Du-buh?

Questions that have run through my mind recently:

Just what is Bill O'Reilly referring to when the words "the far left" leave his mouth? Does he realize that the "far" left actually isn't that excited about Barack Obama? I suspect the far left is too terrifying for the BOR to even imagine.

Disregarding other things Rev. Wright may have said (my gut feeling is that, for the most part, he's being unfairly taken out of context), how on earth is the statement, "America is run by rich, white people," incendiary? It just seems to be factual. Angry, yes. Offensive, no.

Why is this book in existence? Seriously, I kinda want to get my hands on it for laughs. I love the scrambling to shore up the hegemony of representation. And my two cents on the matter: Eastern Orthodoxy is very much Christian.

Why does much of Christianity purport to conform to Chalcedon and yet completely ignore the FULL HUMANITY of Jesus Christ?

How did I manage to miss the word theosis until today? How sad for me. Much easier to say than bogochelovechstvo.

How can it be so difficult to find a picture of two broken pots on the interwebs?

Now leaving my brainspace...

On another note -- to anyone and everyone celebrating the Resurrection today -- Happy Easter!

Pipe dreams of the Kingdom of the God

Check out this article from Alternet on the New Atheists.

I've only read a few pages of Sam Harris, but something struck me -- just within those few pages as he denigrated the idea of nonviolence and the work of Gandhi -- that something was very wrong with his argument. The more I heard arguments borrowed from Harris and company, the more it appeared that something was very wrong. Something was very wrong in the way the authors were defining religion, and something else was wrong there, but I couldn't put my finger on it.

I think this article gets at a lot of what I was feeling to be wrong with Harris's arguments. And has some good points on its own. My one caveat is that I'm not certain the degree to which I want to endorse the rejection of the idea of progressing towards a better future. There's plenty of reason to be skeptical about the idea (as any Russian Studies major can tell you). I'm more inclined to caution against thinking that progress as a society is inevitable -- it must be worked for and carefully guarded through vigilance -- and to firmly reject any utopian ideas that deny the value (and the rights) of the individual. Further, it is an imperative to understand that movement (forwards, backwards, or sideways) creates a shift in perspective, which changes the very vision of the end, the utopia, the kingdom of God. One can have a sense of what utopia should be -- a construction, if you will -- which allows one to analyze and critique the present, but one must not confuse that construction with reality.

testing something...

Notes on the Wacky Weather

Yesterday, my toes experienced a brief and beautiful liberation as I broke out my Jesus sandals.

Today, it's snowing. And not just spitting. Snowing. No acclumulation on the streets yet, but the yard areas on campus are covered nicely.

I got up this morning, kicked around for an hour, and next thing I know the kids in the high school across the street are leaving, and I'm thinking -- oh, crap, did I oversleep? No, nope. Memphis is just getting some snow tonight.

Fun times.

Do Conservatives Need Safe Spaces?

Yes, it's a joke. (Has momentary daydream of a guerrilla movement, then simultaneously reminds herself that she's ideologically a pacifist and looks forward to the arrival of Les Guerilleres.)

Angry id -- back in the closet! Angry not-id -- front and center!

Wait! What? Would someone please tell me when the last time a conservative was assaulted or murdered for being a conservative? When was the last time someone was harassed to the point of committing suicide because he was a conservative?

However, the anti V-day campaign doesn't seem to be a joke. I'm not the biggest proponent of the Vagina Monologues that you'll ever meet. I'm too inclined to wanting to completely dissolve the coherence of the categories of man and woman. There are several monologues in the play that I don't personally identify with, and at least one that actually makes me feel queasy. If someone asked me what my vagina would wear, I would likely look at them askance, explain the difficulties of designing clothing for vaginas, and finish up with murmuring something about how weirded out I am by female condoms (note: I'm no more opposed to female condoms than I am to tampons, but both weird me out for reasons unknown to my conscious mind). And I'm not head over heels in love with the treatment of gender in the play. I'm extremely sad that this year's performance at Rhodes was not inclusive of transwomen (it has been at least once in the past.)

However, I heartily support the main idea -- THERE IS NOTHING SHAMEFUL ABOUT BEING EMBODIED WITH A VAGINA. Oh, and you get to decide upon the meaning and value of that vagina and the rest of your body for yourself.

Madness, ain't it? It could even be hysterical! But least I be told that I am missing something -- here's a closer analysis of the brochure, The Vagina Monologues: Exposed!

Violence against Cupid?

In their effort to redefine a day meant to celebrate love and romance, Ensler and her “Vagina Warriors” proclaimed Valentine’s Day as “V-Day” until the violence against women stops, and then it will become “Victory Day” (Ensler 173). So long, Cupid. (page 13)

OMG! They killed Cupid! Because it's so terribly empowering to have bad chocolates (or maybe good chocolates) showered upon one. Terribly empowering to have a day dedicated to social pressure to mate and then reproduce. Actually, I'm detecting a capitalist/consumerist concern here. We have to have this excuse to consume, consume, consume -- and yes, it's just a subtext but I do believe that it's here.

Do the Vagina Monologues Objectify Women?

It perpetuates the very attitude that often leads to sexual violence: treating women as objects. (page 24)

Dear person writing this brochure -- are you familiar with the use of subject and object? Defining myself, defining the meaning of my own body rather than letting society dictate that meaning to me is being a subject. Do the Monologues threaten at times to create a new hegemonic "we" of women's experience? In some ways -- yes -- but the format of the play -- a diverse collection of voices, offering a multiplicity of ways of relating to vaginas -- is itself in tension with that possibility. The Vagina Monologues are about allowing women to be the subjects of their own sexuality. It's when the meaning of vagina possession is imposed from without that we have objectification.

But in reality, that's the problem that this organization has with the Monologues -- it's a bunch of women defining their own sexuality, and god knows, god's agin' that! Really, while the difference in age between the participants in "The Little Coochie Snoocher that Could" is waved a banner for why the Monologues are evil -- the real problem seems to be with the idea that women can be sexually fulfilled without men. Separate from the more legitimate critique of the age difference we get this gem:

The girl also reveals her seducer’s ultimate lesson. “She tells me to always know how to give myself pleasure so I’ll never need to rely on a man” (Ensler 82).
(page 11)

Given that this is used as punctuation for that segment, it seems that the composer of this brochure is more concerned that women might not be relying on men more of a problem than a possibly exploitative situation. The professed concern for the sixteen year old girl is just a smokescreen. Of course, conservatives do tend to let their anxieties about maintaining the normalcy of man-on-top-woman-on-bottom sexuality override any concern for the exploitation of women's bodies (please, see anti-gay interpretations of Sodom and Gomorrah).

Oh, and in case anyone was wondering -- it appears that any expression of sexuality other than penis in vagina is perverted. Including Bob's love of looking at vaginas.

(Found the actual organization via Feministing. Encountered the logic in a editorial in the student paper at my college last year, was hoping against hope that it was an independent operative.)

Living Dead Girl

I have a copy of the Life of Saint Andrew the Holy Fool in English! *happy dance* And more reasons to love Memphis's Orthodox community!

First, zombie maidens! This alone is knocking the Life of Saint Andrew into the category of one of the best things I have read recently.

Second, I'm getting the feeling that the Byzantine Christians were not in love with their Ethiopian brethren. Betting on a conflict of hierarchies. And wikipedia is indicating a heresy of semantics -- well, okay, whether Christ had a human nature and a divine nature, or one unified human and divine nature, might be a little more than semantics.

Third, reading this saint's life in conjunction with Theodore Jennings, The Man Jesus Loved, is produces some interesting directions in interpretations. *grins devilishly*

Nothing New Under the Sun

It always frustrated me when I was little that their weren't character with my name, or anything akin to it, in stories. My little sister had a picture book -- Bread and Jam for Frances. Andrew is a very common name -- and in my house, if you had a name from a Biblical narrative you were set. Try finding Demetria in a children's story book. (Or on name bracelets.) I remember being very excited when the movie Anastasia came out. Dmitri is close enough. And yes, in a class discussing The Brothers Karamazov, I did jump every time the name Dmitri was mentioned.

The point being -- I feel like I've always had some trouble finding myself in the narratives I was handed. Trouble that extended beyond just having a strange name. Tomboyish, hard-headed Laura Ingalls (of the books, I've never seen the TV show) was close between second and fifth grade. But the narratives that I was supposed to be using for models (i.e. Bible narratives), I was having a bit of trouble with those. I loved the story of David and Goliath, but I wasn't supposed to identify with David, or Peter (I have soft spots for characters who continually open their mouths and see just how far they can jam their feet down their throat). Frankly, I'm not sure who I was supposed to be identifying with -- let's face it, you've got to do a bit of looking to find strong female characters, and they were emphasizing that Mary of Bethany repented, not that she was blatantly transgressing gender roles by sitting with the men instead of helping in the kitchen -- oh, and this chick has an attitude and didn't seem shy of taking J.C. to task over letting Lazarus die. (Let's not count how many Marys I just conflated into one.) There is a reason why Martha has a place in the patriarchy described in The Handmaid's Tale, while sister Mary has been forgotten.


I've been thinking on narrative, folklore, and story-telling for some time now. Early Christian hagiography has become my pet subject. "Weirdos", of course, transvestite and transgendered saints last round -- holy fools this time around. (Incidentally, it's easier to dig up English translations of the lives of holy transvestites than it is to dig up english translations of lives of holy fools.)


It's hardly an original point, but storytelling really is inseparable from how we construct, or make some sense out of, ourselves. And without a narrative -- a metaphor for yourself, a name that other people recognize -- it's difficult to feel confident and solid in who you are. Reading the life of Mary of Egypt, and hearing her praised as worthy and good, was like a license to just be who I am. Rereading the material surrounding Mary of Bethany and finding her transgression and her contrary attitude accepted, and even lauded -- where was this when I was little?

Hiding underneath the dominant narrative. The narrative that said if you have a uterus, shut up and save thyself through childbearing and submission to your husband. The idea that there is one script. Or two scripts, rather. Take the one we assigned you, and that'll be that.

But somehow, and I feel that this is the miracle of miracles, the dominant narratives never quite manage to completely crush and completely hide the other narratives. They're there, waiting for someone who needs them enough to go and to look for them and to befriend them and if necessary to fight for them.