Jots and Tittles

Boo. I didn't get off work until 6 tonight, and it was a very long 8 hours. And for the last hour I pretty much did nothing but watch Rosie do stuff.

I was so worried that I wasn't going to get a job at the beginning of this summer. Not that it really made much of a difference in how I went about looking for one, of course--what is there to do, apart from distributing resumes like fliers? I swear, I think I got to the point where I could recite the required information in my sleep. But it wasn't like I was frantic about it or anything, at least not until the last day before Mom would make me go home. I was SO relieved when I walked into National Furniture and Rosie offered to take me on. It was only temporary, she said, and at that point neither of us knew how long it would last, but I would have taken anything. And I kind of did. It was like working at the clinic again, not knowing what I was doing next and always having to ask someone for direction. But it was a job, and that was all I cared about.

A few weeks in, Rosie told me that she would probably only need me until the end of June. The first thing I did was I didn't tell my mom--I'm not stupid enough to do that, she'd have had me home quicker than you can say used furniture! No indeed, I just quietly started looking for another job. Which I didn't find, but it didn't matter too much, because the end of June came, and Rosie still kept finding things for me to do. July came and went, and here it's August already and I'm still at good ol' NFR. What can I say? Just make yourself the most valuable person in the world, able to do anything (and if you can't do anything, be handy with a search engine which will tell you how to do whatever you can't--Google and I are best friends now!) and willing to try anything, and voila! Instant job security. It's pretty awesome, let me tell you what. Now Rosie wants me to stay on through September, at the very least, and unless I get an internship I have no intention of leaving. How cool is that! I prayed and prayed and prayed for this job, and not only did God answer my prayer but he keeps on answering it, long after I need the answer at all. Wow. If it wasn't official before, it is now: God is the best EVER, world without end, amen. ^_^

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Random shift of subject: last night at like 9, Troy IMed me (or maybe I IMed him... whatever) and wound up inviting me over to play video games. He had Guitar Hero (great fun!) and if I brought my lappy there was talk of Risk (I love that game!). So of course I headed on over, who wouldn't? To be honest, I was nervous to play Guitar Hero. I was totally sure that I'd suck, especially because both he and DJ actually play guitar, and the last time I played... um... well, it was a long time ago. Really long. I'm thinking 5th grade-ish, but I could be wrong. So when I did well, I was shocked--especially when I managed to hold my own against both of them! Wow, I'm good at stuff! Even if it is just video games and sucking up at work. And then we played Risk, which we stopped before it ended but it was decided that I won. I think if they'd ganged up on me they could have still defeated me, but maybe not. The problem is, now Risk is on my computer... yes, I've played a game already today--against the computer, anyway--and no, I didn't win. In fact, it was kind of ridiculous. I should know better than to spread myself so thin, I mean, honestly! How can I expect to hold all my territories with only one guy in each of them? Duh. Should have known better, but I'm not the brightest crayon in the box. Maybe next time I'll play classic Risk and see if that makes a difference. I seem to remember being able to cram as many troops into one country as I want--which would be SOOOOO nice! None of this "you can't stick any more reinforcements into this country because you SUCK" stuff. And none of this having 23 armies in one country and only being able to move 2 of them into the country you want to reinforce. Stupid thing.

Good grief, how pathetic is it that I just spent 10 minutes going on about Risk? That's enough of that!

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I was reading more about the Voices of Sophia thing yesterday. CREEPY. I don't care what they say, they aren't Christians any more. These women are sick. Somewhere I wrote a little, ah, well, I guess you could call it an essay, about the whole thing. Let's see if I can find it... Here we go (anything quoted is in purple):

Now, before we get started, I am a fanfiction author, and therefore I have to put a disclaimer at the top of everything I write. So here goes:

DISCLAIMER: I do not own the voices of Sophia or any of the quotes I have here. All of the quotes were taken from internet articles found through a Google search usinge keywords like "Reimagining" and "Sophia" and they shouldn't be that hard to find if you want to look them up.  I'm not going to link to anything here because I don't want to give them that much recognition. I'm not making any money from this, and I'm only giving my opinions on this. You're free to disagree with me, but please don't sue me. I need that money to get through college. I'm only doing this for fun, and because I thought some other people would get a kick out of my thoughts on the matter.

Phew! Now that we have that out of the way, let's get down to business. So. For those of you who don't know what the Voices of Sophia are, here's a brief history lesson for you: way back in the early 90s, there were some ladies in the Christian church who got together to "reimagine" God. What emerged, as far as I can tell, is the voices of Sophia. They claim that God is (at least in part) the female goddess of wisdom, Sophia (which is "wisdom" in Greek, I believe). It's all about feminism and recognizing your inner woman and your inner wisdom and all sorts of fun new-age stuff. It denies the deity of Jesus Christ as such, and ridicules the Atonement.

In all honesty, I'm not quite sure what to make of these women. Clearly, they're no longer Christian, and why they still cling to that name so fervently is beyond me. When you've clearly stated that CHRIST is not all that important in your religion, how can you possibly claim to be a CHRISTian? Besides, you silly feminists, Christ was a man--why in the world would you want to attach yourselves to his name? You should be called Sophists, of course. Just don't hang around Socrates or anything. He and the Sophists weren't too friendly. Say, there's a thought! Maybe I should do a comparison between the Sophists and the Voices of Sophia. Just to see how much they have in common. That might be fun! But it'll have to wait for another day, because I don't have time for it today.

Most of the time, I don't know whether to laugh or to cry at the stuff these women have come up with. So I've settled for ridiculing them with glee--I figured that was a happy medium, right? So, here are some of the reasons why I'm torn between laughing at their stupidity and crying at what they're doing to my God:

Chung Hyung Kyung, professor at Korea's Ewha Women's University, instructed the crowd of women to seek help from the trees if they are in need of energy: "When we do pranic healing, we believe that this life-giving energy came from god and it is everywhere, it is in the sun, in the ocean, from the ground and it is from the trees ... We ask god's permission to use this life-giving energy for our sisters and brothers in need. If you feel very tired and you don't have any energy to give, what you do is ... go to a big tree and ask it to `give me some of your life energy'" (AFA Journal, Feb. 1994).


Great mother of pearl, are you kidding me? You mean, instead of guzzling caffeine like it's going out of style, I can just walk across the lawn to that big weeping willow out back and ask it for energy? Wow, I've been wasting my whole life! I can imagine the looks on my roommates' faces if I did that. *dies laughing* Well, when ol' Grandmother Willow starts to talk back, I'll tell Pocahontas for you.

Delores Williams, theology professor at New York's Union Theological Seminary, told the gathering: "I don't think we need a theory of atonement at all...Atonement has to do so much with death...I don't think we need folks hanging on crosses and blood dripping and weird stuff...We just need to listen to the god within."


*twitch* And weird stuff? I beg your pardon, but Jesus only DIED on the cross so that you could be free from stuff like sin, and death, "and weird stuff" like that. I'll admit, this one comes a lot closer to making me cry than it does to making me laugh. Jesus Christ is not "folks hanging on crosses and blood dripping and weird stuff." You're completely missing the point, you stupid, stupid woman! He died an horrific death so that you might live, so that you could approach God directly, and you're spitting it back in his face.

"Atonement has so much to do with death..." Wow, thank you for that stunning observation, o mistress of the obvious. It's kind of about how he died so that we wouldn't have to. Remind me again why this is a bad thing?

And you know what? I find it more amazing that God sent us a son than I would had he sent a daughter. Because it was kind of expected that a woman would be a servant to everyone. That was the culture. But to have a man taking on a woman's role--and taking it even further? Wow. What a guy. How cool is it that I can have a personal, one-on-one relationship with him? And by the way, I'd like to see these people explain how so many millions of real Christians have very real relationships with Jesus, and know him as Lord and Savior, if he's not. Sigh. But I digress...

In a seminar on 'Re- Imagining Sexuality-Family,' lesbian theologian Mary Hunt said, `Imagine sex among friends as the norm. ... Imagine valuing sexual interaction in terms of whether and how it fosters friendship and pleasure. ... Pleasure is our birthright of which we have been robbed in religious patriarchy" (AFA Journal, Feb. 1994).


Ok, I'm imagining... AAAAAAAHHHHHHH! My eyes! It burns! Great flying monkeys, that disgusts me. I mean, ew ew ew ew ewewewewewewewewewewewwwwwww! My friends and I can have deep, meaningful relationships without going at it like rabbits, thank you very much. I believe that sex is a beautiful, sacred thing that is to be shared between two people of opposite gender who have decided to give themselves to each other fully through marriage, and that's all. No group sex, no "sex among friends" or "friends with benefits" or whatever you want to call it. Ew. *shudders* *twitches* *dies*

And what the heck is this about pleasure is our birthright blah blah blah? That's not Godly at all, and nowhere near Christian! Pleasures are from God, of course, but they're not to be perverted into something that he has expressly forbidden. And calling it a patriarchal thing is unfair, because it's not like there's any shortage of perverted guys out there who'd be delighted to be invited to indulge in whatever sick pleasures happen to turn them on this week. That's not a gender thing, that's a perverted thing.

Brock has suggested Christian missionaries from the West have much to learn theologically from ancient cultures. She praised Lakota Indians for their cleansing "sweat lodge" ceremony and Tibetan Buddhists for their selection process of "the reincarnated" Dalai Lama.

Which pretty much makes it a conglomeration of a whole bunch of other religions, and not Christianity any more. I'm sure that there's plenty in the Bible about not letting other religions corrupt your own... some day I'll look it up and see what I can find.


She asserts that biblical achievements of women were largely omitted because of oppressive patriarchy--a system she calls the central "cause in evil and suffering."


So how do you explain the books of Ruth and Esther? How do you explain the stories of Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel, Leah, Mary (pick one, there are certainly enough to choose from), Yael (all right, I only picked her because of my friend, but she was still a cool Biblical woman), Delilah... I could go on but I think you're getting the point. There is certainly no shortage of women in the Bible.

Throughout the conference, 50 monitors stood guard around the room, admonishing and exhorting attendees whose participation seemed less than heartfelt. Though participants had initially been told that joining in was voluntary, the conference newsletter advised that hanging back in Sophia worship would not be tolerated: "[P]articipation is intended for ALL in the gathering-rituals are not spectator events We thank you all for your full, active, conscious participation. May Sophia continue to bless your pilgrimage."


Oh, man, they would have hated me. I wouldn't fall for that swill, and I can assure you right now that my participation would have been "less then heartfelt." I don't even like to be that demonstrative in my own church, with a few very notable exceptions. My faith is a very personal thing, and I don't like to feel that it's on display. I'm definitely not one of those on my knees in the aisles with my hands raised and my eyes closed--there are days I wish I could, and there are times when I'm by myself at home and I do get on my knees and throw my hands in the air, but in front of others? No way. Did it ever occur to these women that some of us are a bit more naturally reserved than that? For all their talk about respecting the differences in others, they sure seem to have a very low tolerance for women who are of different temperaments than they are. To quote Jane, "You do not make sufficient allowances for differences in situation and character!"
When I asked participants, "Who is Sophia?", they seemed surprised and uncertain how to respond. One woman volunteered that "Sophia is the divine energy in women being unlocked by the goddess rituals." Another said, "She is the god who has been ignored too long-she is liberating the energy of all women for the good of the community." One man told me that Sophia "is the incarnation of wisdom in the women I have known." But one young woman's response seemed particularly illuminating: "Sophia is the wisdom within me."

This woman helped me understand why the excitement at "Re-Imagining" seemed so infectious, and why those caught up in it seemed loathe to question its source. The "Re-Imagining" participants were happily engaged in that most modem of enterprises: worshipping themselves, right down to the "bodily fluids" that figure so prominently in their prayers. They wanted to believe the conference program's heady words: "Sophia is the place in you where the entire universe resides."

There is so much wrong here... I don't even know where to start. I totally agree with Ms. Kersten, the author of this particular article, that these women are worshipping themselves. Disgusting. And "bodily fluids"? Dare I ask? On second thought, I probably don't want to know what the heck they were thinking. "O splendid saliva, o magnificent menstrual blood, o tragical tears, o.. errm... ubiquitous! Yeah! O ubiquitous urine!" O, please. And I hate menstrual blood, thanks--I've seen more than enough of it to last me several lifetimes, and it's definitely not worth worshipping. Ew.

Oh, and here's another part I love to hate. "Sophia is the place in you where the entire universe resides"? Aside from the physical impossibility here (har har har, I know it's a metaphor, but it's a stupid one, okay?), this doesn't even make sense. Here we have, ladies and gents, for your very much viewing pleasure, one of the finest examples of liberal nonsense available. Take some feel-good, namby-pamby crapola like the quote above and turn it into your mantra du jour. Let me just take a quick inside me and see if I can find the universe... *please stand by while the author searches for the universe* *elevator music* Hmm. Well, this is interesting. I see Jesus... I see some selfish corners of sin that have yet to be purged (more of those than I'd like, actually)... I see the banana I just ate... but definitely no universe. Which is actually kind of a relief. I mean, what kind of responsibility would I have with the whole universe inside of me? No thanks, I'll let God take care of that. I'd just mess the poor universe up so badly it'll need therapy for years.


Ah, now, this next one hits very close to home--literally--because it was written by the director of children's ministries for the church in which I grew up. I will never forget the terror that struck my heart when she stood up to introduce herself and said, "I'm so excited to be bringing feminism into this church!"

*Gags* I was sitting there thinking, "And I'm so excited to be going to college 60 miles away where I don't have to watch you corrupt this poor old church any further than it's already been corrupted..." I pity the poor innocent children who are being twisted by this woman's instruction in the church, because she has quite a way with the little ones and that skill is certainly not being used to forward God's kingdom. For example:

...the very issues and ideas raised in and through self-identified feminist efforts—issues and ideas such as the role of experience in theological inquiry, the power of language, sexual integrity, environmental concerns, the centrality of self-determination—illuminate absences and gaps in the patriarchal church.

Um, last I checked, none of those concerns are solely "feminist" as she implies. Perhaps the fems have adopted them to fit their political agendas, but those particular concerns have been around for much too long to be considered feminist--in fact, since the beginning of the Christian church, for some!

My own recent reading and thinking have focused especially on the importance of giving young boys in the church both the opportunity and the skills to express the full range of human emotions, including emotions that are stereotypically considered "feminine," such as affection and fear.

Okay, perhaps I'm being a bit dense here, but haven't men, throughout all of recorded history, valued affection and acknowledged fear? Let's see, we've got Shakespeare, who wrote some of the most beautiful and romantic love poetry out there. We've got Victor Hugo, who wrote the romance between Marius and Cosette in Les Miserables--some of the sappiest stuff in the world, too, it could make you gag! We've got the classics by Jane Austen, every one of which is partially a romance which values true affection in men above all else, as long as the affection is reciprocated. ("You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you." *swoon*) We've got Jesus Christ himself saying "No greater love has a man than this: that he would lay down his life for his friends." Hmm. And how about fear? Well, how about Jesus? Do you think he wasn't afraid when he was in the garden of Gethsemane, begging God to take this cup from him? How about all those lines about how bravery is being afraid and doing it anyway--not being afraid is just stupid? Hmmmmmmmmmm!

But what breaks my heart is this story, which she shared in May of 2006:

I invited the children to take a turn in speaking any feelings or thoughts into the tape recorder. "Then, if you'd like," I added, "we can share our recording with some of the adults in our church. I think God wants adults to listen to children." 8-year old Brandon paused before speaking into the recorder, said some silly nonsense words that made the other children laugh, and quickly passed the tape recorder to the next child. Then, before the next child could speak, Brandon impulsively grabbed the tape recorder back and he whispered into its microphone, "I love you, God. I really love you. Thank you."

Wow. And under normal circumstances, I would be jumping for joy and praising God and echoing dear Brandon's sentiments over and over again. I might even stick in some Hallelujah Chorus because it'd about express what I was trying to say. But I have to wonder, with this woman's influence tainting his perception of God, whether he was saying that to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords... or to Sophia. I pray it was the former, and fear it was the latter. If it was indeed the former, then that is one of the most beautiful, touching stories I have ever read. If it was the latter, then that is one of the most tragic, heartbreaking stories I have ever read.

Sigh.  I can't do this any more.  I can't take it.

My glorious, wondrous, beautiful Heavenly Father:

You are indeed King of Kings and Lord of Lord. You are first, last, and always, you are my rock and my redeemer, you are my Savior and you are my everything. What a wonderful gift you have given us, in Jesus Christ! And then, to give us your Holy Word, that we might ever read it and find you, that you could be revealed through the stories that are as amazing today as they were when they were first written--Lord, I cannot think of the words to thank you, but I love you. I really love you. Thank you!

Father, I lift up to you Brandon. I ask that you reveal yourself to him, that you give him the wisdom to see through the lies and the fog of his church and bless him with your real presence. I pray that you would bless him indeed, and that you would not take your hand away from him. I ask that you would hold him in the palm of your hand and that you would not let any harm come to him through the deception of the women around him.

My Lord, I pray also for the women involved in the Sophia movement. Show them the error of their ways and bring them back into your loving embrace. Give them a glimpse of your true character and help them see what they are doing. Give them the strength to stand up for the truth, and to help the women around them discover their mistakes. Bless them as well, Father. Reveal to them your might and your glory, and bring them home. I know you have not stopped loving them. Show them the joy which you give freely to your children and lead them to understand how it is fundamentally different from the superficial physical pleasures they are chasing after.

And God, I pray for myself as well. I know that I do not see all things clearly as you do, and I know that my arguments here are not entirely Godly, either. Please open my eyes even more to your truth, and please help me to correct the errors in my thinking. If there are things in which I am quite deceived, do not leave me in the dark, but show me. My King, I ask that you would bless me as well, and that your hand would always be upon me, and that your guidance in my life would be its driving force. I do love you, God, ever so very much, and I am all in awe that you love me back. Help me to be your daughter. I want to be your dear little girl. Forgive me the sins I have committed this day and this week and all the days of my life, and cleanse me of them all.

Thank you, God. You are so wonderful. I can't even begin to think of how to tell you how awesome you are. Thank you for leading me to a church in which I can finally feel your presence and find your people with ease. Thank you for giving us beautiful music with which to worship you, and beautiful people with whom to worship you. I love you, God. I can't say it enough. I love you!

In Jesus' most precious and holy name I pray,
AMEN

Mmmhmm, and if you can't figure out my political stance from that, I shall think you a simpleton indeed! The formatting got a little bit funky with a couple of the paragraph breaks, but whatever. It was fun to write, if a bit depressing.  Some day I should really go back and find Biblical support for those arguments, but I'll admit that when I started all I wanted to do was laugh at how utterly ridiculous some of their claims were.  I wasn't looking for facts, necessarily--just fun.

Well, I think this is more than long enough, so I'll leave you with that and take off.  Good night!

-Jaya-