Growth Stunting

I substitute taught for a health class the other day and was faced with an interesting question.  The (high school) students were supposed to journal on why people drink alcohol when it causes so many problems (underage drinking, alcoholism, alcohol abuse).  I was supposed to lead the class in a discussion about it afterword.  At first, I had no idea what to say because I knew that students at the school drank and public schools don't allow any religious morality.  Students came up with the typical answers of people drink because it feels good, relives stress, other people do it, etc.  But then when I asked them why we shouldn't drink they had no answers.  I gave a generic answer like 'things that start out as 'good' or 'useful' can easily be abused.'  I wasn't too happy with this, but then I started thinking about Ephesians 5:18, "do not get drunk on wine... be filled with the Spirit."  I realize that the context of this verse applies to the early church that had problems with people getting drunk during their church service dinners, but I think we can also draw more from the verse.  

Wine, and all alcohol, does have the possibility of being used for good purposes.  I have appreciated the calming effects of a glass of wine after a stressful day, but I can easily see how this could be taken too far.  Recently I've been in some frustrating and stressful circumstances where I would love to forget about the issues using alcohol (for other reasons I have not partaken recently).  But instead of taking this way out to ease the frustration, I have been practicing putting these things before the feet of God.  This has been extremely difficult and I have by no means been good at it, but I have noticed a change in my own heart.  God has been shaping my soul to trust in Him.  (Note: there certainly may be times where alcohol could be used in a God-honoring way and so I am not by any means ruling out alcohol).  These experiences have been growing because of their difficulty and while I am by no means a masochist, I appreciate the results of the pain.  Perhaps this was part of what Paul was trying to convey to the Ephesian church.  He may have been encouraging them not to turn to a way of dulling the pains and frustrations of daily life through alcohol but turning to the Spirit.  

It's too bad that I couldn't have said this to my class the other day, I wish I could/would have told them the value of difficulty and its power to grow us.  I doubt they would have understood my meaning and it is rather empty without the power of the Gospel behind it.  I am so grateful that I have a reason and motivation to be good... so that I may please my Savior, the one who gave everything so that I could be transformed into His image.

The Evolution of Movies

I am slightly embarrassed to do this post because it means I must admit to watching certain movies.  But it seems like an interesting trend in society, so I will just have to publicly recognize that sometimes I have less than ideal taste in movies.

In the past 'man movies' have consisted of classics like Ben Hur, Braveheart, Gladiator, and the like.  They are about men standing up for what is right and defending good at a high personal cost.  Characters may waver in their desire or ability to do what is right, but in the end they make the right choice.  Naturally the antagonist is bad and we are taught to dislike his character.  Some weakness in him, usually selfishness or greed, is both overwhelming and relatable.  We see how devastating it is for him in all aspects of his life that he must be hated, yet we are able to recognize similar tendencies in ourselves.  This, I think, helps us to desire the good and hate what is bad even in ourselves so that in a small way when watched correctly, movies may add to our character formation.  Perhaps not in a large way, but it reminds us to do what is good no matter the cost.  Heroes, even fictional ones, are good for society.  

However, I have noticed a recent shift in 'man movies.'  I am certainly not a movie critic nor do I have any sense of movie history.  Perhaps these movies have existed for decades and I am just now becoming aware of them... but there seems to be a new category of male chick-flick (read 'my best friend's girl' or 'wedding crashers').  Traditional chick-flicks seem to be categorized by a jeopardized romance that goes through difficulties but after several humorous scenes the couple ends up together.  The female lead typically learns more about herself and is bettered through the experience.  I have been known to enjoy these movies, but I do not find myself  at all attracted to the male version.  In these movies, there is a pathetic male who is largely socially deviant in some area (usually in addition to being a terrible womanizer).  The male meets some woman he is attracted to but they are kept apart because he is a total jerk.  Through out the movie the two become close and she eventually shows him that his socially deviant ways are bad.  In this way the woman rescues him from his behavior and the two are finally able to be together.  Naturally the movie is filled with bawdy humor, plenty of crude language, and a couple graphic sex scenes.  While some of these movies may be entertaining, they seem to reflect a downward shift in society.  

These male chick-flicks emphasize the social acceptance of weak men.  These men not only do not stand up for truth and justice in the face of difficulty but they are downright despicable in normal circumstances.  And these are the heroes!!  Although the audience is directed emotionally to pity these men, they are not made out to be deplorable but just late bloomers.  It makes actual men feel better about living with their parents, sleeping around, or generally being irresponsible.  As I am writing this it is becoming evident to me that I am a traditionalist when it comes to gender roles, but I honestly don't see the problem with this.  Certainly I advocate fair and humane treatment of women, but this need not mean an equivocation of the genders.  I am pro-fairness but certainly not a feminist, but enough on that.  The fact that men in our society today are not living up to their God-given responsibilities is even evident on advertisements (when the media must take responsibility to remind men to 'take time to be dads today' we have a serious problem).  So let's let men be men and not be afraid of gender differences.  Let's realize that as men and women we have different responsibilities that are very difficult (and different) but that when we delegate and don't both try to do the same thing, society runs much more smoothly.  Let us replace movies with weak men for those who recognize the cost of doing good but still act rightly.  And maybe I'll try to work on watching better movies...

Ethics and Marriage

I realize this is a rather strange posting name... but go with it.  In my ethics class this semester my professor is very attracted to ancient ethics.  He thinks that ethics is not just about being able to talk about what a person should do in a situation or what makes a certain action right, but that ethics is fundamentally about training the soul to be attracted to the good.  This seems very right to me but fundamentally missing from our society.  Since I'm only a few weeks into the semester I'm sure there will be much more that I will learn about this and my explanation of the view is likely incomplete.  However, it does seem that it matches with some of my thoughts of late.  

I have been married for four and a half years now and I deeply love my husband.  We are truly good for one another and actually enjoy being married.  But many people that I either talk to or hear about really struggle in their marriages.  Wives complain that their husbands do not understand them, demand much of them, and are fundamentally unsatisfied; the fairy tale they hoped for has been crushed.  (And yes, I do think that *almost every girl really does think her marriage will turn out much better than everyone else's and be fully satisfying).  I don't often talk to husbands, but if the sitcoms and jokes are any indication, men are just as unhappy and frustrated in their marriages as women.  Why is this?  Why do so many marriages end up in either divorce or unsatisfied co-habitation?  It seems to me that Americans, including Christians, do not understand what marriage is and have not been trained to love the good.  Perhaps if we were able to shift our ethics and metaphysics there would be less problems.  I'm not exactly sure what the issue with marriages in other countries are, so I'll set that aside for now.

Popular discussions seem to give marital advice along the lines of (1) be attracted to the person (2) find the right balance of letting things slide and not-nagging-but-suggesting-solutions for the things that you simply can't live with.  Christian advice (at least currently) seems to center around the man learning to love his wife and the wife respecting her husband - along with LOTS of prayer.  This does seem to be good advice, but it falls short of what would actually fix or help many of the marriages I know.  Certainly we need to learn to communicate and learn to love unselfishly - but we also need to understand what the marriage relationship is.

This has been something that I've been pondering for a while.  Every couple is different and it's hard to think of a definition or relation that captures these diversities.  Certainly marriage involves an intentional commitment to care for one another for life between a man and a woman.  But two good friends or a brother and sister could have this relationship.  Adding sexuality to the relationship is important, but again does not seem to be enough.  When my husband and I started dating he committed to love me, encourage me, and better my relationship with God.  He has more than done this and I think this unselfish love has taught me what love is and enabled me to reciprocate these ideas.  We haven't ever talked in technical metaphysical terms what he sees marriage as, but I'm fairly confident that he would include these ideas in his description of what marriage is (or should be).  This kind of intentionality seems to be missing from many relationships that I know.  Many of my friends got married relatively young (so did I) and were not entirely sure of the reasons why they did this other than it is typical and expected.  Needless to say, I don't think attraction or a distaste for singleness is a good reason to be married.  As Christians, we should be kingdom-minded and in some way a marriage should benefit the kingdom either by the work it allows the couple to do or the significant sanctification provided (in a positive way so as to avoid abusive relationships).  For this and practical reasons, an ideal marriage would involve two people who are compatible on a number of levels: physically, goals, desires, free-times, communication, and many others I can't think of now. I could summarize what I'm trying to get at by saying marriage should involve compatible people who will do better together than apart and have committed to love one another in a maturing way that advances the kingdom.  This is not even close to what is taught in the media or even generally discussed in churches.  More needs to be said here of what the metaphysics of marriage is, but this should do for now.

Now to the ethics... the type of marriage that is good and we should be seeking is very difficult.  It will be nearly impossible without both parties being very committed and having a previous disposition/desire for this type of relationship.  For this reason churches, parents, and other educators must begin to train our souls that this is good and what we should be seeking.  Due to the difficulty, if we do not see this type of marriage as good and beneficial (both to the couple and others) then we won't seek it.  Just as we must be taught that saying encouraging words to a friend is good in-and-of itself (even when difficult) we must train the will to desire the marriage-good.  This would seem to involve tearing down previous notions of marriage that draw our affections away from the good to the cheap (pure sexuality or selfish gain forming a marriage).  The new (or actually very ancient) view of ethics in general would greatly help us to begin thinking along those lines; seeking the good for its own sake and training the will to enjoy goodness.  

The tolerance that accepts things as they are in this country is destroying our ability to recognize the good and encourage others to this end.  It is unusual for the culture to carefully define what a relation/responsibility/entity is much less add normative terms.  "Should" is far too absent from our vocabulary.  People (myself included) will not grow to their potential without loving, constructive criticism (iron needs iron to be sharpened).  We (especially in southern California) are content to live in our worlds and not interact in meaningful ways with others.  After a time it begins to feel invasive when a person lovingly encourages me to do the right thing - how dare she interfere with my business!  Yet this positive 'interference' is what is needed if the culture at large is going to shift away from current notions of marriage.  We must remind each other what the good is and cheer one another on as we reach for it.  

Looking Forward

As those of you who know much about me are already aware of, I am approaching a phase of great transition.  In May I will be graduating form Biola with my MA... then I will have the joy of joining the working world (hopefully).  I am actually very excited about this change, but I thought it might be interesting to start blogging now so that I have a record of the journey.  So many thoughts run though my mind that I don't want to forget or loose track of them.

I've been pondering sanctification lately, the process of becoming more christlike and shedding our old selves.  This concept has been rather nebulous to me, but I read an article over break about what the will is metaphysically.  I believe Eleanore Stump wrote that the will is changed as we submit it to God and sanctification is the process of this change.  I have heard similar ideas before and while the idea is nothing new, it's been one of my back-thoughts for a while.  It does seem that God changes my will as I bend it over to him.  Recently I have been praying that God would change my heart in specific areas even though I know I will not change my behavior on my own.  Through very little effort on my part I am amazed to see God transforming me.  However, today was one of those days where I was reminded of how easy it is for me to slip back into anger and completely ignore the bigger picture.  As I was ranting to myself and half-praying, I was reminded that 'sanctification days' are really great blessings.  I am so grateful that God does not leave me where I am but put forth the 'effort' to transform me.  Yes, God is omnipotent and this is not work for him, but it still amazes me that God even bothers with us.  As I write this it all seems so basic, like something that I learned in junior high Sunday school.  But I suppose that we all need to re-learn and internalize those lessons that were once just memorized information.  

This internalization seems so key to any education or development of thought.  I remember being on a retreat in high school and the counselor was trying to get us to describe attributes of God that we knew by experience.  She became frustrated that we all said things like 'God is love' or 'God is kind' because we were missing the heart of what she was aiming at and just repeating common answers.  At the time this made no sense and I was almost frustrated that she invalidated our experiences of God's love or kindness.  The more I learn and grow, the more I understand her frustration and intentions.  There really does seem to be development of thought that cannot be rushed.  It seems that it takes maturity (and possibly previous exposure or a significant experience) to understand the depth of many ideas.  This requires patience on both the teacher's and the student's part.  Although this is easily frustrating, there does seem to be something inherently good in the growth process.  It would be very strange for a 12 year old to be able to fully grasp a intricate concept like the incarnation - he would not be able to understand or appreciate all the implications.  Even if the 12 year old were aware of the implications, it would be hard to fit them appropriately into an overall picture of the world.  I suppose that what I am trying to say is that despite the difficulties and frustrations, it is good that we humans grow and that this is a temporal process.  So instead of trying to be what I am not (and fight the fact that I must grow), I should embrace who I am and God's grace for me.  So, welcome to my journey, I hope it is interesting or insightful in some way