Catherine's Journal

One of the essays in Discovering North Carolina (see more here) contains excerpts from the journal of Catherine Ann Devereaux Edmondston.   There are entries from Election Day 1860 when she was sure Lincoln wouldn't be elected.  Then there is the grievous disappointment expressed nearly three weeks later.  The diary entries give glimpses of the home front from the perspective of a lady from the planter class in Halifax County.  

 

 

After Robert E. Lee surrendered in April 1865, Mrs. Edmondston writes that she had "reduced [her]self, to an utterly paperless condition."  Except for her journal which she must have hidden pretty well.

She writes:

"Every letter I possessed, letters which I had cherished as my heart's blood, mementos of those I had loved & lost years ago, literary memoranda, excerpts, abstracts, records of my own private self examinations, poetry - all, all destroyed..."

Why?  

"...the thought of seeing them in Yankee hands, of hearing them read in vile Yankee drawl amidst peals of vulgar Yankee laughter, or worse still, of knowing them heralded abroad in Yankee sensational newspapers, restrained me!" [She had thought of snatching out one letter from the packet that contained letters to and from her husband.]

"This has been the fate of thousands of my fellow countrywomen, for the Northern journals teem with private papers stolen from Southern Households & published to a vulgar curious world as specimens of Southern thought, Southern feeling, & Southern composition."   (pg. 50)

Nope!

A friend shared this on Facebook two days ago.  I thought it was clever, and planned yesterday how I would post it here after a woman made history in becoming the President of the United States of America!  What a day!

Not this time

But, I hadn't counted on the pre-election headlines and polls that came across my Facebook news feed being so wrong.  I should have learned from Brexit and the Colombian vote a few months ago.

Someone shared this on Facebook a few days ago, too.  The language is terrible, but it helped me understand the rural vs. city divide a bit more.  Also, a friend in Scotland read it, and she saw parallels to the Brexit vote.  

I stayed up until just after one this morning.  Trump was poised to take Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and possibly Michigan, and with the recent time change making it feel more like 2 A.M. (and I am not a night owl at all), I was beat.  And stunned.

Oh, wow.


How are you feeling?

Bits from "Deep South"

Happy Leap Day!  Last time we had a February 29th, Andrew and I visited Bamberg, Germany, with a friend.  This year, I'm home.  How about you?

Recently Andrew and I were at a Barnes & Noble in Myrtle Beach, SC, and we were looking at travel books. I text him the names of a few authors and books that looked good.  Before buying books, I like to see if my local library has them. Sure enough the Graham library had Deep South: Four Seasons on Back Roads by Paul Theroux on the New Books shelf!  What an interesting read!  First a couple posts I wrote on Facebook about it:


I'm reading "Deep South" by a man from Massachusetts. In it the author, Paul Theroux, talks about food he encounters along the way. I chuckled at his description of okra "as viscous as frog spawn, next to a kettle of sodden collard greens looking like stewed dollar bills."   :-D

This was early on in the book, but I noted many pages later - this book has over 400 of them - that he ordered a side of fried okra to go with his chicken salad so ...

Also, I'm not a fan of collard greens, but I've read that partly why they are eaten on New Year's Day (or is it Eve? -- clearly it's not a southern tradition I've been part of) is that they resemble money and are supposed to be lucky.   How's that workin' out for folks, I wonder.

I included a link to the book with this recommendation on Facebook: 

If you enjoy travel books, and hearing stories about the people who live in certain areas of the world, and experiences of authors traveling there, I recommend this one. The author focuses more on the Lowcountry, the Black Belt, the Delta although not exclusively. It's an interesting collection of stories of blacks, whites, even a Lumbee or two. What I like, too, is that the author didn't just write about a one-time journey through these cities and states. He went back in the different seasons, and checked in on people he met during previous trips, and sometimes he met new people. He visited churches, and gun shows, pawn shops, diners, and more.



-----------------------

Here are just other tidbits from the book that I noted:

In this book I met such interesting characters such as the lawyer/pastor Virgin Johnson ("My grandfather picked the name, it seemed special - Virgin Mary, virgin soil, virgin anything. My son is Virgin the Third." pg. 60) of South Carolina; the Greensboro, Alabama, historian "Our Randall Curb"; the author Mr. Curb introduced us to, Mary Ward Brown (called Mary T - short for Mary Thomas) age 95, and many, many more!   The author speaks of southern literature, the use of the N-word including the usage by black rappers and how black folks greet each other in some circles with forms of this word "nigga" or "niggaz" (some claim that by using it, they take the power out of it.); he takes us to Bill Clinton's birthplace as well as the area in which he grew up.   I really enjoyed learning more about Strom Thurmond's secret, biracial daughter.   And what should one think of the claim about white southern politicians supporting racial groups because it was politically good for them?  (The author mentioned Bill Clinton's eulogy of Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia.) 

The author has traveled to many places in the world, and often hearing someone's story is easy.  But he notes: "Poor Americans, who have very little, still have their privacy - in many ways it is their last possession, and they resist losing it. That is a challenge for a traveler who is curious to know: What do people do when they don't appear to do anything?"  (pg. 24)

"...people attended church to find hope, dignity, love, consolation, fellowship, and advice. The church was central to life here in a way I had never seen elsewhere in the United States - certainly not where I was born. A church in the South resembled the life around a mosque or a temple in India or Africa."  (pg. 149)

The author mentions "Dot Indians" who have come to the South and own a bunch of the hotels.  Overwhelmingly (70% of all Indian owned hotels) these people have the last name Patel and come from the same region of India.  (pg. 161)  Also he noted once or twice that the reason Indians owned the hotels were that white people didn't want to sell them to black people.

The author goes to at least three gun shows, and he comments how polite and considerate everyone is there. He describes the process for checking in, emptying your guns, and tagging them.   I have never been to a gun show or a pawn shop (that I recall) so it was interesting to read about those experiences and impressions especially related to who goes to the shows and the atmosphere there.


I enjoyed a couple of stories shared about people he met - at their houses or places of work --  who wanted to shoot guns with him. One was a sixty-two-year-old lady who wanted to see if she were a better shot than he (she was.)

One time the author showed up for an appointment fifteen minutes late.  A black lady in attendance was angry, and started talking about "white privilege," accusing him of taking advantage because he was late and didn't bother to call when he could have (he had a cell phone, after all!)  She accused, you didn't bother to call because you are white. You assumed I'd wait for you to come since I'm black!  He was stunned by her accusation.

And then there is this...

In Vicksburg, Mississippi,  when he told the group in a restaurant that he was from Massachusetts a white lady turned hostile accusing him of starving them.  "You made us eat rats!" she said referring to the siege (that was 1863, folks.)

As one person he met along the way said of the South, "history is alive and well here." 

Thankfully, the author didn't write in dialect throughout the whole book.  He did a little at times, but it wasn't overdone.  (If it had been, I'd probably stop reading.)  I'm a Southerner, but I hate reading more than a few words written in our accent.  I am used to writing and reading in a regular way, no' lahk thees, ya know?  Occasionally he'd mention a person saying he'p for help or "what the hail are you doing?"  cause we often really do say "hell" like "hail."   One thing the author quoted early on in the book were the words "ah mo."  I immediately recognized "ah" for the way many of us say "I," but "mo" threw me.  Is this "more"?  But then I read a few of the sentences out loud, and it made more sense.   One example. See if you can figure it out. 

Eutaw's first black mayor had served three terms, but lost the last election.  He spoke of how the election was dirty, and when the author suggested that he - Mayor Steele - could now just run his dry-cleaning business and let the new mayor try to solve Eutaw's problems, the former mayor is quoted as saying, "Exactly right.  Ah mo buy me some popcorn, set me down, and watch the show."  (pg. 81)

I read one of Peter Theroux's (Paul's brother) books back in late 2011.  Peter's book was about his travels in Egypt and Saudi Arabia.  Here is that post.

The Nordic People

The Almost Nearly Perfect People: Behind the Myth of the Scandinavian Utopia by Michael Booth -- I heard about this book while reading the comments of one of Bridget's blog posts, and decided it might be worth checking out.  Thankfully my library had it, and I finally remembered to look for it. It was good!  Well, I tend to enjoy learning about other countries and cultures, and this was one region I'd not read too much about.  Sure, I see these Nordic countries often mentioned in the news.  The Danes are so happy and people leave their babies outside in their buggies while the parents eat inside!  And no one steals them!   The Norwegians are so rich!  The Swedes so welcoming of immigrants!  Bridget has piqued my interest in Finland since her family moved there a few months ago.  Iceland, well, they just have ice there, right?  I swear I woke up Andrew when we went over Iceland one year because I was able to see it down below from our plane. Is that possible or did I dream that?  I was so excited. He was so...not excited that I woke him from a nap.  Planes are tough for us to sleep on!

I learned so many neat tidbits from this book.   Like the Danes are super-trusting and trustworthy. If you try leaving wallets behind for an experiment on how many of the wallets will be returned intact, you will be run down by Danes AS YOU "DROP" THEM so the experiment is tough to do.  Also, lawyers aren't needed as much due to this trustworthiness.  Agree on something and shake on it.

I was surprised to learn that Danes have high cancer rates and poor health (pg. 34).  I think they smoke and drink a lot.

According to this author:

90% of Danes have approximately the same standard of living (pg. 30)

pig farming and pork butchering is big there (pg. 26)

Danes are sociable and outgoing; and they love community choirs and joining clubs (pg. 38)

They have a really high tax rate, but get a lot of "free" stuff from it.  Also, more than half of Danes have public jobs or are on the dole (pg. 57, 60)

They love their flag and will hoist that thing even to celebrate birthdays.  (pg. 96)

A few bits about Icelanders. More of them believe in elves than believe in God. (pg. 136)

I guess I didn't note much about them. Sorry, Icelanders.

Norway -- lovely scenery, rich because of oil; somewhat lazier, but with plenty of public money due to oil, even the outer places of the country have good infrastructure and are inhabited (not everyone lives in the major cities)

Swedes peel bananas in Norway because some jobs are too lowly for people rich with oil wealth (pg. 183)

Finland -- they like sitting naked in the sauna in silence - DO NOT TALK TO THEM THERE!

low verbosity; they like being alone (pg. 220+)

alcohol makes Finns aggressive (pg. 239)

Swedish people were told to describe their compatriots.  "The top adjectives they chose, in descending order of relevance, were: envious, stiff, industrious, nature-loving, quiet, honest, dishonest, and xenophobic.   The bottom three (out of thirty) characteristics, i.e., those least exhibited by the Swedes were: masculine, sexy, and artistic."  (pg. 285)

Something mentioned about many of the countries, if not all....a lot of the people just don't like talking to strangers.  The author tried engaging them in conversation and in some countries it was just horrible to the natives.  The author mentioned Nordic people not having to talk to fellow countrymen because they were so much alike, they already knew what the other was thinking!  He termed it a "high-context society."   Weird and a bit boring if you ask me.    (pg. 286)

He mentioned Swedish rudeness - barging on trains (I must admit that this surprised me!), their totalitarianism, individualism, modernism (no church for us, thanks...too traditional), feminism (don't you dare open a door for a lady, you freak!), independence (from family, not the state)  (pgs. 327-335)

August Events

Here are some pictures and events from August.  Hope you are having a great September! 


1 -- spent a few hours with Sophie

after a bath

2 -- Andrew and I visited Pilot Mountain State Park

see the climber?

5 -- swimming with Michael, Stephanie, and Zach

6 -- saw deer in the yard; Zach and I saw Superheroes at the library

We saw these deer in our neighbors' yard

Zach loved this bulletin board at the library

18 -- started working on the book about Zach that he got for his birthday from Stephanie



20 -- outside with Sophie

notice the spider?

 21 -- trip to City Park with Zach (also went on the 13th for the first time)

going through the tunnel

Zach made a friend, Ace

22 -- day trip to Boone

Rough Ridge Overlook

Beacon Heights, Blue Ridge Parkway

Boone Fork Trail

August 23 -- sprayground for the last time this year; Andrew went with us

August 27 -- Zach left for the mountains, and then a trip to Disney World with his grandparents. We drew Mickey and Zach with chalk the morning before he left. 

Sunshine too bright

August 28-- Myrtle Beach: we had so much fun!

A favorite spot on the Boardwalk

August 30 -- stopped by Southport for a few hours before heading home

Selfie with the pelican

Modesty Glasses

Facebook reminded me that three years ago, I shared this article. I have thought of it and mentioned it many times since then.  I'm glad to reread it today.  Personal responsibility for the win!



"If you step into the extremist ultra-Orthodox mindset for a moment, there is indeed a problem - haredi men must move around in the world to a certain extent - if only to travel to and from yeshiva and run their errands. But in this wider world there are women. Let’s accept the premise that any glimpse of any woman awakens base instincts that they have absolutely no control over. It’s an absurd premise, but I’ll accept it for the sake of argument.

 

Until now, most of the ‘solutions’ to this quandary have women giving up their freedom and their comfort, requiring them to cover their bodies and hide themselves, to stay out of the public realm, to avoid stepping on the public stage, in order to keep the men away from temptation.

 

In this context, the glasses, in fact, represent a refreshing change of approach. They limit and hampering the freedom of the men, not the women. They make clear that if the sight of women bother them, it is their responsibility to limit their sight, not force women to get out of their line of vision.

Glasses that disrupt these mens’ eyesight and ability to move around in the world is actually an excellent answer to their troubles, and also spares women the insult of having men cover their eyes when they approach, let alone being spit at or being called a ‘whore.’ In fact, the blurrier the glasses are, all the better, making it easier for women to walk in front of them in the most immodest of attire and yet not disturb their holiness. Hoods and shields that block their peripheral vision further? Even better. Why not a black hood pulled over their head entirely - a sort of a male burka? Or earphones that distort voices so that women can speak freely without awakening their base urges? Of course, many of these innovations may carry the unfortunate side effects of men walking into walls or oncoming traffic. But if they choose to adopt them, that is the price they will just have to pay, presumably a small price for the great benefit of living in a permanently female-free zone.

 

I say that we embrace and endorse these types of solutions - those that cover up and segregate men, not women. If haredi men have issues with a life that includes seeing and interacting with half of humanity, it is indeed a problem. It is their problem. Let them deal with it. Let them find solutions that limit their comfort and movement, their own ability to function freely in the world. Because women should not be asked to give up their own. "

July Firsts

Another July has come and gone.  I wanted to post a few firsts that happened in July 2015.  One morning, I went over to my parents' house, and my mom met me at the door, "They are taking the Confederate flag down!"  (In Columbia, South Carolina, that is.)

10th -- I decided to document that my parents had turned on the TV for this occasion.

18th  -- A few days later, there was some talk in my county about the Confederate statue coming down. (no rebel flag flies here; just a soldier statue has stood near the courthouse for over one hundred years.)  This is an area I walk frequently. In fact I joke that I "walk my errands" because I often park at the library and return my books there, walk the few minutes to the post office to check my work place's mailbox, drop by the bank, and so forth.  We often go to free concerts around the square here, and the children's museum where I take Zach is right beside the library.  So when they talked about having a rally to support the Confederate statue staying (and since I was in town that weekend), I drove up there to check things out.  Who would come?  How would they act? Would I see a counter-protest?  Nothing much happens here so I want to see! (I live about 3 miles from these pictures.)  Man, was it ever h-o-t.  Of course this is July in North Carolina so that's not surprising. Still.  I felt I was crying sweat. 

The old Alamance County courthouse

The statue honoring the Confederate soldiers

Plenty of people brought these flags, but none flies here

I saw a few African-American men, and I made a point of lingering near a couple of them to ask their thoughts. I enjoyed hearing what they had to say.


21st -- Totally unrelated to those first two, and honestly I'm not sure my liberal Mormon friends would like being on the same blog post as Confederate flags, but this all happened in July so ...

I was invited to their newly-turned-8-year-old daughter's baptism, and I drove to Durham for the event.  I met Nancy through her blog, and I found her blog through Bridget's blog. I've never met Bridget despite reading her blog for many years (she lives far, far away), but Samer - my Syrian friend - found it for me years ago when he was looking for an article about Ramadan in Syria to show me what that holy month was like in his country.  So, anyway, I have now met the entire* Heiss family, and they are really sweet!

Me and the three oldest children

Andrew holding Zoë, Nancy holding Benjamin, Rachel & Miriam (posing)

Andrew's mom and dad (not pictured) were in town from Utah for the event

Benjamin, their only son, chose me as a playmate and, at one point, I was twirling him around at the reception. I later apologized to Nancy because I can honestly say I don't ever recall twirling children at church functions in the past, and this here was a place full of mostly strangers.  Nancy assured me it was fine...and, hey, it was pretty fun for me to play with the kids that evening. I loved meeting Reid and Karen, Andrew's parents, from Utah.  I have seen their comments on Nancy's blog or on Facebook so it was neat seeing them in real life!

* who am I kidding? Just the entire Andrew and Nancy Heiss family, shall we say?


25 & 26th  -- Andrew and I going to the mountains is certainly nothing new, but we had never been to Grayson Highlands State Park in Virginia before.

After walking and climbing rocks, this water felt so good. And it was so clear!

There are a few pictures from other places we went near Grayson Highlands that we have been before. But I'll still include the photos since we are talking about our trip to the mountains on this post.

Creeper Trail

Whitetop Mountain

River in Damascus, Virginia, where I text and checked Facebook

29th -- Lastly, I took Zach to southern Guilford County to see the calves and get some ice cream at Homeland Creamery. He wasn't impressed with the farm smell at first, but he liked that the calves came out to greet him, and he enjoyed his strawberry ice cream.

Did you do any new things this July?  Or any old favorites? Do tell!

Veiling as a sign of equality?

In my last post, I mentioned reading Paul Among the People by Sarah Ruden, and talked about hair and veiling and Paul's instructions for women in the church to cover their heads.  A few of you offered your thoughts and interpretations you have heard. This is what Sarah Ruden had to say about this matter in her book.

Respectable Greek and Roman women traditionally wore concealing veils in public. Marriage and widowhood were the chief things that a veil signaled.  (For a Roman woman, "to get married" and "to veil oneself" were exactly the same word.)  The veil held great symbolism:it reminded everyone that all freeborn women, women with families to protect them, were supposed to enter adulthood already married, and that they were supposed to stay chastely married or else chastely widowed until the end of their lives.  The veil was the flag of female virtue, status, and society.  In the port city of Corinth, with its batteries of prostitution - including the sacred prostitutes of the temple of Aphrodite - the distinction between veiled and unveiled women would have been even more critical.

But on the other hand, society was changing fast: slaves ... gaining more status and security in households and settling down more often with slave partners; slaves being freed; divorce proliferating...- any or all of these things could have made the veil a matter of controversy. Women not entitled to the veil may have wanted it, and women entitled to the veil may not have wanted it.  Bruce Winter puts the emphasis on a new type of married, divorced, or widowed Roman woman on the scene in the first century A.D., more keen on showing off her elaborate hairstyle than on constantly wearing an old-fashioned veil. 

...

At the very least, there must have been among the Christians women with pasts.  Would not bareheadedness, the lack of a "symbol of authority" on their heads, have galled them? They were entitled to be there - but the norms of the time said that they had to be there in the outfits of degraded, vulnerable beings. It was against the custom and perhaps even against the law for them to be veiled.  At Greek religious festivals, "women's police" would circulate, making sure not only that respectable women were not flashily or revealingly dressed, but probably also that other women did not take on the exclusive, prestigious symbols of a matron or widow.  In Rome also, dress was regulated in detail: for example, any married woman found to have committed adultery would lose forever the right to wear a floor-length, heavily bordered stola and a veil.  Any woman who had ever been a prostitute was of course not allowed to wear them either.

I think Paul's rule aimed toward an outrageous equality. All Christian women were to cover their heads in church, without distinction of beauty, wealth, respectability - or of privilege so great as to allow toying with traditional appearances.  The most hurtful thing about bareheaded, gorgeously coiffed wives might not have been their frivolity but rather their thoughtless flaunting of styles that meant degradation to some of their sisters - as if a suburban matron attended an inner-city mission church in hip boots, a miniskirt, and a blond wig.  Perhaps the new decree made independent women of uncertain status, or even slave women, honorary wives in this setting.  If the women complied ... you could have looked at a congregation and not necessarily been able to tell who was an honored wife and mother and who had been forced, or maybe was still being forced, to service twenty or thirty men a day.

(pgs. 85-88)

What do you think?

On Veiling and Hair and Paul

I have a relatively new Facebook friend and she's Jewish - my first Jewish friend! I met her on a HuffPo link. I liked one of her comments, and she requested me as a friend just like that!  I'm not sure how she'd label herself (if she would), but she told me that as a married woman she doesn't wear "trousers," but wears skirts that cover her knees, blouses that cover the elbows and she covers her hair in public.  She said single women don't cover their hair, but married women do in her community.  She also pointed out that her husband does modest things for her like not swimming in gender-mixed places.

I say all that because I was reading Paul Among the People by Sarah Ruden. She said she really did not like Paul because he sounded so misogynistic and homophobic, but as a scholar in classical languages, she started reading Paul in light of his contemporaries.  The book is "the apostle reinterpreted and reimagined in his own time."  She quotes Bible passages attributed to Paul, and compares them to other literature and known historical contexts of Paul's time.

One thing that really took my attention was about hair. It made me think, "Oh wow, the Middle East really hasn't evolved much from this thinking," and I don't mean that in a derogatory way because, likely, they have evolved, but they just still hold onto the traditions. That's more what I mean. I recall hearing people talk how in some places in, say, the Levant tribes do what they have done for centuries. And in many ways, I find that wonderful because there is something to be said for holding onto your culture and not letting social media or all this dang stuff available in the world make you lose something precious.

(I'm probably not saying that right, but I know what I mean in my own mind.)

So the subject was women's hair. More specifically she was talking about that passage concerning women in church covering their heads. From time to time I see a Christian group that practices this here, but despite my rather strict upbringing, it's one thing we never did in the Baptist churches I'm familiar with.  (Women didn't even have to have particularly long hair thankfully, since mine really doesn't grow long without growing into a shrub).  I have heard Muslims declare "See, you all are supposed to do what our women do...you just cherrypick that out and don't obey. You should be wearing hijab as well."  (Have you heard this, too?)

So I was going to write what she said about the veil, but figured first I'd ask for interpretations that you have heard regarding this passage. The main one I recall is that it was cultural and that our hair is our natural covering so we don't have to worry about veiling in the 20th century.

Instead of writing her thoughts on the veil, here is what she said about hair:

"Paul does not write of 'nature' (verse 14) by accident. The ancients believed that it was female hair's nature to inflame men, almost like breasts or genitals: men experienced women's hair as powerfully, inescapably erotic, in a way that makes our hair-care product companies look like an accounting textbook."  (pg. 88)

Then she quotes erotic passages from Ovid and Apuleius about hair and continues, "Notice the implicit association between hair on display and actual nakedness. This wouldn't make much sense unless both signaled sexual availability and both were thought of as automatically bringing on male desire."  (pg. 91)

What are your thoughts on hair, veiling, Paul's words on the subject, interpretations you've heard, what your church teaches on this matter, the fact that I added a new friend on Facebook based on a HuffPo link comment?  Anything?

Changing the Culture

I was reading a book the other day about women in Afghanistan.  So much of what happened, many Muslims would argue is not true Islam. Among other things, these women were denied inheritance, made to marry men they didn't meet until their wedding ceremonies, traded for gambling debts or because their fathers wanted second wives, beaten and so forth.  Often I read blogs about things happening in Saudi Arabia with the disclaimer that those are tribal practices, not Islam.  Female circumcision, again, cultural. Even Christians do such things, I've heard.

I understand in pre-Islamic Arabia that little girls were often killed, and Islam put a stop to that.  Additionally men and women were able to practice polygamy, and Islam did away with women marrying multiple men while limiting Muslim men (except Muhammad) to only four at a time.  So some good stuff, some bad (if you were a woman wanting more than one husband anyway.)

I was wondering how good is it for religion to influence and change native cultures.  Where is the balance? Do we seek to bring "correct" scriptural teachings to these people so their cultures will value girls, honor women and just be nicer? Or do we live and let live, and allow people to do what is traditionally best for them and stop caring what they do to each other as long as it doesn't hurt us?

Thoughts?

On the sin of eloping and guessing on a multiple-choice exam

HAPPY NEW YEAR!


Two stories from the current book I'm reading, Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes: Removing Cultural Blinders to Better Understand the Bible by E. Randolph Richards and Brandon J. O'Brien. 


One of the authors talks about a conversation he had with some elders in a village on an island near Borneo. They'd asked his opinion about "a thorny church issue."  A young couple had lived among them for several years after leaving their home village after committing a "grievous sin."  The couple had attended their church for a decade and lived godly lives.  Now they wanted to join the church.

"Should we let them?" asked the obviously troubled elders.

Attempting to avoid the question, I replied, "Well, what grievous sin did they commit?"

The elders were reluctant to air the village's dirty laundry before a guest, but finally one of them replied, "They married on the run."

In America, we call that eloping. 

"That's it?" I blurted out. "What was the sin?"

Quite shocked, they stared at this young (and foolish) missionary and asked, "Have you never read Paul?"

I certainly thought I had. My Ph.D. was in Paul.

They reminded me that Paul told believers to obey their parents (Eph. 6:1). They were willing to admit that everyone makes mistakes. We don't always obey. But surely one should obey in what is likely the most important decision of his or her life: choosing a spouse.

I suddenly found myself wondering if I had, in fact, ever really read Paul. My "American Paul" clearly did not expect his command to include adult children deciding whom to marry. Moreover, it was clear that my reading (or misreading?) had implications for how I counseled church leaders committed to faithful and obedient discipleship."  (pg. 18)

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Here's another cultural thing I found amusing


Randy was grading a multiple-choice exam in Indonesia. He couldn't believe some people left answers blank.

"Why didn't you select an answer on question number three?"

The student looked up and said, "I didn't know the answer."

"You should have at least guessed," I replied.

He looked at me, appalled.  "What if I accidentally guessed the correct answer? I would be implying that I knew the answer when I didn't. That would be lying!"

I opened my mouth to respond, but then realized I was about to argue him to a lower standard!  I shut my mouth.  My American pragmatism had been winning out over my Christian standard of honesty. What was worse was that I hadn't even noticed until a non-Western person pointed it out. What I have found equally interesting is that my Christian students in the United States don't enjoy this story - because they still want to guess answers.  Nonetheless, the challenges of reading with others' eyes should not deter us. We can learn so much from each other."  (pg. 20)

Do you have any similar stories to share about cultural misunderstandings or differences in understanding Scripture (or anything really)? By the way, I absolutely love this book so far!

December Books

Last day of the year!  I hope you have a wonderful 2013!

I started the year reading a book about grace, and the last book I finished was about the prodigal son - a benefactor of his father's mercy and grace.  Good thoughts for this year!  Here are the books I finished this month.


Sixty Million Frenchmen Can't Be Wrong by Jean Benoit Nadeau and Julie Barlow  -- I got this from my Amazon Wishlist. It tells about the French mindset and covers history and the importance of the State to the French. I especially enjoyed the chapters on World War II and the war in Algeria and how both have shaped France today. I also liked the chapter on the language and French thoughts of what is private compared, say, to the average North American.   These are just a few things I copied and shared on Facebook while reading this book.



I'm reading a book about the French, and the authors said "The French love of grandeur and power unfortunately does translate into a tendency to hoard power.  As noble and well-intentioned as politicians may be, they tend to treat their elected positions like personal possessions. ... In France, a whopping 89 percent of députés and 60 percent of senators hold another office at the same time. Half of them hold three!"  For example former President Jacques Chirac: "while mayor of Paris from 1977 to 1995 he was also the prime minister of France, from 1984 to 1986 he was député for his home region of Corrèze and député in the European Parliament."  (pg. 56)


"Language is a national complex in France.  Anglo-Americans consider language a tool, but the French regard it as an accomplishment, even a work of art.  They love and cherish their language in ways that are almost incomprehensible to English speakers. It's their national monument."  (pg. 162)


"The French are always surprised to hear that there are from five to ten times more accepted words in the English language than in French (they will typically talk about how much "richer" the French language is than English and assume by deduction that French has more words).  In French, the boundaries between what is acceptable and what is not are clearly defined and enforced by the Académie and the government.  In English, there is no body that rules out words."  (pg. 164)


"Because so many people speak English in so many different ways, 'getting the message through' is the spirit that dominates the use of English today.  Contrary to what many French believe, English is not a simple language.  As a French académicien once put it, English is a language that is relatively easy to speak poorly.  The real difference is that, unlike the French, English speakers tolerate poor use of their language." (pg. 169)


"France is the first country in Europe to define citizenship not by blood, language, or religion, but by residency in a territorial entity and adherence to its values....The principle shows a sharp contrast with Germany, where citizenship was still defined by blood for most of the twentieth century."  "Germany claims to have 7.3 million immigrants; France claims to have around 3.5 million. The number is high in Germany because the children of immigrants do not automatically become citizens at birth and usually remain immigrants all their lives. It's almost the opposite situation in France, where children of immigrants become citizens at eighteen as long as they grew up on French territory. Then, when they become citizens, they automatically vanish from statistics."  (pg. 301-302)



God's Battalions: The Case for the Crusades by Rodney Stark -- an interesting perspective and one I've not heard. The author discusses Muslim takeover of formerly Christian lands and reasons for the Crusades. I especially enjoyed the talk of penitential warfare (pg. 107) and the Mamluks since one of my Syrian friends has this last name. It was interesting reading of his ancestors.  I've read a couple other of Stark's books and saw this one mentioned.  Got it from my Amazon Wishlist.



A Year of Biblical Womanhood by Rachel Held Evans  -- I got this from a sweet friend who sent it for Christmas. I greatly enjoyed this book as Rachel does a bit like A.J. Jacobs did when he lived the Bible for a year. Only she chooses themes for each month,and strives to focus on submission one month, modesty the next, purity, living justly, and so forth.  She told the tale in a humorous way, and had some rather good insight on interpreting Scripture. I really loved her conclusions while wearing modest garb...how she realized she judged people for what they wore (oppressed, sheltered, outdated, legalistic).  Sprinkled throughout the book were excerpts from her husband's journal as he shared how he felt while his wife was calling him "master" or standing by the "Welcome to Dayton" sign proclaiming that "Dan is awesome."

see previous post on "biblical womanhood"

These are just things I shared on Facebook:

I thought this was an interesting perspective.  Did you know in Jewish culture, the men memorize and sing Proverbs 31 to their wives at the Sabbath meal?  It's a praise to "women of valor" (eshet chayil). Yet due to the abundance of books (and Mother's Day sermons I might add) aspiring Christian women to be Proverbs 31 wives and mothers, the author of this book notes: "No longer presented as a song through which a man offers his wife praise, Proverbs 31 is presented as a task list through which a woman earns it."  (pg. 76)   Personally, are you made to feel it's a praise to women or is the Proverbs 31 lady someone you secretly dislike because you cannot measure up to her standard?  Or maybe you are somewhere in the middle?


This was one of my "any guesses" on Facebook....  According to this book I'm reading "To _______________ belongs the worthy distinction of being the only woman in the New Testament identified with the feminine form of the word 'disciple' - mathetria"  (pg. 223), and ___________ was the "first and only woman in Scripture to be explicitly identified as an apostle."  (pg. 247)


"When World Vision first began working in Colomi (Bolivia) just two years ago, aid workers began by asking the women there what they most wanted to change about their community. The answer surprised the workers. The women said that, more than anything, they wanted to learn how to care for children with special needs.  ... We heard stories of children who had been locked in rooms for weeks without being bathed and cared for, others who had been beaten nearly to death, and still more who had been abandoned because of fear and superstition.  Before World Vision came to Colomi, the mothers tried to organize. They formed a support group, where they exchanged stories and ideas, but they lacked basic information about how to care for their children with special needs and faced nearly constant ridicule from neighbors who said they were wasting their time."  (pg. 244)





The Book of Mormon Girl by Joanna Brooks  -- see previous post

"We inherit not only the glorious histories of our ancestors, but their human failings, too, their kindness, their tenderness, and their satisfaction with easy contradictions; their wisdom as well as their ignorance, arrogance, and presumption, as our own. We inherit all the ways in which our ancestors and parents and teachers were wrong, as well as the ways they were right: their sparkling differences, and their human failings.  There is no unmixing the two."  (pg. 28)



Heaven Is For Real by Todd Burpo with Lynn Vincent -- I've heard of this book, but never desired to read it. HOWEVER, someone gave it to Andrew for me so I read it. It was an easy read so I didn't feel I invested a whole lot of my life in it.  Rather cute book, I guess.Not really sure how to take the fact that an almost four year old speaks of going to heaven, talking to Jesus,  the sister his mom miscarried prior to his birth, and his father's Pop who died at 61.  By the way, he recognized Pop from a photo when Pop was 29, not the last picture taken of an old Pop with glasses.  Here is the website if you are curious about it.



The Duck Commander Family by Willie and Korie Robertson -- Andrew got this for Christmas so I decided to read it as well. It's about the guys from Duck Dynasty - some things about their growing-up years and the family.



Awake: Doing a World of Good One Person at a Time by Noel Brewer Yeatts -- I received this in the mail earlier in the month, and it was a quick, but challenging read. The author tells of some experiences she's had traveling around the world with World Help.  I especially enjoyed the chapters on the importance of clean water and educating women.  She spoke of justice, and how God wants us to make things better for people in the world.  She challenged me on whether I want a safe or significant life.



Encounters with Jesus by Gary M. Burge  -- seeing a few of the encounters with Jesus through the eyes of the people living back then;  see previous post



The Circle Maker by Mark Batterson -- a book about praying, setting goals and praising God, but mostly about "praying through" -- this is a tough subject for me because I'm an instant kind of person not a pray for something way in the future person; yes, this is a flaw, and I should change....maybe I should pray about it.  :)

A few things I noted:

"The blessings of God won't just bless you; they will also complicate your life." (pg. 113)  -- I noted Samer with a smile on my paper

"The hardest thing about praying hard is enduring unanswered prayers. If you don't guard your heart, unresolved anger toward God can undermine faith."  (pg. 124) -- um, yeah

"One of the reasons we get frustrated in prayer is our ASAP approach.  When our prayers aren't answered as quickly or easily as we would like, we get tired of circling. Maybe we need to change our prayer approach from as soon as possible to as long as it takes."  (pg. 196)




Mukiwa by Peter Godwin -- This story by "a white boy in Africa" is about Peter's life in Rhodesia before black people took over the rule of this country. The first part is about life in Rhodesia from a child's perspective. His mother was a doctor so Peter told of going on sick calls with her. Of course black people had the worst diseases and died at any age. His mom also identified what people died from so Peter described watching his mom cut people open trying to figure out what happened.  He talked about leprosy, death by arsenic and even a lady who insisted on seeing his mother privately because she wanted contraceptives. At not even 23, she had six children and was tired of birthing babies every year of her marriage. This lady spread the word and soon many African women were visiting the clinic for ways to prevent more pregnancies.  Peter talked about his years in boarding school, adventures with his nanny and other servants the family employed. 

I noticed the term "kaffir" used throughout this book, and I'm much more used to it being used by Muslims for those who are nonMuslims so I was surprised to see it here.  I looked up "kaffir Rhodesia" on Google and found this Wiki article on "fanagalo" which gave this explanation.

"The word "Kaffir" is the Arabic word for an unbeliever, i.e. non-Muslim, and was used by Arab slavers to refer to the indigenous black people of Africa. It thence became a common word used by early European settlers to refer to the same people, and in the 19th century was a term for the Nguni languages, as well as an inclusive term to describe South African shares on the stock-market. Through time "Kaffir" tended, in Southern Africa, to be used as a derogatory term for black people."

Also it was interesting to hear the black people fighting for control referred to as "terrorists."  Granted many of their practices were atrocious.  The latter part of the book talked about Peter's days in the police force, as a lawyer and journalist visiting Zimbabwe.  (The new name for Rhodesia.)



The Cross and the Prodigal: Luke 15 Through the Eyes of Middle Eastern Peasants By Kenneth Bailey -- I read one of his books a couple years ago and loved it. This one was much shorter and dealt only with the story of Luke 15 - the lost sheep, the lost coin and the lost son.  I greatly enjoyed reading this with Middle Eastern eyes. The author made it clearer how the original hearers of this story would have heard it in their cultural context. 

Submission and The Greatest Among Us

Have you ever thought of hierarchy as part of the curse?  Or of Jesus turning hierarchy on its head with all those teachings of the last being first and the one who serves others being the greatest of all?  Note to all who want to be big shots served by others: in God's kingdom things are different!

I thought this was an interesting perspective. What do you think?

When his disciples argued among themselves about who would be greatest in the kingdom, Jesus told them that "anyone who wants to be first must be the very last, and the servant of all" (Mark 9:35 updated NIV). 

In speaking to them about authority he said,

“You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave—  just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many"  (Matthew 20:25-28).


This aspect of Jesus' legacy profoundly affected relationships in the early church, to whom Paul wrote:

 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God,
    did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
 rather, he made himself nothing
    by taking the very nature of a servant,
    being made in human likeness.
 And being found in appearance as a man,
    he humbled himself
    by becoming obedient to death—
        even death on a cross! (Philippians 2:5-8)

In the biblical narrative, hierarchy enters human relationship as part of the curse, and begins with man's oppression of women - "your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you" (Genesis 3:16).  But with Christ, hierarchal relationships are exposed for the sham that they are, as the last are made first, the first are made last, the poor are blessed, the meek inherit the earth, and the God of the universe takes the form of a slave.

Women should not have to pry equality from the grip of Christian men. It should be surrendered willingly, with the humility and love of Jesus, or else we miss the once radical teaching that slaves and masters, parents and children, husbands and wives, rich and poor, healthy and sick, should "submit to one another" (Ephesians 5:21).

This sort of mutual submission worked best in our marriage long before we knew what to call it.

That's because I don't respect Dan because he is a man. I respect Dan because when one of his friends moves, he's the first to show up with his Explorer to help. I respect him because he's the kind of guy who treats everyone with the same level of dignity, from his clients to the clerk behind the checkout counter. I respect Dan because he'll come right out and say, "That's not funny" when someone makes a racist or homophobic joke. I respect him because he likes to do things right the first time, even when no one is watching. I respect Dan because he has spent countless Saturday afternoons at my parents' house, planting bushes and installing showerheads and fixing the computer.

I respect him because I've seen him cry on behalf of his friends. I respect Dan because he is smart enough to win just about any argument, but that doesn't mean he always does.  I respect him because he gets as excited over someone else's success as he gets over his own....

I don't respect my husband because he is the man and I am the woman and it's my "place" to submit to him. I respect Dan because he is a good person, and because he has made me a better person too.

This is grace. And for us, it goes both ways.

(pg. 218-220 of A Year of Biblical Womanhood? by Rachel Held Evans)

A book about Jesus

First of all, Merry Christmas! 

Between me and Andrew, we got sixteen books this month!  I started reading Encounters with Jesus by Gary M. Burge this morning.  It says "Uncover the ancient culture, discover hidden meanings." Well, I love stuff like that.  A few observations so far. Sorry for the disconnected nature of this, but I wanted to note a few things that took my attention.

INDIVIDUALISM FOR ALL

Western society is individualistic, and that has translated to our faiths.  The author notes the ways "every community of Christians has framed its understanding of spiritual life within the context of its own culture."   He says, "Even the way we understand 'faith in Christ' is to some degree shaped by these cultural forces.  For instance, in the last three hundred years, Western Christians have abandoned seeing faith as a chiefly communal exercise .... Among the many endowments of the European Enlightenment, individualism reigns supreme: Christian faith is a personal, private endeavor. We prefer to say, 'I have accepted Christ,' rather than define ourselves through a community that follows Christ.  Likewise (again, thanks to the Enlightenment), we have elevated rationalism as a premier value.  Among many Christians faith is a construct of the mind, an effort at knowledge gained through study, an assent to a set of theological propositions. Sometimes knowing what you believe trumps belief itself."  (pg. 7-8)


UNCLEANNESS ABOUNDS

This book seeks to help us understand the encounters of Jesus in a more cultural context.  As I was reading I noticed how often Jesus didn't seem to mind being unclean in the religious, ritualistic ways of the Jewish people. Remember the story of Jesus visiting the demon-possessed man who lived among the tombs?  He ended up sending demons into a herd of pigs.  First of all

1. Gentile territory is unclean (or many Jews believe it so)
2. Tombs (unclean)
3. Pigs (unclean)
4. Demon-possessed man (surely this was unclean)

Then if you continue the chapter in Mark, Jesus is headed to a synagogue leader's house because his daughter was near death (dead bodies are unclean).  On the way, the bleeding woman touches his garment.  Granted, she made Jesus unclean by doing this, but he didn't scold her for it.  Jesus regularly interacted with the sick, those with oozing sores and other diseases that many of us might shy away from. Jews, who tried to avoid uncleanness, would likely shy away even quicker. 

Something I thought about as I read this: doctors must have been really unclean individuals.  They dealt with bleeding, oozing people, and, well, some of them died while they were tending them surely.

Actually all of society must be often unclean if you think about it. How easy is it to avoid monthly menstrual cycles, childbirth, other bodily fluids and so forth? How else do you have children without first becoming unclean?



HOW POWERFUL IS THE FLOW

The author provides this view of menstruation from Pliny the Elder in book 28 of Natural History.

"According to him, contact with the monthly 'flow' of women turns new wine sour, makes crops wither, kills skin grafts, dries seeds in gardens, causes the fruit of trees to fall off, dims the bright surface of mirrors, dulls the edge of steel and the gleam of ivory, kills bees, and rusts iron and bronze. Dogs that come near become insane and their bite becomes poisonous. A thread from an infected dress is sufficient to do all this. If linen that is being washed and boiled is touched by such a woman, it will turn black. A woman who is menstruating can drive away hailstorms and whirlwinds if she shows herself (unclothed) when lightening flashes. Pliny refers to Metrodorus of Scepsos in Cappadocia, who discovered that if a menstruating woman walks through a field while holding the hem of her toga above her belt, 'caterpillars, worms, beetles, and other vermin will fall from off the ears of corn.' But, he warns, don't do this at sunrise or the crops themselves will die."  (pg. 45)

He wanted to demonstrate the "superstition" surrounding menstruating women that may have influenced the region at this time.  I just found it interesting...seems a pretty powerful thing, huh?



Any surprises?  Thoughts?