Happy Father's Day 2015!

I wish I had thought to do this for Mother's Day... Maybe I can do a special moms post later on as a belated post. In honor of one of the least appreciated major holidays in the USA, here are some of my favorite fictional dads and grandfathers (in no order except for Atticus and Ned)!

1. Atticus Finch, To Kill A Mockingbird
2. Eddard Stark, A Game of Thrones
3. King Triton, The Little Mermaid
4. George Bailey, It's A Wonderful Life
5. Guido Orefice, Life is Beautiful
6. King Stefan, Sleeping Beauty
7. Wilfred Mott, Doctor Who
8. Pacha, The Emperor's New Groove
9. Maurice, Beauty and the Beast
10. James, The Princess and the Frog
11. Charles Ingalls, Little House series
12. Professor Trevor Broom, Hellboy
13. Pete Tyler, Doctor Who
14. Lord Archibald Craven, The Secret Garden
15. Mufasa, The Lion King
16. Edward Walker, The Village

Stealing Culture?

There's an idea floating around the 'Net that seems to have stemmed from liberal arts colleges and the like- that instead of America being a melting pot of cultures and traditions where we are free to share cultures and engage in others, that doing so is wrong and harms said culture. This idea is called "cultural appropriation".

Though I guess I should specify: it only counts if it's white people doing it, apparently. Especially white Americans (the young Social Justice Bloggers who spout all this seem to not realize there are countries beyond America but you wouldn't know that with how US-centric they all are). If a white person eats a taco, by golly, the entire history of Mexico is being erased. If a white person wears dreadlocks, Jamaicans everywhere cry out in anguish (never mind that dreads are neither a 'black thing', they're religious, nor did blacks invent it; Romans and Vikings, for example, wore them too). And so on.

If a Chinese woman wears a dirndl for Halloween, however, this doesn't count as stealing culture, apparently. A black man can riverdance and it's not hurting anyone. Someone of Mestizo descent can study ballet and Russians don't suffer from it. Hmm. It's almost like a single individual participating in a foreign culture isn't actually hurting it. It's almost like, yes, cultures should be respected, but they're also meant to be shared, generally. Don't get upset over this:

If you have no problem with this:

I don't think either of the wearers were being disrespectful or trying to "steal" culture.

Hmm. It's almost like this is just another pathetic attempt to drive the wedge between races and ethnicities down a little harder. Listen, if a non-white person can celebrate Oktoberfest or St. Lucia's Day or St. Patrick's Day or eat pierogis and such, a white person can buy a kimono, eat dim sum, and celebrate el Dia de los Muertos as well. Whole histories and civilizations are not going to collapse because Becky in Florida or Ling in Hong Kong are eating foreign foods and buying traditional attire from different countries.

We can share and learn from other cultures. That's what America was meant for. And you don't even have to be American to appreciate that.

Too Wise For God

I finally made some much-deserved time to study a Bible verse that caught my eye this morning as I flipped open the sermon pamphlet my dad had given me from last Sunday-

"For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God." - 1 Corinthians 1:18

I read Matthew Henry's commentary of it, and he as usual made good points:

"Christ crucified is a stumbling-block to the Jews. They could not get over it. They had a conceit that their expected Messiah was to be a great temporal prince, and therefore would never own one who made so mean an appearance in life, and died so accursed a death, for their deliverer and king. They despised him, and looked upon him as execrable, because he was hanged on a tree, and because he did not gratify them with a sign to their mind, though his divine power shone out in innumerable miracles."

 "[The Greeks] laughed at the story of a crucified Saviour, and despised the apostles’ way of telling it. They sought for wisdom. They were men of wit and reading, men that had cultivated arts and sciences, and had, for some ages, been in a manner the very mint of knowledge and learning. There was nothing in the plain doctrine of the cross to suit their taste, nor humour their vanity, nor gratify a curious and wrangling temper: they entertained it therefore with scorn and contempt. What, hope to be saved by one that could not save himself." 

Does this sound familiar to you? Much like our modern society, does it not?

The Jews to me are reminiscent of the watered-down Christians (or "Water Christians" as I call them) who have submitted to the world instead of God. The Jews back then wouldn't accept a Savior of such humble birth, who hung out with rabble, despite His many miracles that proved He was indeed the Son of God. They just wanted a magic prince cloaked in splendor.

The Greeks remind me of both atheists and some other Water Christians. Not always the same kind as above who are too vain to truly accept the Gospel, but ones who are too arrogant to, which is definitely the problem with most atheists today as well. The Greeks scorned the Savior who (supposedly) couldn't even save Himself. Why, they were so advanced in the arts, sciences, and knowledge in general. Clearly they knew better than some guy who lived simply, told his friends to give away their worldly possessions, and preached revolutionary yet simple sermons. Nothing about this plain gospel appealed to them, exactly how the anti-Jesus atheists and so-called Christians of today are, the former of whom pats themselves on the back for their religious-like faith the vague, monolithic Science deity; the latter of whom sneers at true believing Christians trying to follow the Word even when it clashes with society's opinions to do so. These worldly 'Christians' might actually have a faint belief in God or go to church to hear a nice sugar-coated sermon that doesn't challenge them to live a different life than the comfortable one they're used to, but they have no interest in serving Jesus and tackling obstacles the world throws at anyone who will do so.


These people think themselves too wise to believe in or follow God wholeheartedly. They're too good for that. They know better.

Keith Krell also made a point I'd like to quote:

"The Word of the cross is that salvation is freely granted by God's grace, not human merit or intellect. Furthermore, salvation is extended to all people. This levels the ground at the foot of the cross. Everyone comes to God through faith, based upon the work of Jesus Christ. This offends man’s pride."

Unbelievers and false Christians who shun the Gospel do not want to be equal with people they dislike (especially followers of Jesus, but this can apply to anyone). They're better than them. Those losers are lesser than they are. It also means they're no excuse to not accept God if it's free- and they don't want to. They want to worship themselves, the world, money, anything that appeals to their pride but God.

So it all just comes down to human pride getting offended. And as such, these groups will be left to perish in their own stubborn pride.

Mourn for a Confused Child's Thrown-Away Life, But Don't Blame the Wrong Parties

I'm tired of fueling the fire this issue is made up of, but I'm going to say it. The Alcorn parents had a mentally unwell child who chose to kill himself. If it didn’t happen now, those problems would’ve manifested in other ways some other time, because that very sadly is the case with those who struggle with depression or other mental illnesses. I don’t say all this without sympathy; I say it because nobody forces anyone to commit suicide, so this "If the parents had just accepted her, she wouldn't have killed herself!". That's acting like they pointed a gun at him and said, "Kill yourself, or we'll do it for me". That’s absolute nonsense to the utmost, at best, and at worst and most offensively, takes Joshua's agency away making him a helpless victim who just didn't know better (can you really get any more condescending than that?) and shifts the blame onto two people who had no part in Josh’s/Leela’s death, two people who are currently grieving their lost child on top of dealing with the flooding of hate mail and death threats from the side that, ironically, condemns them for not accepting “her” while not accepting the parents themselves.

Photo from cnn.com.

Lots of things don’t get accepted by others that you don’t end your life over, some things much worse than your parents not calling the son the mom gave birth to a girl because that’s how he feels like being called. And as his parents, whatever you think of their theological beliefs, they make the rules, and until he was a legal adult, he had to respect their decisions. Once he was a legal adult, he could have gone out and gotten surgery or anything he wanted (not that I am encouraging this idea, just stating that all he would have had to do was wait).

I also don't understand how so many people seem incapable of feeling more than one thing at once. Have we all morphed into J.M. Barrie's Tinkerbell, who was so tiny she could not hold in more than extreme emotion at a time? You can feel sorry for Joshua and still not hate on his parents. I do feel bad for him. He was confused, but at the same time, I don't excuse his choice to end the life God gave him, and especially not selfish way he chose to do it- by jumping in front of a moving truck. The poor driver might well be scarred for life and already has people blaming HIM for what happened!

Do you feel a burning desire to lat blame at someone's feet? Why not the LGBT community? They have no problem encouraging sexual immorality in young children by telling them whatever feels good is right, which is a blatant lie and just childish thinking anyway. Many of these people are also bullies themselves, though sending threats to Mr. and Mrs. Alcorn is far from being their first victims of that. They crave validation to be assured that what they're doing is right (because, again, "it feels good") and not immoral at all, and when anyone refuses to not tell them what they want to hear, they lose all sense of reason and lash out at the person, instead of just accepting their views- something the preachers of 'tolerance' claim to want themselves- or maybe even stopping to consider if that person is right not to. Feelings prevail over logic or even basic biology sometimes. Kids like Josh can't accept their fate, the fact that he was a boy born as a boy, and this leads to anger, depression, and other negative things we'd all do well to keep out of our lives if we were just honest with ourselves.

But slowly, surely, some people have started to speak out against the bullying the parents are receiving, saying that even though they think the parents were wrong, they don't deserve to be harassed. This should be seen as a little ray of light in a society where far too many embrace this “bully everyone we don’t agree with” attitude, which is just disgusting, and especially prevalent on the Internet where the LGBT community tends to reign supreme on issues. It doesn’t matter what anyone else says you don’t agree with- you do not defend or condone harassment and bullying. If you claim to just want love and tolerance and in the same breath condemn those for not agreeing with you, for not supporting your lifestyle choice, for accepting biological facts over desires, you're as bad as the people you're claiming to fight against.

Sense of Community in Church... or Not?

I don’t mean if you’re an agnostic and your mom drags you to church once a few times a year for the holidays or anything, I mean actual Christians who regularly (if they can) attend.

I love my church but I have never made a single friend there. I mean, I sort of am acquainted with the pastor’s elder daughter. She’s one of the nicest young people I’ve ever known and really has her life together (though her parents have always pushed her and her siblings hard, I know, and is the overachieving type your parents LOVE to compare you to in a “why can’t you be like them?” way). But she’s always super busy being in lots of activities, much more devoted to God than I’ve been, has her own little set of best friends, and as the pastor’s kid lots of people want to talk to her. Oh, and she’s married now. Her younger sister my age is also engaged (welp, there goes my potential roommate! ). When my dad got custody of me when I was 16 I was already hesitant to go to church- I was less of a Chragnostic as I had been as a kid but not quite a true Christian even though I really believed in God and demons and such then. But I hate crowds, feel deeply uncomfortable in them, I disliked how long the worship music was that I could never get into, although everyone was perfectly nice, if much more outgoing than me. But after years of going I got into it and even looked forward to it, especially after I started working full time and almost never got a single Sunday off, so I REALLY started to miss it and missed being around nice, encouraging, Christian people.
But anyway, as much as I love my church, I’ve come to realize something after checking out the reddit True Christian section for the first time. Some guy posted about how tired he was of having no Christian friends and though he didn’t want any perfect ones, just some that were at least trying to follow God, and tried hard to make friends at his Christian college/church, they were rather preppy and more outgoing and didn’t seem to want to talk to anyone who wasn’t. I really relate to this- I don’t doubt most of the kids my age at church are perfectly nice, but they do seem to only gravitate towards ones like them, ones that are preppy, sociable, do lots of activities, etc. They’ve already found their own pairs/groups and even cliques to get into and not one that I can remember but my pastor’s daughters has even tried talking to me. I’m sorry if that makes me sound bad, like I don’t want to try talking to them, but I’m very socially phobic and get nervous about meeting people, especially ones my age, and don’t even bother trying to introduce me to guys, I freeze up around them bad. My dad wishes our worship leader’s daughter who is a year or so younger than I and also into art/very quiet were friends but she never notices me at all, even when I helped her with an item at the store I work at, even though my dad introduced us before. she also has her own best friend. I feel pretty isolated and discouraged because I have absolutely no Christian friends (outside my awesome tumblr followers) to talk to.

On one hand, I love my solitude. I’m an introvert and NEED to be by myself to relax and recharge and think clearly. Being around too many people, especially for too long, just exhausts me and makes me cranky. On the other hand, Christians need fellowship and I could definitely use more friends right now. Most of the time I’m too tired after the long bus ride home from work to hang out, but on some days off and even just talking/venting would be great, exactly what I need. My boyfriend is more of a Jesusite (used to be an atheist till we got close and eventually, unintentionally, became an item) and my best friend… I have no idea what she beliefs anymore. she used to be sort of a Lutheran growing up I think, till her parents didn’t get back together and she kinda stopped. Then in the typically bratty/rebellious tween/early teen years she decided to become an atheist. Then she sort of believed more. Now she does have some understanding of sin and I’ve gotten her to go to church with me once or twice (and she’s gone with her sister, who’s about in the same boat as her I guess once) but she doesn’t care to stop what sinful lifestyles she’s leading. And now she’s having a baby, which obviously is gonna have some big changes. My dad can be a great source of righteous spiritual knowledge and encouragement but he himself has terrible habits when he’s outside church and can be an honestly nasty person to me sometimes (which in turn makes me want to be nasty right back, and I often do, but I don’t want that negativity in my life anymore).

These Are a Few of My Favorite Blogs

I've discovered some awesome blogs over the past few months- typically by pure accident, just Googling up ideas and beliefs I like and seeing what comes up (feminism, homemaking, and Christianity together being a common thing I've been looking up). Here are a few of them. Enjoy!

1. Ladies Against Feminist/Beautiful Womanhood This isn't a new blog by far, and it's pretty well known, but I had to include it! It probably deserves to top the list the most (although the rest aren't really in order), and it's one of the first I originally stumbled upon. They hit many good points and ideas our society is badly in need of hearing.

2. Generation Cedar Almost ties with LAF, as they are very similar, but I prefer LAF slightly (I think GC occasionally comes off as too condemning of women, even if it doesn't mean to, but it has most excellent beliefs, recipes, etc.).

3. Forgiven Former Feminist A very excellent young woman's blog with an equally excellent testimony- how many feminists have you ever met that actually turned their way of thinking completely around? I love her way of thinking now!

4. Heart at Home You know, I totally forgot how I found this one, despite it being only a few days ago when I did. I think I was looking up something about lemongrass? Well, either way, she's another great Christian blogger with great recipe ideas. I'm becoming a tip hoarder (frugal tips, craft tips, organizing tips, I love 'em all) and she has sooo many good ones.

5. Aspiring Homemaker Discovered yesterday thanks to HaH. Very pleasing to look at- like seeing a Victorian painting postcard! She enjoys the simple life and if you didn't know better, you'd think she and her home stepped right out of the early 20th century.

6. Raising Olives I LOVE big families! This is always fun to read, especially as she homeschools her kids, something not uncommon with big Christian families but I have always found very interesting.

7. Domestic Felicity An articulate Jewish homemaker living in Israel with a strong Biblical view on feminism, pro-life issues, and femininity, discovered thanks to LAF. I love reading her political posts so much, as she is both a solid and graceful writer.

8. Deep Roots at Home Ahh, I almost forgot this, but how could I?! This is also a very recent favorite. She mostly posts about gardening, home remedies, recipes, etc. (and they are great) but the first posts I originally discovered were a series about modesty (which I'm still reading). They are wonderful and give good advice about what to wear in summer, for errands, around the house, etc.... in skirts! Yes, this has helped motivate me to wear skirts more. (Unfortunately it's still too cold to wear any here, but I am pretty well prepared for summer and spring!)

9. Couture For Christ OK, this is actually a fashion blog, but it's still one of my favorites. It's just such a shame Southern Belle, the blogger, hasn't made a post since over 2 years ago (can't believe it's been that long!). CFC was one of my first favorite blogs. She's very into all that is tasteful, feminine, and classic, another big Victorian fan here. I really hope she comes back, but in the meantime, there's still plenty for me to read on her blog.

I'm a HIT: Homemaker in Training!

After years of being indecisive about what I'd like to make my professional, lifelong career (and ranging from teacher to writer to makeup artist), I have chosen the oldest calling in the book.... homemaking!

Say... is that Donna Reed? Mary Bailey is one of my favorite homemakers!

I never thought about it before, but as I grew this year, in femininity and spirit both, I realized the utter importance of being there for your family in the home. After all, if you don't raise the next generation, who will? Secular schools? Strangers in classrooms? TV?

I'm one of those people who is mostly moderately good at a handful of things (although I truly believe writing is my best talent) and frankly, I just don't think I work well under someone else, with no room for creativity or anything. As a homemaker, I am my own boss working alongside my husband, and can creative to the high Heavens for my future family's needs and demands. I am actually excited thinking about it!

Of course, I fully plan to keep writing as well as I do this. I will probably even blog about my adventures as a  housekeeper, mom, free maid and live-in chef, too. I mean, maybe I'm just a dork, but I get excited when I find cool ways to live frugally and clever organizing tips!

You know this craft area is your living dream.

People who put down homemaking... well, you have to laugh. It's kind of naive. Living in squalor is strong and clever? Doing what YOU want and living for the self is being an independent woman? Sorry, I can't say that's true. If homemaking isn't YOUR calling, fine, but don't trash the idea just because you'd rather have more money than a great home and happy family. Don't knock it till you try it!