The Princess Complex

I love fairy tales.  Worlds where girls grow up to be princesses, have some sort of adventure, and live happily ever after.  I'm sure a lot could be said about the happily ever after, but I'm not going into that right now.  Also, I wan to go on record as saying that when I was a kid I never had any interest in being a princess.  I just liked to read about them.  Anyhow, I just read an interesting article on Christianity Today's website (well, I want to be clear that it was actually on the blog Her.meneutics, which I like a lot better than CT itself, because CT has issues and I have issues with CT, but anyhow, yes, I read the Her.meneutics blog from time to time) about Karen Kingsbury's book The Princess and the Three Knights.

Now.  I know I've said it before, and I'll probably say it again, but I don't think Karen has the most... varied imagination ever.  Most of her books have the same plot, and they usually center around stories of her family. Thinly veiled, of course, but since I read her dedications (all eight pages of them) I can follow her family enough to see through the veil.  I'm on to you, Karen.  Anyhow, I've solved that by not reading her books any more, so I'm over it.

But anyhow, I've read the book in question, and... I didn't think it was terrible.  I thought the story wasn't that creative (a young girl stands aside as young men vie for her hand, and one shows that his love for the Princess would never endanger her, thereby gaining the approval of kingdom and king and winning her hand), but I had nothing against it.  Does it lean towards arranged marriages?  I suppose, though let's be honest, which country has the least divorces?  India?  I thought so.

As a side note:  On my way home from California in January I sat by a couple in the plane who LifeStory'd (TM) me, and they asked a few times if I was married, and when I was getting married, and why wasn't I getting married?  I tried to explain that marriage was going to involve some young man who hasn't shown up and, quite frankly, isn't showing up very swiftly, as far as I can see.  We tried some other topics, but eventually they again shifted the subject back to marriage (we'd been talking about the Lord, actually.  They were Hindu, and so we discussed the Bible and virgin Mary and various related topics) by asking, "Haven't your parents heard of arranged marriages?"

I said that they had, but such things aren't so much done these days.  Then I heard further their LifeStory (TM) and their saga of their own arranged marriage, and how they ish-arranged marriages for their children, though with a way out if the kid thought the spouse was unsuitable.  They told me I could pass that along to my parents.  Which I did.  We all got a good laugh over their dismay at me being more than two decades old minus a husband.  Anyhow, they were a nice couple.  I gave them a calendar with some Bible verses on it, but they explained that they appreciated the gesture but weren't interested in converting.  We talked about it for a while, and Salvation, and what it means according to the Bible, but they seemed less than impressed.  So.  I hope they get saved.  The end.

Anyhow, the Her.meneutics article has a problem with the Karen Kingsbury story.  More than one, actually, but basically the author of the article is worried that girls will read the tale and become a wallflower who cannot think for herself.  Or speak for herself.  Perhaps a valid point (though really?  a little girl will grow up unable to think for herself because she one time read a picture book wherein the princess did nothing other than gasp and be happy that a husband had been found?), but what I thought was funny were the comments on the article.  Most people seemed to agree with the author, stating their reasons as to why such princess books were bad for children, and something about a funny scene in Shrek 3.  Never seen it, but apparently all the regular princesses (Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella) think that help will come if only they act accordingly (act sleepingly, and scrub floors, for instace).  Anyhow, I have three things to say, both in response to the article, and also to the Shrek thing (which I haven't seen so I probably shouldn't be discussing, haha, but I'm only speaking for the scene in which the princesses do their sleeping/floor scrubbing).

1)  Uh, the man's job is to protect.  There are still some girls who assume that there is some guy who will act as her protector.  Not naming any names, for fear of being branded as, you know, having a Princess Complex, but I'm just putting that out there.

2)  While I agree that girls shouldn't sit about doing nothing, and dreamily saying that someday their prince will come, I have to say, is it so bad to be just doing your thing whilst you wait?  I mean, maybe you excel at mopping floors (a la Cinderella) and help out a lot of people by doing such... did that make Cinderella hopelessly inept because all she knew was cooking and cleaning?  Okay, so she'd never had to [fight/get out of tricky situations/whatever else may have happened in Shrek] but she was doing what she knew how to do. While I doubt she was doing it heartily as unto the Lord, I'd like to think it's kind of the same concept.

3)  My final point is that many of the comments in response to the article centered around the fact that the readers were upset that the book seemed to make marriage be the happily ever after.  "We are going to teach our daughter differently," the comments seem to say.  Uh, so you're worried that your daughter will read this book and then get the terrible idea that marriage is a great career choice (to borrow from my sister's phraseology)?  You and your husband are married, ma'am.  Do you worry that your daughter will see that you and your husband are (hopefully) contentedly married and then get the frightful idea that *gasp* she might want that, too?  I'd just like to point out that most people who are married with children will probably give their children the idea that marriage is often what you do with your life.  So... there's that.

Anyhow, I didn't mean to wax so eloquent.  I just read the article whilst I was reading up on things (that's another thing--I sort of didn't look at any blogs or anything while I was away, so now I'm looking back to see what I may have missed over the last three months) and thought I would share it.  The actual point of this entire long-winded point was mostly to say that if you do want a good picture book about Princesses, I HIGHLY recommend the book The Princess and the Kiss.  As far a picture books about princesses go, it's pretty much my favorite.  So.  You should all read it.  And your children should read it.  It focuses less on the happily ever after and more on purity.  Which I guess leads to the happily ever after, in this case.  But anyhow, as far as storybook lessons go, it's a good one.

PS, if any of this has offended you, as not being empowering enough to women, I'm... sorry?

Christianity Today--November style

I believe I’ve mentioned before that I enjoy reading Christianity Today. It’s a good magazine, I would (usually) recommend it. But since I’m sort of poor, and frugal anyhow (though not a FCP, exactly—it’s in the urban dictionary, look it up), I get the subscription from the library, both to support the library, and also my money-saving habits.

Which means that by the time I’ve read the magazine, whatever it is saying is old news. Since it’s a magazine it’s technically sort of all old news, though, so I don’t feel too badly about it. Especially since most of the things in CT aren’t exactly time-sensitive anyhow. For instance, last month I finally read the November issue, and the cover story was on hunger, which is certainly a current issue (if you don’t believe me, read the article) but one that is just as current now as it was back in November.

Now, I usually really like to read this magazine. I usually go to the library on the second or third day of a month so that I can read last month’s issue once it has been shelved and is available. But for some reason, I could not STAND the November issue. I think I must have been having a bad day when I read it, or perhaps it was still too early in the morning (I’m not exactly a morning person), but whatever the cause, it was not a favorite of mine. A few reasons I disliked it follow.

1) Politics. Yes, okay, it was the November issue, elections were right around the corner (actually, elections pretty much were the corner that month) and it was historical and all that, but I was so tired of hearing about the elections, it wasn’t even funny. Not only that, but I’m one of those stodgy Earth-is-not-my-home Christians, and Christianity Today is decidedly not stodgy in that regard. In fact, they just ran an article about a year ago about how Heaven might be our home, but Earth is our stomping ground, and we should treat is as such, and do things like give it environmental makeovers and get into politics and the such. They were very convinced that Christians who didn’t join city council were in the wrong. Sorry, mister, I’m one of those ones.

2) Secondly (or maybe still firstly, because I’m still on a political kick here) they acted like they were all neutral in the elections, but they totally weren’t. You could see it all over the issue, that they were fervently hoping Obama would win. And I’m fine with that, because, well, I didn’t really care one way or the other. The Bible says that the basest of men are set up in government. Tru dat, Daniel. But really, if you’re going to have an opinion one way (which is what they had) then stop dancing around the bush. That’s what I say.

3) On that same subject, they reviewed a book called “Electing Not to Vote” and gave it a whopping one star. Just to give you a feel for how insane this is, I’ve seen them give morally inappropriate movies many more stars than that. Don’t quite remember how many stars (they base on a five-star system, so I don’t want to go too overboard with generalizations here) but whatever the case, they were not a fan of this book. I’ve never read the book in question, of course, but the author of the article says it’s the smuggest book he’s ever read. He compares the book’s ideology with that of a man being so against the government that he didn’t even get a driver’s license. Uh, last I checked, John Wilson, voting wasn’t a law. They do that in foreign countries, remember? They go so far as to “helpfully” fill out the ballot for the voters, so they still get to vote and the government still gets their person to win. That doesn’t sound very fun to me, sorry.

4) Two words. Ray Boltz. I almost threw up when I read that. What is the world coming to? And why do I expose myself to that sort of information? The magazine touches on that subject fairly often, but I just never learn. Honestly, I think that was what made me dislike the issue so much, now that I think of it.

5) This isn’t a dislike but an amused like. I have several friends who like Dave Ramsey, and I was amused to see him in the magazine. But I loved his point about living on less than you make. Amen, brother!

6) Oh, and Google finally let religious folk advertise stuff about abortion. I knew they were liberal, but I always pretend they secretly aren’t that liberal. Ah, the fake world I construct in my head.

7) I tried to figure out where Christianity Today stood on all that egalitarian stuff, but I can’t figure it out. Personally, I refer to Paul. Women should keep silence in the churches? Okey-dokey. Do women have an integral part in the body of Christ? Uh, yeah. Sounds fairly clear cut to me, fellows.

8) By this point in the magazine I skipped through a bunch of stuff. I skimmed the stuff about the KKK and Timothy McVeigh being Christian, pausing only to wonder if perhaps anyone had stopped to realize that it takes a personal relationship with Christ to qualify as “Christian.” It seems to make sense intuitively that to be a Christian you have to actually be a “Christ One” but I guess if you’re Timothy McVeigh and you say you’re a Christian, then you’re in the club. Sadly, I’m sure there were members of the KKK who were legitimately Christian, but delusional. Which should be a lesson to us: just because we claim we do things in the name of Christ doesn’t mean we can’t be simultaneously delusional.

9) I am so sick of Christianity Today’s movie and book reviews. I’ve already touched on their review of the Election book, but it’s a constant battle for me to not take a black marker to their reviews. They review movies based on talent and such, which is very important (and yes, they love art above all in their movie-reviewing cubicles) but the magazine is called Christianity Today, for crying out loud! Can’t we at least have thoughts on the moral content and the social implications of the movie? And I fall short: I watch some movies with questionable content, but in general, I’d prefer to stick to family-friendly Disney and Hallmark movies and let the Oscars keep their R-rated movies.

10) I like Switchfoot, I really do. I don’t know all their music, but what I have heard, I enjoy. But when Mark Moring (who wrote an article on Switchfoot, though he usually does movie reviews, I’m not a fan of his reviews, but I’m sure he’s a very nice person) referenced “JPMs” I very nearly hit the roof. Although Mark Moring didn’t straight-out say that having lots of “Jesuses Per Minute” was a bad thing, exactly, he did imply such. It made me feel like an inferior person for enjoying music that has a lot of JPMs. The truth of the matter is, as long as the music is clean (and I am insistent on this point, as my friends can attest to) I’m usually fine with it. But I enjoy decidedly Christian music, because, well, I am a Christian. It’s like shampoo. I’m a female, and there’s no rule about me needing to use “special girl shampoo” as opposed the regular stuff, but it smells good, is better for my hair, and since the shampoo is specially formulated for the health of my hair, and I have scads of hair, why not use the special kind? Well I’m a Christian the same way I am a female. Christian music talks about (sings about?) the things I want to be hearing, and it’s better for me than listening to Brad Paisley or Rihanna or whomever else there might be out there. Is there a moral problem with their music? Well, I have no idea, since I don’t really listen to them (though I have heard Brad Paisley songs I am not fond of, and I think I’ve heard a Rihanna song—something about umbrellas?), but providing there isn’t a moral dilemma, I’m sure there’s nothing innately wrong with listening to their music. But I’d just prefer to listen to the Christian stuff, since it usually helps lift up rather than maintain the same status or sink lower. Honestly, it’s like math: it’s not that complicated.

11) And finally, a word to Philip Yancey. He wrote the “Back Page” article in the issue, and discussed some church hopping he and his wife recently did. That’s fine, I mean, it sure did work for the characters in Ray Blackston’s Flabbergasted books, but I have just one question for him. In one of the most liberal churches he went to (complete with a PC Lord’s Prayer, as if the Lord’s goal was really to be PC) he found the most “energy.” I understand that you were looking for aliveness and all that, but if you had wanted to just find energy, try a rock concert, Mr. Yancey. Or maybe just a Switchfoot concert. I hear they have lots of energy, and almost no JPMs. Maybe that’s what you’re looking for.

Anyhow, after writing this entire list of things, I have to sit back and think: why do I read this magazine? I feel like with this issue, especially, I found a bevy of things I disliked, and not so many things I did. For now, I think I’ll continue to read the magazine (yeah, I’m a slow learner), but keep an eye out for further craziness. They don’t say anything overtly wrong (…) but the truth of the matter is, they say a lot of things I could do without.

Mega magazine pressures

I enjoy reading magazines, because of their ability to have current-type articles without the pressure of the constant updates of newspapers (which usually make you play hide-and-seek with their articles anyhow, what does that even mean, “continued on C4,” anyhow?) and internet resources. But magazines are very difficult for me to read, which means that I’m very picky about what magazines I read.

Words are basically amazing, as I’ve said before. I appreciate that words have a direct effect on me, and recognize their sway over me. So what’s the deal with magazines? Well, it’s like this.

When I read, I like to concentrate on what I’m reading. I like to start at point A and read all the way until the conclusion of the piece, presumably point Z. But in a magazine, there are little pictures, sidebars, timelines, sometimes they make you switch to entirely different pages to finish reading what you’ve started (sometimes it upsets me that they make you pay to read something that makes you play hide-and-seek with pieces of their magazine), and often they have corresponding inset boxes, just in case you need little extras on what you’re reading.

When I read magazines I have to either read straight through the entire article and go back to read the extras later (which is difficult, because my word radar knows I’m skipping over sections and yells at me), or I can look through the article first, read all the extra things, study the pictures, and then flip back and start the main text of the article once I’m finished reading all the bells and whistles. But when I do that, most of the time I have no idea what the side boxes are even talking about, seeing as I generally haven’t read the main article first, which usually directly relate to the extras.

It’s a tough call, which is usually why I have to skip magazines altogether. I make an exception for kid’s magazines (like Highlights, Cricket, Muse, or Ranger Rick) and Christianity Today and Reader’s Digest. Sometimes, if I have time and feel like proofreading, I’ll read Time.

Wow, that basically killed my whole point. That’s kind of a lot of magazines, more than I thought I read. Goes to show how little I realize about myself.

Actually, I know a lot of people who read a lot more magazines than that, if you’d believe it. But hey, if you don’t have time to read a book, and feel comfortable having to mentally skip all over pages like that, then magazines are as good as the next thing.

Till I get old and forgetful, however, I think my disdain for skipping around from box to box will insure many a tense magazine-reading sessions. I hope I'm a very happy old person, that's all I can say.

Rich v. poor

I’ve been listening nonstop to a CD called “CompassionArt” and I’m loving it.  I read about it a long while ago in a Christianity Today magazine, but I finally got a hold of a copy.  To anyone who hasn’t yet heard about it, check out http://www.compassionart.tv/ and no, I have no idea why it’s a “.tv” ending, I don’t even really know what that means, to tell the truth.

The CD has made me consider why it is we love poor people so much.  I hope that doesn’t sound callous, but the truth is, I’m not poor.  I’m not obscenely wealthy, but I’m not destitute, either.  And I could mention all the times where we’re told to care for the sick and hungry (“When I was hungry, you fed Me…” etc.) but a huge part of being a Christian is ministering to the broken.  Not just the outwardly needy, but the inwardly needy.

But the outwardly needy are the most receptive to Christ’s power, it’s true.  Which is why I’ve never seen a CD or book dedicated to the wealthy, I suppose.  In fact, I recently was looking through a book called “The Message of the New Testament” by Mark Dever which spent a while discussing the wealthy and what that all means (and why Jesus didn’t come to minister to the wealthy).  Which is important, obviously, since the Bible does talk a great deal about the wealthy and camels and needles and the selling of possessions.

For all the places in the Bible where there are qualifiers (or non-qualifiers?) such as "neither bond nor free" "Jew nor Greek" "male nor female" I can't seem to think of very many equalizers about the rich.  In the Old Testament the rich and poor both had to give the same amount to the tresury, and in a day to come, the rich and poor will both get Beast-marks on their foreheads, but other than a few potential verses in Psalms or something, I can't really think of any further verses to that effect.

But it’s odd to me, how much we leave that corner of the world untouched.  It’s much easier for us to give a gospel tract to the hobo who will appreciate having something to read, but the wealthy person is usually going to reject you.  So we usually don’t even try to minister in that direction.  It’s much easier to go to the parts of the world where we feel we have something tangible to offer.

I’m not sure if this made sense.  And truth be told, I’m not exactly one to talk, since I don’t do much evangelizing on either end of the spectrum.  And I don’t want to be taken the wrong way, either—I love the CompassionArt CD, and I love what they’re doing in that regard.  I appreciate all the ministries to those who need it, and I’m not saying that nobody goes out to the wealthy.  What I am saying is that I find our gravitational tendencies curious.

Or maybe I’m just rambling and not saying anything at all.  Oh well.