It’s 11pm and I can’t sleep

My husband and I atop Glastonbury Tor. 2013

10 Years ago I started this blog. I had just graduated with a Master of Arts in English and I missed the writing and research part of my university experience. I wanted a place to track my thoughts and not write a journal, per se, but interesting articles about my thoughts on various topics. I was not ready to give up writing.  I’m proud of some of the things I’ve written, especially movie and book reviews and my struggles with religion, namely Christianity.  I feel that I’ve lost the heady thrill of college writing and the joy of discovery.

Well, a lot has happened since. It’s been almost a year now since I moved back to the States after splitting from my husband and it’s been almost a year since he died of cancer. The former was planned but the latter was a surprise. I have not written about it except in my personal diary because it’s a long embarrassing and painful story.  What I thought would happen didn’t and what I never thought would happen did. When I left for the UK, I followed a dream. However, that proved to be exactly what it was; a dream. Unreal. Fantastical. Too good to be true. Did I mention I’ve become bitter as well?

Ironically, the only job I could find at my age upon returning to my home state of Illinois, starting completely over again and even with a Master’s degree, was a job in a church doing admin and financials. It pays better than I expected, and even though it IS a church, I don’t think I believe in God any longer even though I give it a half-hearted attempt now and then for old times’ sake. Sure, at work I can talk the talk as good as any of the pastors. But my heart’s not in it. In fact, my heart’s not in much anymore.

I no longer believe in the democratic process once a supreme corporate asshole like Trump got elected. No amount of umbrage on the part of journos, politicos, or anyone with any Washington clout seems able to change that. I tired of being outraged a few months ago. Also, for the first time in 45 years, I’m not attached to the hip to any boy/man that I’ve attempted to earn love from by jumping into the sack first thing. I’m no longer giving everything I have to a relationship that doesn’t give a shit about me. The self-sacrifice I’ve spent my life on has yielded exactly … nothing. In fact, the only thing I look forward to now is not dying of breast cancer or heart disease, both of which have visited me in my life at various points.

I now spend my time working, playing Red Dead Redemption 2, Mass Effect: Andromeda, and reading books. Those things are my favorite things (except the working part).  I don’t think I was ever cut out to do great or even semi-great things. I just don’t have the energy to invest. I’ve spent it all. I don’t have, nor will I have, any significant goals. I wish that, like Thoreau, I could find my cabin (read electronically wired house) in the woods and retreat into Nature. My best years are behind me, and if that sounds depressed, perhaps it is. Perhaps, too, it’s just reality.

Maybe I’ll write more now. Maybe that’s the therapy I need. We’ll see.

Advertisement

What Used to Be

I used to be a woman of faith. After a spiritual experience in 1983, I began going to church and the rest  I’ve written about extensively on this blog. Since then I’ve given up my religiosity and my beliefs in certain dogma.  I no longer go to church per se, although I’ve been going to the Quaker meeting house with my husband for a few years now.

I still cling to some notions about Christianity, but the one thing I don’t believe in any longer is prayer.  By prayer I mean an action the believer takes to attempt to move the Maker into changing the Laws of Nature or the minds of other people to affect an outcome.  Now, I believe in meditation and silence and prayer in the sense that it helps the person praying, but I don’t believe that some Divine Being is listening to our prayers and deciding to rearrange the universe to answer them.

What made me realize this is that in times past, my first inclination when faced with bad news is to pray for the a positive outcome that happened to suit me at all times. Now, faced with my husband’s cancer diagnosis, I realize that no amount of praying will change the news of how large or small this tumor is. It just is. It’s been there unknowingly and will continue to be there no matter what I believe in my mind about it. No amount of prayer will affect that. No one will hear this prayer but me.  I don’t mean to say that prayer is not good, but I believe it’s only good for the one doing the praying. It acts as a meditative tool to calm one’s nerve, bolster one’s resolve, and to give someone the much-needed cool-down time before doing or saying something rash.

The reasons I came to this conclusion is by observing the world around me.  Despite a prayer force of billions of people in the world, we still have death, famine, abuse, rape, murder, cancer, wars, and all the evils that man can devise. Despite faith in a Divine Being we still have those idiots who believe that God wants the deaths of everyone who doesn’t believe the way they do. Despite billions of the faithful praying daily we see no discernible difference in the outcomes of cancer deaths or salvation from it by miraculous means. No, I have faith in medicine and science to find the cures for most ills before I have faith in prayer.

Now I know all the arguments for and against such things, but this has come from years of experience and it hasn’t come lightly. I’ve struggled mightily to keep an innocent faith in God, Jesus, and prayer, but at some point I had to face the cruel facts of reality. So, as I face the cruel facts of an uncertain future with a cancer diagnosis, I will face it with prayer like I always do, but I have no expectation that the cancer will disappear. I don’t believe it’s some kind of test or sent by God to make me more faithful. How awful to believe such things! I am of the idea that we will do everything available to us to stop it or at least slow it down. I have every expectation that prayer will make me calmer and able to face it. I suppose that makes me the double-minded man in the book of James, doesn’t it? Ah well, better that than be in denial about the cruelties of nature.

Of Top Models, Glee, and Face Off

Image via Wikipedia

With most new television seasons beginning in February, there isn’t much for us TV junkies to watch until then. My vows to read more fall by the wayside however, when on a day off I get hooked on America’s Top Model. The over the top theatrics of Tyra Banks and the very bizarre yet all too common phenomenon of outrageously campy gay men telling women how to walk, model, and wear clothes were not good selling points for me, but I’m always a sucker for people trying to make it in whatever industry they choose. Most of the time these things are about chance “talents” pertaining to one’s looks or how one moves. It was fascinating to see how the industry can transform an ordinary girl into a “high fashion” model. What all this has to do with fashion (and I use that term loosely) and how this is supposed to sell clothes is beyond me. You might as well leave the clothes on a hanger. But it was either watch this or watch a women-murdered-of-the-week show. The male gaze is always evident in these shows; from birth (toddlers and tiaras and their gay male trainers) to death.

Still I have nothing against programs that are competitive in this way, as long as it’s NOT about singing. There are way too many singing shows on television. Many, many people can carry a tune and sing well, but that’s not what these types of shows are looking for. They are looking for stand-out looks and star quality. They try to make the audience the casting director and at the same time humiliates them and us while doing it. Yes, American Idol, I’m talking about you.  Why anyone would want to tune in to Simon Cowell’s degrading remarks and boorish behavior is beyond me. But what about those programs that aren’t competition? Take Glee for instance. There is absolutely nothing interesting about this show (exception Jane Lynch). It doesn’t resemble real life at all but that’s not the point. This program and High School Musical are about selling music, again and again, and providing a forum for making social statements about gay teen boys and harassment they go through. Worthy, yes, but when will we see teen lesbians and what they go through? Again, it’s still a male gazed culture. These shows and others that feature music as background material are merely trying to sell new music and music long thought dead. They know that teens watching these programs will go out and buy just about anything. Blame WB and it’s stable of shows like Dawson’s Creek, Supernatural, The Gilmore Girls and for this phenomenon.

UPDATE: My daughter made me watch a marathon of Glee that she recorded on the DVR and ok, I have to admit, there’s something compelling about it. The singing’s good. But perhaps my grudging respect has got to do with the football jock, Puck, who falls for the tough fat chick.  That swayed me. smile.

They are also increasingly product placement commercials since most with DVRs zoom past commercials inserted every 5 minutes. America’s Top Model is all about Cover Girl cosmetics. Project Runway is all about L’Oreal and Garnier hair products. Top Chef features appliances and cars.  Survivor is about Dorritos, soft drinks, and bathroom products. You don’t even have to have a plot driven show any longer as long as you have products inserted. In a way, this is far more preferable than the inane commercials we are inundated with every 5 minutes. But what does that mean for programming? Why would we rather watch this stuff, even with all the commercials interwoven with the action? Are we really such voyeurs of humiliation?  Or, are we sheep doing exactly what we are led to do?

A new show that I started watching, uncorrupted yet by product placement, is the SyFy Channel’s Face Off. No doubt they are waiting for popularity polls to pick up to begin placing major products, but for now, they are product free.  Up and coming make up artists face challenges in the traditional Top Chef format of a 15 minute challenge and a bigger competition in the remaining hour.  One in particular was fascinating. Contestants had to paint a nude human into a giant photo backdrop. The judges were top make up artists in Hollywood and the host is a Westmore, of the great movie make up Westmore dynasty.  What’s also fascinating about this show is realizing that this, and other shows, is where all the nerds you knew in high school went. Every make up artist has an ear lobe plug, every Project Runway contestant dresses bizarrely it seems but a more universal truth is evident among all these shows; human beings come in two sizes; selfless/friendly and selfish/hateful. There doesn’t seem to be any in-between.  Of course we are only shown what producers want us to see, but I have a feeling it’s not far from the truth about these people. (You can’t tell me that Camille Grammar isn’t exactly as she’s portrayed on Real Housewives of Beverly Hills!) Still, Face Off shows promise, which means it will be promptly ruined by something. Count on it.

But this kind of television is junk food. There are two classifications of entertainment; High brow and Low brow. It works for literature, movies, television, anything pop culture throws at us. And what makes something “high brow” or “low brow?” Why the audience of course. Depending on which programs you watch, which books you read, where you get your news, you are classed into a particular category. It’s been going on for centuries, even before television came on the horizon.  It also shows itself in politics.  The great unwashed masses are supposed to sit back and let the elite run the show. To rebel against that is to make a few people very, very nervous. They tell us what we like, what we should eat, what we should wear, how to take a vacation and where, which politics and social issues are important, you name it, they tell us about it. And you are supposed to LEARN what they want you to learn from it, all while spending money. If you are going to sit in front of the television and insist on being “inactive,” they are going to push shows like Heavy, Biggest Loser, I Was a Fat Teenager, and the like, all intermingled with diet and exercise equipment commercials. The housewife with small children at home is supposed to learn from WE, OWN, Lifetime Channel, and ABC’s Hallmark Channel, and TLC that you need to stay indoors and take care of your children because to go out of these safe zones will result in parasites, stalkers, murderous boyfriends, missing children, etc.  That’s the purpose of television after all; to tell you what to think, how to live, and who to hate, as well as to fill us with fear of the big wide world. Looked at as an occasional snack, television is amusing and relieves boredom. But a steady diet of it will fill you with nothing but “empty emotional calories” and will probably just make you angry. Are we going to let them get away with that?

Related Articles

• Cast of Glee Sells Chevrolet With Musical Performance (adrants.com)
• “Tyra Banks Crowns Skinniest Model Yet Winner of ANTM” and related posts (deceiver.com)

I Get It Now! I’m a “loose” Woman!

I think I understand why fundamentalist Protestant and Catholics stop by my blog and engage me in conversations about the church. These are usually nit-picky types of things like arguing whose facts are more important or bits and pieces of church history. They, like all believers, think that since I take issue with the church and its institutions, I must have some driving need for forgiveness for sins. This is a fairly common assumption (among many) made by those believers who try to figure out those of us who “rebel,” or “backslide” as they would call it.  We’ve had the audacity to leave church! Shock! Horror! Look at the endless grief they’ve given Anne Rice!  They just can’t understand why we would leave so they look and dig and hitting upon an incident we may write about ourselves on our blogs, they play amateur psychologist and console their own consciences by saying, “Ah, there’s the reason.” In their benighted sort of way, they think they are helping us, offering us a deity’s comfort. That’s sweet. But what they can never understand is that that comfort comes with a price; intellectual and spiritual integrity.

It actually makes them feel better that they’ve hit upon a reason, because the black/white, either/or thinkers are extremely uncomfortable with nuance, subtlety, and things that don’t fit strict categories or follow rigid authority. It’s scary out there after all.  It just occurred to me this morning and it makes complete sense. I think they would pick a better method of pastoral counsel though than the “you’re wrong, I’m right” approach. That’s why we left church in the first place; because of being constantly told not to trust ourselves, to follow rules, follow leadership and especially follow men. You see it’s especially ugly for them when women dare to leave the church. A woman without authority over her just cannot be countenanced. Quite frankly, I’ve always thought that women should leave the church in droves.  We’ll see if men could get any work done if they had to wash and iron their own vestments or church accouterments, polish all their sacramental cups and saucers, type their own sermons or bulletins, or watch their children. Men might have to {gasp} teach Sunday school or something! Oh my LORD! Cant’ have that. Women loose in the world is the downfall of Western civilization!

Afterthought: of course I do come off on these pages as someone with mixed emotions about religion. Like Anne Rice, I am sympathetic to open-minded, progressive spiritual persons who are trying to live a non-condemnatory kind of life. So I can see why I probably invite the criticism sometimes. However, I struggle to make sense of the world like everyone else. I just don’t like others telling me what to believe about ethics, politics, or philosophy without giving me the same courtesy.

Things That Make Me Go, “hmmm”

Matt McCormick’s post is a very thoughtful one indeed and something every Christian should have to read and give an answer, as he said, without ad hoc arguments.

Plurality of Beliefs

This is one of the most helpful posts I’ve read on the plurality of belief systems.  My favorite bit:

In the main, I agree with what Prothero writes and the perspective that he takes. One of my early mentors who encouraged my academic investigations of Buddhism and Asian religion impressed upon me that if all religions are simply a path to the same thing that there was no reason for us to talk. That is and remains a fundamental principle of mine and is an important core around which to form an understand of pluralism as it exists in modern America.

If all paths indeed head to the same place, then no dialog is needed, right? I don’t necessarily ascribe to the “all paths..” viewpoint either and neither does Derek Olsen. Overall, it’s a fine post on where, positionally, the dialog should take place, and I don’t mean on the kitchen table either. (smile)

Yes, Women’s Brains Are Different Than Men’s

Amen and Amen to this! It’s what I’ve always believed to be true, just too cowed in academia to say so. What’s so threatening about believing in brain differences? People are so afraid of biological determinism (i.e. “fate”) they will do almost anything to avoid it, including denying scientific facts. Here’s another tidbit from Sex and the 405 blog. Does any of this mean that people cannot go against brain function? Certainly not. It’s about propensity, that’s all.