JT and Sex

This seems to be the afternoon for music on the blog. This little post is about pop music and all that that entails….so you can’t say at the end I didn’t warn you.

Early today, in an attempt to get a reaction out of a friend (nameless because he knows who he is) who still doesn’t believe in the brilliance that is Justin Timberlake’s new album, The 20/20 Experience, I compared his albums to sex.

Let me preface, sex has been on my mind a lot lately. One of my final papers I am working on right now focuses on the Hebrew text of Song of Songs through an ecological lens. All that to say is I’m not thinking about anything else (in the least sexy way possible).

Anyways back to the music. I was so excited for JT’s new album, it was pre-ordered and when I woke up on Tuesday morning it was already downloaded onto my phone. I didn’t stop listening to it for about 72 hours. Getting ready in the morning, driving to and from work, during work and doing homework, I immersed myself in it. So to see that this dear person in my life just shrugged his shoulders in response made me sad. Of course it isn’t like FutureSex/LoveSounds, but don’t dismiss it because it’s different!

This morning I decided to listen to the two albums right after each other. Early on I had a revelation and sent him the following text message: 

“Ok. So I’m listening to JT’s FS/LS. Here’s what I think: the first album could be compared to having sex in an alley it’s hot, fast and dirty. Whereas the new album could be compared to sex in a relationship, it’s sometimes slow but beautiful because there’s depth.”

I think it is fair to say that our culture idealizes sex to the point that when it is normalized and perhaps even a little bit mundane we don’t know how to deal with it. We’re disappointed and feel betrayed. So after the heightened climax that was Justin Timberlake’s FutureSex/LoveSounds, of course one would be disillusioned to the beauty of an album that is based more on sustainable experiences and emotions (even the songs are longer!). If you are one of those who had too high of expectations and were initally disappointed by The 20/20 Experience, go back and have a listen and remember that the act of sex doesn’t always produce intimacy. 

Sabbath or something like it

Hello! It's been a while, sorry. Because of that, I want to put things a bit into context before you continue. A bit of my program here at seminary focuses on ecology. Last semester, we were supposed to focus on sabbath as a practice. This was my experience of sabbath today:


Today felt like sabbath, which is weird because it is Monday. 
But apparently Sabbath can happen anytime.

I spent most of Sunday battling a hangover as well as a significant amount of negative self talk thus little energy to do the same today. So I didn’t. I chose care which manifested itself in getting brakes for my car and weeding for two hours.

I know maintaining one’s car isn't a usual practice of self-care. But today it was. It was a rejection of the pattern of procrastination in my life. At the root of my procrastination is a defense mechanism of my faulty self-worth (read this blog). I had been procrastinating getting new brakes for two months, which in retrospect could have been disastrous for myself and for others. New brakes means new life! As I was waiting, an older gentleman asked me if I was studying or just reading for fun and I said that I was studying, he replied, “ah, yes, I’ve seen that look of studying before in my children.” We chatted for a little bit about his kids and then he encouraged me to not worry about student loans, that everything would be okay. It is humbling how a random stranger could offer so much hope, even when you weren’t even aware you needed it.

After I got home from Les Schwab, the sun was still out so I decided it would be a good time to work on weeding. I don’t have much experience in growing things but I am good at weeding. The gardner housemate has been gone since January so it was a mess out there (and still is). It took me two hours to barely finish one half of the front garden. While it was hard work and I am sure I will be stiff tomorrow, there is something to be said about getting one’s hands dirty. I mean, obviously it has been said by loads of people but it is another thing to actually get dirt under your nails. Most of the time was spent quietly listening to the birds and avoiding grabbing slugs. Eventually the next door neighbor kids were forced outside and I spent the last hour listening to them play pretend, as though they were characters in Star Wars. They discussed whether or not Darth Mal deserved to die and then moved on to rapping about Frodo. I love them and I don’t even know their names.

I didn’t weed for the attention but two of the other housemates walked in after I had finished and hadn’t even noticed my handiwork. They walk by it every day, coming and going, how could they not?! Do they even notice what the outside looked like? This made me think about how little we see the world around us, whether that is creation or our neighbors. I have spent a lot time lately focusing inward, which usually ends up being more harmful, and I think I would like to be able to see others and creation more than I do. I want to feel it under my finger nails and be able to laugh with kids as they play, encouraging neighbors and taking care of myself even my possessions.

Maybe that's the point of Sabbath, stopping to notice, be noticed and to care about it.

How are you experiencing Sabbath?

CYOA: 1 Timothy 2:1-15 - Caitlin Kellog, A Bunch of Brokeness

I’ve been trying to avoid this conversation for a long time. Every time I turn around, it is smacking me right in the face. First of all, because I am a woman, secondly a single woman, and thirdly, a single woman studying at seminary. Though I don’t want to be a pastor, I do want to teach the Bible.

I am literally exhausted by this conversation. Mostly because it is 1 AM in the morning and I had two beers with my brother (who is also going to seminary). But also because this question, this “issue” has been a thorn in my side, for years, but in particular this semester. It just causes one too many emotions. And in the end, both sides are able to explain quite eloquently (and without vile, psyche!) “the correct” position based on the scriptures. So let’s just say we’re tied.
And get back to more important questions like why there are still no hotels on the moon.

What I can tell you is some of my experience.

My parents are a lovely mixture of egalitarian and complimentarianism. My dad never lets my mom mow the lawn, mostly because I think he secretly loves the smell of cut grass mixed with gasoline. But they share other duties, like cooking or doing the dishes, etc. I think it works out quite lovely actually. I grew up going to church, but have never had a woman pastor, sure lots of Sunday school teachers, and reading books about women missionaries and who would preach and baptize overseas (which is ironic and racist, because it is “good enough” for “those people” but not for us to have women in leadership). I went to Bible college where I felt affirmed as a woman studying theology, but it was lonely. Now I am attending a seminary with affirming professors who ask me to speak up in class. But again, it is lonely. The 3 professors I have are males; the majority of students in classes are married men. And the only other single woman entering in seminary this year isn’t even in the same program!

In the end, I claim both egalitarianism and complementarianism.
Why not? Why do we always have to say one or the other? That’s stupid.
I think it is impossible to be in real life friendships/relationships/what-have-you without both.
I believe in and hope for equality. And I long for a day when power does not corrupt. But I would hope that relationships are also about give and take. I always come back to interlocking fingers while holding hands with another person; the weakest parts of your hand (all that squishy stuff in between) are covered by the strongest parts of my hand, the fingers. This is what I can offer you, it is quite a basic human transaction really. I need you and you need me.

Currently I am working on a paper for my Christian History and Theology class (which is due on Monday, adding to the exhaustion), on the virgin martyrs. These were a small group of women, who chose Christ and death over the socially and culturally demanded marriage. They were tortured and threatened with sexual assault, often dying in the most inhumane ways; one woman even had her breasts sliced off. At the heart of this persecution, was the body. These women rejected the very thing which defined their “femaleness”, marriage and child-birth; it was a “renunciation of social insignificance”. For a time their stories were the precedent for women to carry on in ministry and leadership, baptizing and preaching. Eventually they were first women to be venerated as saints, standing alongside Mary, the Mother of Jesus. However, along came the Church Fathers and Christian society a-la Constantine (who actually didn’t establish Christianity as the state religion, that was his grandson), exerting culturally-based misogyny and control over the new virgins. The only way they could describe these martyrs’ bravery and self-control was to say that they became men, that they literally took on the male form; because those kinds of qualities could not exist within women (and there are so many cultural reasons why this was a NORMAL concept to have of women, that to call them misogynists is really to say, they were just men of their time, unfortunately).

Now today feminists see the virgin martyrs as symbols of liberation from man’s control of women’s bodies. These women were subversive and able to overthrow the dominant culture by claiming virginity, thus claiming their sexuality, thus claiming their identity. But the tension lies in the fact that we simply cannot read twentieth century ideology into the 3rd. It is absurd and just terrible exegesis, even I know that as a woman.

What has been the most difficult for me in this project and this discussion on the blog is that while I agree with Duncan and Danielle about Jesus loving women too, it seems that the following apostolic tradition did not love women like Jesus did, that there was a reversion back to the maintenance of the dominant cultural norms surrounding the religious and civic roles. And it is excruciatingly depressing. Jerome, Tertullian, Augustine and all the other Fathers wrote brilliant theologically treatises. I cannot deny that. But then to read their views on women, and women’s bodies in particular, the loneliness creeps back and screams in my ear: “there is no historical precedent for women to have power!” I just wanted to excommunicate them all and when I get to heaven I will punch them all in their faces.
But I can’t.
And I won’t.
Because 2 Corinthians 12.
At the heart of what I believe about Jesus, the Incarnation, redemption and how we are to live our lives as Christians, is not of power but of weakness; of foolishness instead of wisdom.
The things men have deemed ugly and contemptuous is that which brings glory to God.

The virgin martyrs were subversive because the Gospel is subversive.
Grace is sufficient for us, for Christ’s power is complete in weakness.
When I am weak, then I am strong.
And if I am weak because I am a woman, then I am strong because of Christ. And so are you.

By Caitlin Kellog