Is prince charming a charm?

This post is based on a sermon podcast by Seattle's Mars Hill pastor, Mark Driscoll. I was listening to Mark talking about modern marriage and love.

He used the TV reality show "the bachelor" as an example. I have to paraphrase; I'd love to link to a YouTube video because he says it so well.

Mark describes the final episode of the bachelor, in which one girl is chosen to be the fiancée of the bachelor. Taken to a remote location, dressed to the nines and pampered, the final two women meet the bachelor one at a time on a picturesque mountaintop to find out if they are the final "one". The love of his life.

The one who is, cries tears of joy as she accepts a marriage proposal and a diamond ring, set for life with this man she has got to know over ten weeks. The unlucky one who isn't chosen cries tears of regret at missing out. The ring the marriage and the happy ever after aren't for her this time.

But how lucky is the 'winner' really? By examining the structure of the show, Mark shows how the bachelor gets to seduce not one but twelve women, then down to ten then six then four... Then two. Nights out, jacuzzi time, overnight stays, candlelit dinners, yacht cruises are the norm as we watch a pressure cooker romance occur. Women are sent home or kept,  depending on the connections they make or don't make with our always impeccably presented  bachelor.

Beautiful women stuck together in one house fighting over not only hair curlers, bathrooms, the need for recognition, camera time and personal space but a handsome bachelor... A recipe for disaster? Each of these women has been chosen on her looks, and she will fight to the death (or in this case the diamond) to be more attractive than than her competitors. More appealing, more accessible, more perfect than perfection, as surely the ruggedly handsome bachelor deserves nothing less.

When we get down to four women, the bachelor is invited to the family home of each of the four, to meet the parents. Mark's comment is something like "What does he say? 'so yeah, I'm dating your daughter. I'm also dating three other gorgeous women, and I'm about to go impress their parents too. I know you wont mind, even if I end up breaking her heart'. What parent wouldn't welcome him?" (sarcasm intended)

Then, once the final two have been reduced to one, we get the bride to be and her now-not-so-much-a-bachelor fiancée back in the studio to recap the twelve weeks. She sees her handsome fiancée for the Romeo he was, as the film clips show him kissing, holding hands, sitting with bikini clad women in the jacuzzi, holding, getting emotionally and physically close to all her now ex-adversaries. And she smiles, radiant that she won. Is her heart not breaking? Not even finely cracked watching this man whisper words of endearment to another woman? 

She has won such a prize. A man who tried to seduce a number of women. Who has held, stroked, kissed... been intimate with other women while she was at home getting ready to be the next one to win his affections. Can her heart bear this much excitement? 

Can her life bear this much in the future? Knowing what went on when she sat waiting? Any other woman in a normal relationship would kick this man out of their lives as a Lothario. Yet in the TV setting, the "reality" genre... We accept this, and even start to place bets on the women, hoping our favorite will win him over.
And meanwhile, what of our bachelor? 

Is he husband material? Is he daddy material? When she has a fever and snot running everywhere, a blotchy face and hair that hasn't seen a brush while she's been battling the flu...Will he hold her, make her feel like a princess THEN? 

Will he tell her she's beautiful even when she hasn't slept in days, smells like babypuke and hasn't showered... ? Will he kiss and caress her then? 

Will he make tea, clean the house, fill her car with petrol, tell her to have a night out with her friends, take her side and take night duty when there's a teething baby in the house? When her boss gives her a hard day at work? When her fat clothes don't fit? When the bank rings because the house is going to be repossessed....?

The world watched 'The bachelor'.... watched women submit themselves to being one of a number of conquests, alter their personality to "win", and keep going... for a man. 

How much unreality can we bear, really?

A book which has been storming the best seller lists world wide is '50 shades of grey'. Termed "mommy porn", the premise is a young woman seduced by a more worldly man. I haven't read the books, I have no intention of reading the books, so my perception is only from afar, from my work in a library, reading reviews and talking to readers. However...

Here we have a woman pining for a man, prepared to give up all she believes in to keep him. Apparently her world would fall apart without him and his gloriousness in it. This criticism isn't new. Stephenie Meyers' 'Twilight' series underwent the same scrutiny, with many people seeing the teenaged Bella cast into the role of hopeless female who can't survive without her man, prepared to sacrifice everything for him by becoming a vampire instead of remaining human.

I am far from being a feminist, or a staunch women's rights advocate, but really, women are prepared to watch and support this subjugation of themselves? This farce of romance and marriage encourages our young women to believe that to win the man and marriage  -at any cost - is the ultimate prize.

Our young women need to be taught instead that if they are to be married, they first need to find their man, the man who has been waiting all his life for her, faults and all. A man who sees her for the strong beautiful independent woman God made her to be. Courtship and marriage can be hard work. We need to be building resilience and inner beauty and strength into our young women. There is an old saying that the best women are at the top of the tree so men have to work harder to get them, rather than the easier to reach fruit.

We need to ensure our young women are clothing themselves in all things good, and filling their heads and hearts with things that matter. We need to be teaching our young men that there is more to a woman than how she looks in a dress; that she needs to be able to have a discussion about the contents of the first two pages of the newspaper - not just the social pages - that what and who she is is more important than how she looks. That to respect and truly love a woman isn't unmanly, it may be the manliest thing he can do.

The term 'reality TV' is in and of itself a misnomer. Knights on white horses - or rich bachelors - don't gallop up and sweep you from a mountaintop - Romance and marriage readiness can't happen in a public exposure incubator of ten weeks. I'm sure there are couples who have had successful marriages with short courtships, but it's the pressure cooker; the intensity and the falseness of 'The bachelor' that smacks of the false promise of a Disney happy ever after. 

Happy ever after is the result of years of shared arguments, children, brokenness, despair - as well as joy, sharing, learning, healing, laughter and fun. Of watching skin fade and wrinkle, of frailty and forgetfulness setting in, of seeing loved ones hurt, broken and dying, and still thinking the other in the pair is the best thing since sliced bread. And that needs a solid and true starting point. And reality tv isn't it.

Anatomy of a downer

Wow. So many people wondering about depression.
Wondering what caused it, triggered it, happened.

Nothing; I just thought too much, maybe.

Honestly, there was nothing that happened. I didn't read one thing, hear something, see or experience something.
Nobody said something that offended me, nobody gave me a 'side eye', I just sunk into nothing because of nothing.

However, having said that, my mind was a mess. I was exhausted physically and mentally and couldn't feel room for taking a deep breath. And everything just got too hard, too hard to even think about any more. I couldn't pinpoint anything in particular even if I tried.

I'm happy to be on the other side. Last weekend was truly one of the most emotionally  harrowing I've had, and I'm thankful it's over.

I live in a beautiful place, I enjoy my job, have great kids, have more than enough of everything I need and an incredibly patient husband. So whats to be depressed about, huh?

Sunshine lollipops rainbows everywhere

No no no.

It isn't joy in the morning and it isn't happy days.

But the fact is, writing was cathartic I saw my hurt in my words and wanted to help the person hurting.

I wrote my last blog post so entrenched in my own vile bitter sludge.

And I put it on my Facebook  wall.

And took it off because it's too raw.

and put it back on.

Then realized people I work with would see it, so took it off.

Then realized people need to know that, heck, depression happens.
And put it on.

And so it goes.

And people need to know that no matter how I look and act...
I'm a good actor.
And that's what it feels like, really.
And still I want to take it down because, huh, it's too confronting. You'll think less of me, you'll think... 


Coming back from a pit isn't easy. It's often slow or it might only take a day or two
.
I've battled this creep for so long now, you'd think I'd learn to see the warning signs ahead of time.

But I think 'this time it will be better'. And sometimes it is. Actually most times it is. Just sometimes it all happens at once and hits me like a steam train. And life comes from everywhere and I can't breathe, in all the 'stuff' happening and having to be so many people and so many things and i lose sight of me...and my defenses are down.... And I crash. 

And this time I know peope prayed for me. I felt it. And God told me.
And Im learning it doesn't matter what you think of me.
It doesn't matter that I can't articulate the catalyst.

And today I'm not completely stuck at the bottom of the well, I can see a bucket to get me out.

Shalom. 





.






So I just have to 

a million little pieces

ANNE: I can't eat. I can never eat when I'm in the depths of despair.

MARILLA: The depths of despair?

ANNE: Can you eat when you're that way?

MARILLA: I've never been that way.

ANNE: Can't you even imagine you're in the depths of despair?

MARILLA: No, I can not. To despair is to turn your back on God. This is your room for the night. Wash up and then come down for supper.

ANNE: Yes, Miss Cuthbert.

 Source:  http://greengables-1.tripod.com/script/1part1.html

Oh how I adore LM Montgomery's book Anne of Green Gables. I relate to Anne in some ways. I was never an orphan, I don't have red hair and I didn't hit my future husband over the head with a slate.

BUT - an overactive imagination, a dreamer, a chatterbox, -  "But if you only knew how many things I want to say and don't, you'd give me some credit" - resonates with me.

Even though in the book we only see Anne happy and overcoming problems in her dramatic style, it's the depths of despair part I am focusing on.

Can't you even imagine you're in the depths of despair?

No. 

No you can't. Unless you have had the depths of despair moments, (days, weeks....) you can't imagine them. 

You can imagine that you'd think happy thoughts, go somewhere quiet, replenish yourself, talk to someone, cry, forget about the issues, move on, get over it, and it would all be better.

guess what? If it was that easy the pharmaceutical world wouldn't be doing such a good business. 

Sometimes people say "Wow, I saw (something sad), how depressing" or "I'm depressed because...." and I want to hit them with something.

No. You're frustrated, you're sad, you're annoyed, you're cross, you're worried. You're maybe mainlining a "there but for the grace of God go I" moment. But that isn't depression. That is the mood which matches the word in the last sentence. It's not depression.

'Depression is a lying bastard', says Jenny Lawson, of "the bloggess" fame.  It is. Depression might bust you into a million bits and every piece will scream lies and accusations at you, and no number of well meaning people telling you "but you're awesome", "but you're not like that", "You'll be fine" can ever ever speak louder or clearer than those one million pieces of you. 

I can hear your mind now telling you "psht, and she says she's a Christian. where's her God now?" 

And you know what? That's my problem. I am a Christian. I will tell you a kazillion times how God loves His people. I will tell your kids that God loves them and He wants them to follow Him.

I will tell you that Jesus came to stop the old testament law and become the law and the love. His death His grace and His love overcame that and all your sin. 

I will tell you that God watches over you and Jesus died for you as well as the stranger on the corner, the kid doing drugs, the homeless man, the kooky woman down the road.  Just each person as a unit, to become all of mankind, which is way too big a number to comprehend, but if you make it 'you and you and you and her' it seems easier to deal with til it becomes too big to deal with in number again.

. 

And I will tell you that God holds you in the palm of His hand, secure and safe. Close to His heart. I'll say all that and I'll believe it with a passion I struggle to understand, because I DO believe it. 

I also believe that because I'm human not God, that I listen to voices. I listen to media and society telling me how wrong God is, how wrong Christians are, how wrong I am, how can there be a God... and my heart will cry out that people can't see the truth because they're asleep in the light. That even people who claim to be God-loving are sleeping and letting the dark take over.

And then it all starts to weigh in and I start to see all the things I do wrong, all the ways I lead people wrong and say the wrong thing, and realise how small insignificant and just wrong wrong wrong I am. How hopelessly and irreparably I am making a mess. 

 And I'm in the depths of despair again. 

And every broken piece of me chimes its own melody of wrongness at me and usually I lash out and hurt other people only this time it's worse and I can only lash on myself because the pieces of me told me other people are sick of dealing with and listening to my shit.

And I know God loves me, I know know know with every fibre of my being that He does, and I know He's right there...just right there... but I don't want to talk to Him about it because He's probably sick of listening to my shit as well.

And I know there are starving children in Africa. I know there are victims of abuse possibly living in my street, and I know families are going to bed hungry and I know that my life probably looks incredibly polished, lucky and glittery to them,

that I don't have anything to complain about.

And the funny thing is I'm not complaining. I'm just thinking. And I know I'm lucky. And I know I have good stuff in my life. And I know... and I know.. and I know...

And I'll go to church and hear the words and hear the words and it's all rhetoric and I'm

detached.

And my head is full of steel wool that nothing can get through, teflon coats my heart and then I read the quote from Anne of Green gables that "despair is turning your back on God" and people are smiling and laughing around me and I know God wants me out of the depths.

And people say "Pray". 

But until I get my head clear and ask God to make every single broken piece of me sing His name I can't start to heal. That's one million pieces of me telling God how awesome He is. And I cynically smirk at that because I know that's ridiculous with the state my heart is in.

And then one piece sings "we don't have to hide scars They just strengthen our wounds and they soften our hearts. They remind us of where we have been But not who we are So praise God, praise God we don't have to hide scar" (Jonny Diaz)

And then I see on my facebook wall a prayer that I will pray in church today.

And then another piece cries out to God for help, and it feels better just for doing so and my heart is nudged that maybe I CAN do it.

And literally - piece by piece - I will give up my hurt. And piece by piece 

be restored.

Image:

http://iwilltrustinyou.tumblr.com/post/29221452114

What is a memory?

I am amazed at how things came back to me while overseas.

How things I didn't even know I'd remembered clanged with an "oh yeah" in my brain.

The recorded sometimes melodic sound of NY Rail's "Stand clear of the closing doors please" - the rush of the metro card holders through the turnstiles, the smell and sound of sidewalk hot dog vendors.

That hearing "have a nice day" doesn't annoy me like it does in my home country and that tipping becomes second nature. 


That you'll meet some of the nicest and some of the nastiest people.


That walking in New York City at night doesn't feel unsafe.

That I still can't work out the coins to make change.

That sometimes all you want is a plate of steamed vegetables.

That you'll never be able to count the number of taxis.

That sometimes it's good to get away and develop a different perspective on the world. And sometimes it's nice to come home to the status quo.