? When did children become hyper-sexualized?

I read somewhere once that teenagers are a fairly recent phenomenon created by cultural shifts. It used to be that you were either a child or an adult. Then, suddenly, there was this whole new category: young people who wore their own fashions and listened to their own music and used their own slang. Teenagers, who still needed to ask Mom and Dad's permission to borrow the car or go out with friends or buy things, but disdained the company of "kids". They were their own sub-category of humanity, and they were here to stay.

But lately, it seems to me that we are moving back into two categories. Childhood seems to be disappearing. Even baby shoes, absurdly cute in their tininess, are no longer available only in simple primary colors. Now you can get baby Converse sneakers, skull-emblazoned slip-ons, and even shiny silver baby Uggs. I know adults who shop in the kid's department, not because they have childish taste in clothing, but because children's clothes look like what adults are wearing.

I remember wearing some truly hideous clothes as a child and LOVING them. I remember long-sleeved shirts with ruffled hems, stirrup-pants, and a hot pink nightgown decorated with rainbow colored envelopes. I remember a bowl cut, disastrous bangs, and hair that reached all the way to my (decently covered by loose-fitting, high-waisted jeans) behind.

I also remember being thirteen, having my first job, and being able for the first time to buy my own clothes. I remember my first-ever pair of hip-hugger jeans and how proud i was that i had picked them out and paid for them all on my own. I remember plucking my own eyebrows for the first time, picking out my own haircut, and learning to put on makeup.

These were all important developmental moments for me. These days, moments like that happen almost as soon as a child is able to walk. Sometimes before, when a parent thinks that her daughter is cute in a mini-skirt.

She's not cute. She's horrifying.

Let your kids be kids. Because when you don't, we end up with twenty-two year old women who want to wear Disney princess wedding gowns and can't leave the house unless something they are wearing sparkles. And that is almost as embarrassing to see as a fourteen-year-old with a "My Boyfriend Thinks I'm Studying" t-shirt.

anxiety

I have generalized anxiety disorder. I have never been formally diagnosed by a mental health professional, but i know enough about myself and GAD to see it, and others who have been diagnosed with GAD have confirmed my suspicions. Plus i took an online test, so, yeah.

This means that i live most days with what i like to call a "functional level of anxiety". I'm almost never totally calm and happy and relaxed, but it doesn't really get in the way of my life. Which is why i've never bothered to be officially diagnosed, or to go on any kind of medication.

See, i really feel like no one should ever take any kind of medicine at all for any reason unless their issue is preventing them from living a normal life. Why would you put chemicals into your body and brain if you don't have to? Is your cholesterol at a life-threatening level? Go ahead and get a prescription. Does your bipolar disorder prevent you from even going to therapy? Get a prescription.

But people have a tendency to go for a quick fix. "I feel sad today and have for a few days now, so I'll pop some antidepressants until I feel better." Why not M'N'Ms? They taste better and you can chew them. And they won't alter the chemistry of your brain until you become dependent on medication to get out of bed in the morning.

Prescription drugs, particularly psychiatric medications, change the very structures of your brain. If you don't need them when you start taking them, you will create a need for them. This is why i get pissed off when people put their six-year-old children on Ritalin. Their brains aren't even finished being formed, and you're giving them something that could alter those brains forever. Guess what? The long-term effects of ADHD medications are unknown.Some kids grow out of their ADD/ADHD. Some don't. And some of the ones who don't honestly need a medication in order to get through the day.


And that's okay.

If you are unable to get through the day without help, please get help. There is no shame in admitting that you can't do everything on your own. And this is coming from a girl who won't even ask for a ride to the grocery store, and will instead walk a mile each way in the snow and ice, carrying heavy grocery bags on the way back (and that is in no way an exaggeration). If you need help, get it.

Anyway, my anxiety rarely interferes with my life in any way. Occasionally, i'll have a mini-anxiety attack. For 30-90 seconds, i'll be on the verge of tears for no real reason. But i can focus and power through and be okay. Sometimes i'll have to step away from my desk for a minute and find a quiet corner where i can breathe deeply and put my head down. But these attacks are infrequent, coming perhaps once a month. They in no way affect my ability to live my life.

But this week, i had three major anxiety attacks in five hours.

My functional level of anxiety comes with a range. Some days, i am more relaxed. Some days, i am more stressed. But even in the midst of my mini-attacks, i tend to stay within this range. I'll be right at the top of it, but i'm in it.

Tuesday, i was at the top of my range. Maybe slightly above. I was tense and anxious, but pretty much okay.

Wednesday, my anxiety spiked to a level i can't remember hitting since high school. It climbed steadily all day, peaking right before my class. I walked into the classroom, put my things on a desk, and walked out again. I found a quiet corner and cried for a few minutes. I was trying to breathe, trying to figure out whether or not i could even go to class. Finally, i decided that since i'd have to go back eventually, if only to get my stuff, i should try to sit through class. I decided to stay until i couldn't. I remained tense, shaky, and disoriented.

I made it through the class and started walking home. Another attack came. This time, instead of crying, i found myself struggling to draw breath. I was shaking and choking. I'm not sure how i made it all the way home. All i know is that, just when my house came into view, i remembered that i had recently found an ice cream sale and stocked up. (Side note: over the last year and a half, there has been an ice cream sale every time i have encountered personal pain. I feel like it's God's way of saying, "Here. I love you. Have some ice cream. It will be okay.") I laughed a little, remembering those many weeks and months of clinging desperately to hope and Haagen-Dazs, and went into the house.

A little while later, my roommates and i were chatting in the kitchen, and i started to feel another attack coming on. I tried to focus and power through, but one of my roommates noticed me staring intently at nothing (actually, i was staring intently at her left boob, but i wasn't aware of that), and asked if i was okay. My concentration broken, i began shaking violently and sobbing. It was like every muscle in my body was so tense that it was vibrating. This went on for a few minutes, and then it went away.

Here's the thing: Tuesday, i was at the top of my range. Wednesday, for no reason i can figure out, i went off the chart. Thursday, i was back to the middle of my range, maybe even slightly below.

I've had stress in my life the past week or so, but no more than i have in years past. College is stressful, and i have definitely broken down once or twice. But i was always able to pinpoint a reason, which means it was a normal breakdown and not an anxiety attack. There was nothing i could think of that could have triggered what happened. Maybe it was just a collection of little things that hit at a time when my brain chemistry was off. I don't know.

The point is, this week was the first time that i ever thought about trying a prescription. These attacks came out of nowhere. And while afterwards i was fine, i have no guarantee that tomorrow i won't be a basketcase again. I don't know what happened or how to predict it. I don't know what to expect tomorrow.

I Don't Want To Be A Teacher

Here's the thing: I am passionately interested in education. I've mentioned before that i was homeschooled, but i haven't said much about it before. That's a subject for another post. For now, i'll just say that public schools were ill-equipped to handle me appropriately.

I have two BAs, one in English creative writing and one in the psychology of child and adolescent development. I wanted to work as a counselor with high school students. Not a school counselor or a guidance counselor, but a psychologist who worked with troubled children and teenagers.

But once i got to college, my focus shifted. More and more, i saw students who were unprepared for academic success. I saw that students on the extremes of the spectrum (gifted or struggling) felt that their needs were not being met, and that average students were bored and frustrated by teachers who "teach the (standardized) tests".

After my sophomore year, i got a summer job in the admissions department of my college. One of the things i was working on was a spreadsheet for a particular academic review committee. This committee made final decisions about students on the low end of the spectrum. Sometimes it was clear that the student worked hard and wanted to learn, but that a learning disability or family situation had gotten in the way of their academic achievements. Sometimes it was clear that a student simply wasn't able to handle higher education.

Managing this spreadsheet was deeply and profoundly depressing. In many cases, it was simply too late for us to do anything. If a student has reached the 12th grade without attaining at least a 9th grade competency in the three R's, what can a college do to bring them up to speed? This child should have been helped far earlier. But now they have somehow graduated, and there is nothing we can do.

But this wasn't only depressing. It also made me angry, and i couldn't quite put my finger on why. One day, i was asked to write a brief description for the catalogue of our academic support program. As i researched this program, i found something that explained my anger. According to our website, the purpose of this support program was to help students who had graduated from high school without being academically prepared for college.

Boom.

The whole point of high school is to prepare you (academically, socially, psychologically, etc) for whatever comes next. If that is college, great. Your SAT scores may not be off the charts, but you should be able to take that next step. Maybe you need a little extra support. But you should be able to graduate from high school and make a fairly seamless transition to college. And if college is not in your future, it should be because you don't want to go to college, and you should still be intellectually, socially, and psychologically prepared to go out into the workforce. It makes absolutely no sense to me that any person can graduate from high school and not be prepared for that next step. What are the graduation requirements that you have fulfilled?

More and more, this issue worked its way under my skin and itched. My head swirled with the names on the spreadsheet, the experiences of my friends, my own memories of public school. I resolved to take my degree in child and adolescent development, get some advanced degrees in human development (and cognitive processes, research, public policy, etc), and take on public education. I wanted to fix the system.

In my junior year, i made friends with an education professor. He had taught high school English for nearly ten years before returning to his alma mater to train the next generation. He began telling me that i should be a teacher. I resisted this. I didn't want to teach; i only wanted to work in education from the outside. While i conceded that a teaching background might give me credibility and valuable experience in my quest, i also thought it would be good for me to do this research without being biased by my own students. I wanted to look at hard data and make my decisions with an open mind.

In my senior year, i had decided to defer grad school for a time. I wanted to narrow my focus a little more so that i could select an appropriate graduate program. I wanted to pay off my student loans. I wanted a break from school. I had prayed about it and felt that it was right to take some time off before pursuing advanced degrees in psychology. But this friend, Ben, wouldn't let the whole teacher thing go.

More and more, i thought about teaching, and more and more i resisted the idea. I don't like talking to people. Teaching is all about talking to people; and not just students, but also parents and administrators. I'd have to do SAT prep, which would go against the grain of everything i wanted to accomplish. I'd have to make lesson plans, which would be boring. I'd have to do the same thing year after year after year, and i'd be doing it for very little pay. I felt no attraction to that path in life.

People began telling me that i would be a good teacher. People who had no idea that i was thinking about this. People began asking me how my student teaching was going because after four years, they had forgotten that i was double majoring in English and psych and just assumed that i was an education major. I was working in a private school and seeing the things done well and things done badly, and i couldn't stop myself from making mental notes about how i would do things.

Finally, i realized that God was definitely calling me to teach. I was pissed. I tried to argue the point with Him, but He wouldn't cave. He kept making counter-arguments, and although He totally could have, He never resorted to the cheap, "Because I said so," rebuttal. But we both knew that that sentence was between us, the unspoken ultimate ultimatum.

If pressed, i'd have to say that my decision to teach was made reluctantly, even irritably, because everyone else has fucked it up and now i have to go in there and fix it. I want it to be done well, and i realize that the best way to ensure that it is done well is to do it myself. But that doesn't make me any less pissed about it. I still plan to get my advanced degrees in psych and to work in research and administrative positions in the general field of public education. But for now, all of that is being deferred in favor of an M.Ed. I'm going to teach high school English, and i'm going to do it well, and i'm going to be pissed about it.

But i'm going to do it well. Ben insists that, once i get started, i'll love it. I think i probably won't hate all of it. This was never what i wanted to be doing, but life hits you that way sometimes. It's a means to an end, and when all is said and done, there are worse ways to fix public education than simply going in there and teaching. And since we've already tried pretty much all of the worse ways, it may be time to admit that we've run out of options.

I don't want to be a teacher. But i do want there to be more literate people in the world. I do want those who want to go to college to have that opportunity. I do want people to speak and write clearly and correctly. And i have enough self-awareness to know that i can't keep my hands out of this effort. I have to be involved. So i'll teach.

Gender Equality

Women have to be everything all at once. We must be soft and warm and nurturing. We must be hard and cold and commanding. We must be "feminine", and glory in shoes and cosmetics and flowers and throw pillows. We must be "masculine", and glory in athletics and competition and information.

Women must be passionate about their academic and professional goals. We must desire to excel, striving for perfect grades, promotions, distinctions, awards, and "success". We must also be passionate about our families and homes, wanting to raise our children, clean our houses, and cook our meals.

Career women are condemned for deserting their homes and hiring nannies and housekeepers, or sending their children to daycare. It is said that they are cold and heartless cunts, who care more for their own personal gains than for their families. They should be ensuring that their children do not eat too much junk food or spend too much time playing video games, and they are directly responsible for all cases of juvenile delinquency and childhood obesity in America.

Housewives are mocked for never doing anything with their college degrees, assuming they obtained them at all. It is said that they are silly, empty-headed disgraces to Rosie the Riveter, and Susan B. Anthony, and all the rest of the Sisterhood. They could have done great things with their lives, and instead they chose to dust furniture and change diapers.

Here is the truth: every woman is different. Some women, though they dearly love their children and their homes, find their ultimate fulfillment outside of the house. They work hard to support their families, and are glad to be shining examples to their children (especially their daughters) of all that Woman can be. And some women, though they have their hobbies and interests outside of the home, find their ultimate fulfillment in dusting furniture and changing diapers. They understand that they are a living, breathing, shining example to their children (especially their daughters) of loving self-sacrifice, and of Family, and of how Woman can use her gifts of intellect, athleticism, and so on to create a perfect home environment for husband and children.

Men are not allowed to be anything at all, ever. Men cannot be too soft and warm and nurturing, or they will be called names. They cannot be too hard and cold and commanding, or they will be accused of bad fatherhood/domineering over their female coworkers and subordinates. A man who is secure and confident must surely be using Freudian stratagems to intimidate women so that they will not be a threat to him in the workplace. A man who is gentle and kind must surely be less than a man.

If a man is passionate about his academic and professional goals, he is an automaton who has no interest in culture, or children, or romance. He simply wants to outdo everyone else so that he can feed his own ego, and he cares nothing about anyone else in the world, and he probably has some sort of social disorder, and is very likely a homophobe.

If a man is passionate about home and family life, he is a pussy who has allowed his wife to emasculate him, forcing him to buy a minivan and cook oatmeal, and probably wear a frilly apron while he sings the baby to sleep. He has no pride, no ambition, and no masculinity.

Here is the truth: every man is different. Some of them find their ultimate fulfillment at home, caring for their children, cooking meals for their families, and attending PTA meetings. They understand the immense role that they are playing in their childrens' lives, by being a constant example of loving authority, guidance, and fun. They love to play games with their children, they don't mind reading the same story again and again, and they can imagine no greater pride and joy than watching the first few wobbly steps, bike rides, alphabets, dances, pitches, brush strokes, and so forth. This is their greatest accomplishment: their children can run fast, jump high, write smoothly, paint brightly, sing loudly, and dance with joy. And some men find their ultimate fulfillment outside of the home, knowing that the work they do supports their families. They are glad to do some good in the world, to bring about changes in their small spheres of existence, to follow their passions and accomplish their dreams of success and personal growth.

And on a side note, a woman who is interested in sports or business or math is not automatically assumed to be a lesbian. Why should a man who is interested in art or music or theater automatically be assumed gay? A gay man can work in construction, or run for public office, or practice law or medicine, or teach chemistry. And a straight man can perform on Broadway, or dance ballet, or write poetry, or direct community theater. Let's not assume. We all know what that does to you and me.

Kindling

I have a confession to make.

A few months ago, i bought myself a Kindle.

I know, i know. It's an abomination. Reading is a very sensuous experience. You can feel the feathery, silky pages under your fingers and the pressure of the book in your hands. You smell the rich and varied scents of paper, ink, and binding, ranging from the intoxicating freshness of a brand-new book (which, incidentally, is exactly what my boyfriend smells like), to the dusty, leathery musk of a used one. You see the typeface, carefully selected for that particular text, and you see the covers, the myriad shades of white according to the type of paper used and the age of the book, the tiny imperfections of the page, and the smudges in the margins of a book well-read.

A Kindle has none of that. All typefaces are converted into one, and while it is clear and easy to read, it has none of the individuality of a paper text, nor can "hand-written" notes in the story be seen in their original glory. It smells very faintly of plastic and the fake leather of the case. There is no variety in the smooth perfection of the virtual pages, and even underlining or comments in the margins create only a minimal disturbance in the pristine, black-and-white visual. It is clean, sterile, and heartless.

I have also been accused of contributing to the downfall of the publishing companies. This is just nonsense. First of all, i will still buy paper texts. The Kindle is mostly for travel and beach fiction. Secondly, the publishing companies are the ones who create and distribute the ebooks. Finally, most of the books on my Kindle are in the public domain, meaning that they are free and can be found on a number of websites (my personal favorites are Amazon and Gutenberg). Sure, publishing companies make money off of them, but only by reprinting existing editions with fancier covers (and yes, i covet those with all my soul, but i am not currently in a position to slap down $10 on a shiny new Jane Austen novel, when i already own three copies of it.) Furthermore, many of my Kindle ebooks are simply free digital copies of books that i already own in paper format, and that i paid good money to a publishing company to obtain. I just want a digital backup so that i can take my favorite books on the road or to the beach, and so that i will always have a copy, no matter how many paperbacks i read into confetti.

Why did i buy a Kindle? A few different reasons. First, i live in Massachusetts, and my family lives in Delmarva. When i go home for holidays, i spend lots of time either in an airport or in a bus/car. Then i get to the house, where everyone is at work or school. I have no car, and no job/school/friends to occupy me, and we are ten miles from the nearest shopping district. So i bring lots of books with me. Meaning i have to lug heavy suitcases around everywhere and i have no room for clothes. A Kindle means that i can bring thousands of books with me, in a package smaller than most paperbacks and weighing hardly more than my phone.

Next, i'll be starting grad school in the fall. Most Kindle ebooks cost less than $25. So i can buy one Kindle for $140 and a bunch of textbooks for $25 or less, or i can buy a bunch of textbooks for $100-300 each. I know that many textbooks can be bought used for much cheaper, and that is indeed how i got through my undergraduate education. But here is something else to consider: i find that i never really need to read my textbooks. Sometimes, sure, they are helpful, but for the most part i find that lecture notes are perfectly adequate. Kindle allows you to download a sample (usually the first chapter) of any book for free. If you want more, you can buy the whole book. If not, you can delete it. No harm, no foul. This means that i will only have to buy the books i'll actually use.

Finally, i have grown increasingly concerned with my usage of paper. Everyone is trying to be more green these days, but there are some areas where you just can't cut corners. For example, a hospital has to throw away all of their used tongue depressers, even if the person it was used on is perfectly healthy. They can't just sterilize it and reuse it. Hospitals use a lot of energy, water, and other resources, and no one in their right minds is suggesting that they cut any corners. Sure, they could maybe switch to more earth-friendly lighting, and one argument against keeping people on life support is that the resources keeping them in a vegetative state could be used to actually cure someone, but for the most part, every "waste" in a hospital is perfectly justified.

Now, i'm not saying that my artistic sensibilites are the same as open-heart surgery, but i am saying that i write better when i write by hand than when i write on a computer. I feel more comfortable writing by hand, or printing out a copy of a draft and editing it. I like to hold the pen in my fingers and feel the paper under my hand. I feel more connected to the work that way. So i use a lot of paper when i am writing. I try to use scrap paper when i can, and i recycle the old drafts, but there is still a lot of waste. So i cut corners in other places when i can. And there is simply no reason that i should buy a paper copy of a book that is in the public domain. There is no reason that i should buy a paper copy of beach fiction. There is no reason that i should buy a paper textbook.

My favorite books i will always own in physical form, whether purchased brand-spankin' new or lovingly used. I will read them until their bindings disintegrate and then i will buy a fresh copy. I will break their spines, dog-ear their pages, spill tea on their covers, and scribble incomprehensible notes in their margins. My cat will chew on their edges. They will be forgotten on trains, borrowed and never returned, faded by the sun, used to prop up wobbly table legs, and will fall off of moving trucks and be lost forever. And while i save up money for the coveted hardback copy with the decorative cover, i'll always have my digital backup.

God Grades on Effort

Some Christians treat Heaven like an exclusive college: we may not have to know all of the answers perfectly, but if we don't get good enough scores on our SATs, or if our GPA or class rank is too low, we won't get in. We work hard to make the cutoff, putting in extra credit work here and there in an effort to raise our scores. We evangelize, give to charity, attend church, pray, fast, and so on, and we piously say that we are storing up for ourselves treasures in Heaven, that our Reward will make all of this suffering and sacrifice worthwhile, that we are carrying our crosses and bearing our thorns for the glory of His name.

Some Christians, on the other hand, don't really spend that much time thinking about the afterlife. We know that it's there, and we are reasonably certain of our chances of getting there, but we don't worry about it beyond that. When we pray, we do so because we want to talk to God, not because we know that we are "supposed" to pray. When we do extra credit work, we do it because we care about other people and want to reach out to them in love, not because we are trying to get more points or win more souls to Christ. We just want to give of our plenty to those who are in need, whether that giving is in the form of money, time, or abilities.

When Jesus was asked to choose the greatest of the commandments, He said to love God with everything we have, and to love one another at least as well as we love ourselves. Now, He did give us lots of other instructions about how to go about loving God and people, but at bottom, everything He said comes back to those commandments. Love God, love people. We should love one another because we are all human beings, and we are all brothers and sisters in the human race. We are all made in God's image. You don't help your little sister tie her shoes because you think your mom will give you money for it (at least, most of the time you don't). You do it because she is your sister, and no matter how annoying it is to have to take care of her, and teach her how to do things, and delay your life to make sure that hers gets on track, you still love her (grudgingly, exasperatedly, deeply), because she is your sister.

(NB: Jesus did not say that we have to like everyone. Just that we have to love them. In Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis said that the key to this passage is "loving as you love yourself". Think of the way you love yourself: you may not wake up every day thinking, "I am awesome. I wish I could spend more time with me. I am simply the coolest thing since sliced bread," but you still love yourself. You take care of yourself, not because you are awesome, but because you are you. You try to take care of your own best interests, to preserve your health and dignity, to make yourself happy and content. We should love one another in this way, even when we don't particularly want to be friends with one another.)

I don't think God worries too much about what your score is. I think He knows the difference between someone who is searching for Him and someone who is trying to find the right answer, and i think that He grades on effort, not on results. Consider 1 Samuel 16:7, where Samuel is trying to find the next King of Israel. He keeps guessing wrong, and God tells him not to fixate so much on how things look, but to pay attention to what is inside. In other words, don't tally the score, just look at the intent. Or look at Psalm 37:23-24, where the psalmist praises God's protection of His loved ones. We're going to make mistakes, but we're not going to totally implode, because God is protecting us. He knows the hearts of those who love Him.

In The Last Battle (this is a very C. S. Lewis-heavy post), Aslan has a conversation with a guy who has served Tash (a false, evil god) his whole life. Aslan reassures him of his place in Heaven, saying (this is a paraphrase): "I am so good that any good done in the world is done in my name. And Tash is so evil that any bad done in the world is done in his name. Once people start looking to do good for its own sake, they are really looking for me, and once they look to do bad for its own sake, they are really looking for Tash. You would not have looked so hard or so earnestly if it wasn't me you were looking for."

God isn't playing games. He's not going to keep you out of Heaven because you scored below a certain level, or because you didn't learn all of the required vocabulary, or because your letter of recommendation was not sufficiently impressive. He knows the hearts of those who are truly seeking Him, and He has promised that those who seek will find.

Because I Said So

As stated in an earlier post, i have issues with the position (held by some Christians, but not all) of absolute biblical inerrancy. I won't restate my earlier disclaimers in their entirety, but i will sum them up in case you are too lazy/stupid/both to go back and read them:

Disclaimer 1: I like the Bible and find it to be greatly important in my life. I am not trying to be disrespectful of the Bible, Christians, or faith.

Disclaimer 2: I am not a Bible scholar, i have no degrees in theology/religion/philosophy/scripture/etc. I've just been studying the Bible as an amateur for 21 years, and have spent at least four hours a week nearly every week of my life in church.

I'll start by reiterating my earlier complaint: we ("we" shall hereinafter refer to "Christians") believe that the Bible is inerrant because the Bible says that it is inerrant.

Setting aside the fact that this is a pointless circular argument, let's actually examine the Biblical claims of inerrancy.

They don't exist.

Sure, there are passages that point to the reliability of Scripture, but they are both few and misleading. For example, this passage in Psalms:

     The words of the LORD are pure words,
          Like silver tried in a furnace of the earth,
          Purified seven times.
               Psalm 12:6

This passage comes from the Psalms, which are a bunch of poems in the Bible. For those of you who have never heard of poetic license, click on the link and then go yell at a teacher. For those of you who know what i'm talking about, let's all remember that "pure" and "inerrant" are not necessarily the same thing, that the Psalms are full of soaring hyperbole, and that there is some debate about which parts of the Bible can be considered the Word of God and which parts are (important, valid, but not quite divinely spoken) commentaries.

Next, we'll look at 2 Timothy 3:16-17:

"All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work."

2 Timothy is part of the New Testament. At the time when Paul wrote this letter to Timothy, the "Scripture" consisted of the Old Testament (and possibly the Apocrypha, the legitimacy of which has been widely debated in the Christian Church). So did Paul mean that only the Old Testament was "given by inspiration of God", or did he also mean to include the letter that he was writing to his friend? Much of the New Testament, in fact, is made up of letters. Imagine if, two thousand years after you died, people were debating over which of your emails they should use to guide their lives. Sure, Paul was divinely inspired in many ways, and he had a lot of good stuff to say, but he's also the guy who said that women should not be allowed to speak in public and that they should keep their heads covered at all times. I'm not saying that we should throw out everything he ever wrote just because he made a few bad calls. I am saying that we can't take everything he said at face value, because he was only a man and all people make mistakes from time to time. That's where discernment and the Holy Spirit come in.

So let's spend some time talking about what the Bible looks like, as a document. Parts of it claim to be (again, the Bible itself is making the claim) more or less direct transcriptions of what God actually said we should do and believe. Assuming that the transcriptionist got every word perfectly, that was still many thousands of years ago. Parts of the Bible have been lost. It only exists now because for many, many, many centuries it was copied out by hand over and over. It has been translated again and again and again. Not all of the versions that we have now are actually translated from the original texts. And it was written in a very different cultural context from ours. Even if we could all agree on the correct translation of a particular word, the connotations of that word may well be wildly different here and now than they were there and then.

Again, i am not saying that we should throw out the whole Bible just because some words might not mean what we think they mean. I'm saying that we should spend less time and energy obsessing over exact words. If exact words were that important, don't you think that God would have designed language in such a way as to reduce all this confusion and controversy? If exact words were that important, don't you think that God would give everyone a decoder ring as soon as they became a Christian? If exact words were that important, don't you think we could simply read the Bible and understand it and have no need to attend church services, read commentaries or apologetics, form Bible studies or discipleship groups with one another, or even pray?

The Bible is great, but it can't replace fellowship, discussion, debate, or prayer. We need one another, and we need the Holy Spirit. The Bible simply gives us a starting point for the conversation.

There are also parts of the Bible that are written by people, and do not in any way claim to be transcripts of anything that God has said. The authors were men of God (i'm not being sexist by saying "men" instead of people, because as far as i am aware there are no books of the Bible written by women), who walked closely with Him. Many of them had actually known Jesus personally and wrote stories of his life and teachings. Of course, these stories were written a few years after his death and resurrection and came entirely from their memories, without even the benefit of a backlog of Facebook photo albums and status updates to help them sort out the details. Still, there's a lot of legitimacy to saying, "Jesus said this," if you were actually in the room when the conversation happened. Even if you can't quite repeat it verbatim, we can pretty much trust you to get the gist of it. And as long as we can all agree that exact words aren't that important, the gist is all we really need.

But as i mentioned above, a lot of the New Testament is letters. While the authors of these letters (mostly Paul) were holy and righteous men of God, as well as being intelligent, wise, and well-educated, they were human, and they were writing what they thought. Some thoughts don't wear well with time, don't travel well to other cultures, and don't translate easily. Furthermore, Paul was writing to churches that he knew. He was not posting a Facebook note or blog update to all Christians everywhere. He was saying, "Hey guys, I'm the one who started your church, I've hung out with you a lot, I know the area where you live, I know the leaders in your church, I know the demographics of your congregation, and you just wrote me a letter to ask for my opinion on some specific issues. So here it is." He was not writing for all Christians everywhere, but to specific Christians whose situations he understood intimately.

Let's say you have two friends, Julie and Cindy. They are both in long-distance relationships. Julie and her boyfriend, Tim, have been dating for three years. They have talked about getting married, but now Tim has a new job that will keep him far away indefinitely. It has been hard for them to keep their relationship strong over long distance, but they have made it work. They love each other and are committed to the relationship, but Julie is nervous about moving away from everything she knows in order to marry the love of her life. She'll do it, and she knows that she'll be happy in that choice, but she's still nervous and a little sad about it. Cindy, on the other hand, met her boyfriend Mike online. They have been "dating" for three months, despite the fact that they have never met in person. Now Mike is saying that he doesn't want to move away from his home, and that Cindy should move to where he is if they want to stay together. Would you give the same advice to these two women? (If so, remind me not to become friends with you.)

Some of the things that you say to Cindy will apply to Julie, and vice versa. Some relationship advice is general enough and good enough that it applies to every situation. And some of the things you say to them will apply to friends who are in similar, though not identical, situations. But you can't just put together one manual of relationship advice and expect it to answer every situation every time (though many have tried). And if that won't work for human relationships, why would we expect it to work for divine ones?

Above all else, we must remember that God is not an architect trying to design a building (although there are a lot of great spiritual metaphors involving that idea. But every metaphor breaks down at some point). He did not intend the Bible to be a blueprint, or an instructional manual for building IKEA furniture or using a kitchen appliance. God wants to have a relationship with each and every one of us. We are all different, which means that each of us will have a different relationship with Him. It also means that we will all have to do different things to make that relationship work. There is some relationship advice that is good enough and general enough to work for everyone, and there are some similar relationships that will benefit from similar advice. But at the end of the day, there is no perfect formula for everyone to follow.

The Bible says a lot of things about itself. I have no problem trusting those things, even though i don't like circular arguments. But the Bible doesn't say that it is inerrant. It doesn't say that it is the one and only tool for living a holy and perfect life. In fact, Jesus gave lots of instructions for things like being a good example, loving people, prayer (Jesus Himself, who actually was God, spent a lot of time in prayer. Talk about being a good example), searching for truth and understanding (and blessings), and a host of other tools for living a holy and perfect life. Go ahead and check out the Gospels. Jesus was not short of concrete information. He also said that he had come not to abolish the law, but to fulfill it, and told us to heed and remember His words, and to share them with others. I'm pretty comfortable interpreting that as an instruction to read the Bible and pay attention to what it says.

In closing, i'll quote Paul, who in spite of a few weak places here and there in his writings, i still respect and admire and am glad to learn from: Test all things; hold fast (to) what is good.

Veritas? Quid est veritas?

"Truth? What is truth?"

However crazy Mel Gibson may turn out to be (he just keeps raising the bar for himself, doesn't he?), you can't deny that he got it right at least once. For those of who who have not seen The Passion of the Christ, the quote that titles this post may be confusing. It is spoken by Pilate to his wife as tries to decide whether or not he should have Christ executed. (Side note: if you haven't seen it, you should. It's really a great movie.) Truth is a tricky concept. Some say that there is no such thing. Some say that truth exists, but that it is different for every person, or that it changes across cultures and times. Some think that it exists, but that we will never be able to pin down a satisfactory definition of it while in this imperfect world.

It's an important question. We need to know what truth is, so that we can decide what to teach our children in schools, so that we can decide which leaders to elect, so that those leaders can make executive decisions about laws and wars and social justice. We need to understand truth so that we can relate to one another in constructive and harmonious ways.

Christians need to understand truth because we need to know how to read the Bible. There are some passages of the Bible that are clearly meant to be taken metaphorically (such as in Job 38, where God talks about the ends of the earth, or the storehouses of snow and hail, or the gates that hold back the seas). In fact, there are so many passages that are either full of poetic hyperbole or are limited by the cultural and historic understandings of the authors (ancient Jews), that it can be hard to pinpoint which, if any, are meant to be taken literally.

The big question on the lunatic fringe of both Christianity and secularism is the question of creation. When the Bible says that God created the world with nothing but the power of His words in six days, does that mean that in six 24-hour periods, life as we now know it sprang forth from the void, or does that mean that life has passed through several stages, all of which were planned, executed, guided, and intended by God?

There are plenty of writings to address that particular question, but the real problem is this: the question is not "How was the world created?" but rather, "How can we believe that the Bible is true and accurate if we can't take everything it says literally?" I have my own opinions on that topic (addressed more fully elsewhere), but my real frustration here is a question of vocabulary.

Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried has a passage about the difference between story-truth and happening-truth. It's a wonderful and somewhat tricky concept, and i recommend the book (because it's awesome, and also does a good job explaining this concept), but for now i will do my best to sum it up briefly.

Story truth (hereinafter referred to as "truth") is something that speaks to a real experience, even though it didn't necessarily happen. For example, in this post i tell a story about sitting on my grandmother's porch swing during a thunderstorm. Everything that i say in that post is real. I have a grandmother. She used to have a porch swing. There is a window behind the swing that once broke when someone swung back too far. We used to count the seconds between lightning and thunder in order to calculate the distance of the storm.

But that post is not based on one particular moment. It is a collection of moments, an impression of many memories. My grandmother moved out of that house when i was nine, so many of my memories of that house have run together into one big story. And i was certainly not reflecting on the fleeting nature of joy, or on the differences between joy in childhood and adulthood, or anything of the kind. I was counting the miles.

That post is true. It is full of "truth". But it is not a factual event. It is not a newspaper article of one particular storm. It is not an historical account.

On the other hand, let me tell you a story that displays "happening truth" (hereinafter referred to as "fact"). When 2000 came, my siblings and i were spending the night at my grandmother's house. I was a little disappointed that all electronics did not instantly explode (or whatever the new millenium threatened. People got a little hysterical in 1999). But i remember thinking, "At least we can still watch cartoons in the morning." And i remember trying to sleep while the German exchange student played computer games.

That story is pure fact. Those things really happened. Those are true, concrete memories, not a pretty quilt patched together from fragments of memory and nostalgia.

The whole Bible is true. But not all of it is factual. Some parts of it, while they tell great stories to illustrate points, are not based on anything that ever actually happened. Some parts of it use metaphor to make a point. Some parts give us guidance for our behavior by embroidering what happened.

So how do we know which parts to take literally and which parts to take metaphorically? To tell you the truth, i don't think it's all that important to make a distinction between fact and truth in the Bible. I think that all of the Bible is true, and that it is therefore all useful for instruction and guidance in the Christian life. But as long as God is speaking to you through Scripture, does it really matter whether He is using history or poetry to do so?

Flintstone Vitamins: Why Your Kid Isn't Going to College

It all starts there, with the flavored, chewy, gummy candy vitamins. I can understand making them chewable, since many small children are not able to swallow a pill. But why must they also be delicious? And then we have the bubble-gum flavored cough syrup, the chocolatey drinks to replace actual nutritious food, and a variety of websites devoted to helping parents feed their children.

Seriously?

When i was a kid, we had a rule: You have to try everything once. If you don't like it, you don't have to finish it, and you never have to try it again. But you have to try it. Our parents didn't make a big deal about it, and if we didn't like it, they stuck to their word: we didn't have to eat it. But we had to have some of every food group at least once a day. They were diligent and creative about finding fresh fruits and veggies that we liked, and they were careful to set a good example by eating lots of healthy, delicious foods.

I remember being appalled and a little embarrassed when the neighbor's kid threw a temper tantrum when asked to eat pizza with "green stuff" on it. (The "green stuff" was oregano.) Her parents picked off the dozen or so tiny flakes and then calmed her down so that she could eat her dinner. When my cousin was little, she didn't like cheese. So at a restaurant, when her parents ordered pizza for her, they were careful to say, "She wants plain, regular pizza," which of course meant cheese. My cousin never knew the difference.

If your kid is ten and doesn't want to eat broccoli, that's one thing. You can make him a different vegetable, or tell her to eat a fruit instead. Or, as many crafty parents have suggested, you can simply chop the vegetables finely or puree them and then hide them in spaghetti sauce or a casserole and the kid will never know the difference.

But if we are talking about a three-year-old, make them eat their damned vegetables. You don't have to yell, you don't have to cry, you don't have to threaten or bribe. But you are the parent, and if your kid doesn't respect you when you ask them to eat one bite of carrots, you'd better never let them have your car keys.

If your child refuses to take cough syrup and you give them liquid bubblegum, they have learned that all difficulties in life can be passed over in favor of something delicious. If you then reinforce this lesson with gummy vitamins and chocolate milk meal replacement shakes, your kid is never going to college.

My sister texted me this morning to tell me that she will be taking Honor's English next year. For her class, she is required to read three books. And she gets to pick the books.

I don't know if there is a list that they have to choose from. But i've seen these book lists (even the ones for private schools), and while they do contain a number of classic texts, they also tend to include pop-culture favorites. Now, don't get me wrong: i love Harry Potter and Ella Enchanted as much as the next nerd. But i am under no illusions as to their fitness for a school curriculum. I think that kids should be required to read a certain amount of the really difficult stuff and taught to appreciate it. I think they should be encouraged to find books that they love and to read them incessantly (especially since this will only make it easier for them to read the hard stuff). But if a student doesn't want to read Shakespeare, you can't substitute Twilight and call it an education just because Stephanie Meyer makes Shakespeare references. But this is what your students will expect from you, because when they were six and didn't want to eat spinach, Mom gave them chocolate milk and gummy cartoon characters.

If our parents and teachers can't be adults and enforce certain restrictions and requirements, how can we expect the children in their care to learn to be adults and to set their own guidelines? Having someone else set boundaries for them teaches children self-control, something they will badly need in college and beyond.

Guess what: not everything tastes like candy. Not everything is as much fun to read as the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (which, by the way, i was surprised to discover was pretty great). But you still have to eat your peas, and you still have to read Shakespeare. Get over it.