Previously on...
I love stalking folk singers, television, Virginia Woolf, Sweet Valley High, awkward moments, and liminal spaces.
![I’ve been thinking lately about what it means to be More Light more than I usually do (which, to be honest, is quite a bit).
The first reason is that the church I hold so dear is celebrating its fifteenth anniversary of being a More Light church. (Quick catchup: More Light is a movement within the Presbyterian church that works for being open to and affirming of the LGBT community.) Sixth was the first church is Pittsburgh and the second in Pennsylvania to take on this official designation. As part of what we’re stretching into a year-long celebration, I’ve been working on gathering stories from members of the church—both why they made this bold move at the time and what it means to currently be a member of a More Light church.
I already feel wildly blessed to be a part of my church. Every Sunday, I know that I am in a loving community. Hell, even when I’m sitting at the traffic light at the intersection where the church sits (an intersection which, more often than not, provokes rage in all who are stuck there), I take a moment to be thankful for having that space and those people in my life. (A positive note about that intersection: it is demonstrative of what I love about Squirrel Hill in general: Sixth, the JCC, the library, and ice cream—all right there.) Even as I find myself in an emotional traffic jam over Mary Louise leaving, I still try to make a space in my heart for gratitude and pray for an openness for what might be next.
But hearing the stories of the people with whom I sit (and, in the summer, sweat) in the pews every Sunday—what power. These men and women are so brave in standing up for what they believed to be true to their faith and acting in accordance with the message they preach.
Church this morning was busy. Mary Louise is gone. The General Assembly is in town. Visitors and members alike packed the pews with not much more than two fans in the back to keep everyone cool. (I’m awkward enough that I apologize for my sweaty back when people hug me during the passing of the peace.) In front of the church, we had a new banner (made by one of the many wildly talented members of the congregation). She had also made whatever the word is for what hangs from the pulpits. Simply beautiful. Around the sanctuary, there were 50 stoles from the Shower of Stoles project, which Joanna, the head of the More Light committee, had brought in for both our church and the GA. The soon-to-be-former head of the national More Light movement, Michael Adee, preached. (You guys, if you’re ever given the opportunity to hear him—go. Even if you’re not religious, he’s a great storyteller.) During the offering, the Pittsburgh Renaissance City Choir sang. It was just a service full of the many good things religion can give us when we allow it to.
A little while back, a friend of mine emailed me to see if I wanted to work a booth during GA for a group that’s like a “more moderate More Light.” I sat with that email for a while because my immediate response surprised me, which, upon further thought, surprised me that it surprised me. Her email was, in fact, the second time I had seen More Light put on a radical end of a spectrum, something that took me aback the first time I saw it (though the article was a decade old and thus the designation was given better context).
The thing that got me about my friend’s email was also what Adee preached this morning: it seems so simple. I have a very difficult time reconciling that people can say they are part of a faith that proclaims a very radical love and then not actually give that love. (I’ve tried to work my way through another side of this, trying to see that, if you were to view homosexuality as a sin, then it would be with radical love that you try to keep people from actively sinning, but I can’t make it happen. It just doesn’t sit well.)
So a more moderate More Light? I can’t reconcile it. Whe I think of More Light, I think of this love that has no bounds. And to make a moderate version is to say that you’re still loving with boundaries.
I don’t want to love with boundaries. That’s the whole point.
I struggle greatly, as we all do, with compassion, with how to exercise love of all kinds in my daily, moment-by-moment life. But part of what helps me through those moments, those days, is what I see every Sunday as I sit sweaty-backed in a pew, surrounded by people who felt love so strong, they couldn’t hold it back.
I leave you with this passage from Sarah Vowell’s The Wordy Shipmates:
“[Martin Luther King, Jr.] concluded the learned discourse that came to be known as the ‘loving your enemies’ sermon this way: ‘So this morning, as I look into your eyes and into the eyes of all my brothers in Alabama and all over America and over the world, I say to you, ‘I love you. I would rather die than hate you.’
Go ahead and reread that. That is hands down the most beautiful, strange, impossible, but most of all radical thing a human being can say. And it comes from reading the most beautiful, strange, impossible, but most of all radical civics lesson ever taught, when Jesus of Nazareth went to a hill in Galilee and told his disciples, ‘Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you.’”](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m6i8vwdQQk1qbpv3uo1_500.jpg)
I’ve been thinking lately about what it means to be More Light more than I usually do (which, to be honest, is quite a bit).
The first reason is that the church I hold so dear is celebrating its fifteenth anniversary of being a More Light church. (Quick catchup: More Light is a movement within the Presbyterian church that works for being open to and affirming of the LGBT community.) Sixth was the first church is Pittsburgh and the second in Pennsylvania to take on this official designation. As part of what we’re stretching into a year-long celebration, I’ve been working on gathering stories from members of the church—both why they made this bold move at the time and what it means to currently be a member of a More Light church.
I already feel wildly blessed to be a part of my church. Every Sunday, I know that I am in a loving community. Hell, even when I’m sitting at the traffic light at the intersection where the church sits (an intersection which, more often than not, provokes rage in all who are stuck there), I take a moment to be thankful for having that space and those people in my life. (A positive note about that intersection: it is demonstrative of what I love about Squirrel Hill in general: Sixth, the JCC, the library, and ice cream—all right there.) Even as I find myself in an emotional traffic jam over Mary Louise leaving, I still try to make a space in my heart for gratitude and pray for an openness for what might be next.
But hearing the stories of the people with whom I sit (and, in the summer, sweat) in the pews every Sunday—what power. These men and women are so brave in standing up for what they believed to be true to their faith and acting in accordance with the message they preach.
Church this morning was busy. Mary Louise is gone. The General Assembly is in town. Visitors and members alike packed the pews with not much more than two fans in the back to keep everyone cool. (I’m awkward enough that I apologize for my sweaty back when people hug me during the passing of the peace.) In front of the church, we had a new banner (made by one of the many wildly talented members of the congregation). She had also made whatever the word is for what hangs from the pulpits. Simply beautiful. Around the sanctuary, there were 50 stoles from the Shower of Stoles project, which Joanna, the head of the More Light committee, had brought in for both our church and the GA. The soon-to-be-former head of the national More Light movement, Michael Adee, preached. (You guys, if you’re ever given the opportunity to hear him—go. Even if you’re not religious, he’s a great storyteller.) During the offering, the Pittsburgh Renaissance City Choir sang. It was just a service full of the many good things religion can give us when we allow it to.
A little while back, a friend of mine emailed me to see if I wanted to work a booth during GA for a group that’s like a “more moderate More Light.” I sat with that email for a while because my immediate response surprised me, which, upon further thought, surprised me that it surprised me. Her email was, in fact, the second time I had seen More Light put on a radical end of a spectrum, something that took me aback the first time I saw it (though the article was a decade old and thus the designation was given better context).
The thing that got me about my friend’s email was also what Adee preached this morning: it seems so simple. I have a very difficult time reconciling that people can say they are part of a faith that proclaims a very radical love and then not actually give that love. (I’ve tried to work my way through another side of this, trying to see that, if you were to view homosexuality as a sin, then it would be with radical love that you try to keep people from actively sinning, but I can’t make it happen. It just doesn’t sit well.)
So a more moderate More Light? I can’t reconcile it. Whe I think of More Light, I think of this love that has no bounds. And to make a moderate version is to say that you’re still loving with boundaries.
I don’t want to love with boundaries. That’s the whole point.
I struggle greatly, as we all do, with compassion, with how to exercise love of all kinds in my daily, moment-by-moment life. But part of what helps me through those moments, those days, is what I see every Sunday as I sit sweaty-backed in a pew, surrounded by people who felt love so strong, they couldn’t hold it back.
I leave you with this passage from Sarah Vowell’s The Wordy Shipmates:
“[Martin Luther King, Jr.] concluded the learned discourse that came to be known as the ‘loving your enemies’ sermon this way: ‘So this morning, as I look into your eyes and into the eyes of all my brothers in Alabama and all over America and over the world, I say to you, ‘I love you. I would rather die than hate you.’
Go ahead and reread that. That is hands down the most beautiful, strange, impossible, but most of all radical thing a human being can say. And it comes from reading the most beautiful, strange, impossible, but most of all radical civics lesson ever taught, when Jesus of Nazareth went to a hill in Galilee and told his disciples, ‘Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you.’”
life:
The two most elegant stars of their era, Audrey Hepburn and Grace Kelly, are photographed backstage at the RKO Pantages Theatre in 1956 as they wait to present: Hepburn gave Best Picture to Marty, and Kelly awarded the Best Actor statue to Ernest Borgnine for the same film.
In the latest issue of Gender & Society, readers are given new insight as to the damaging impact of Disney films on young minds.
Oh, dear.
The assumption the authors work off of is that children’s movies are devoid of sexual content, though they want to point out that Disney films “depict a rich and pervasive heterosexual landscape.” The meaning of this, in brief, is that kids watching these movies are taught that heterosexuality is the norm (which would be a true story) and that homosexuality is unwanted and unnatural (a reductive leap in logic).
If the going statistic is that ninety percent of the population is heterosexual, is it a huge crime for media to reflect that statistic? If you are gearing your product to far more than a majority of the population, do you really need to be charged with not meeting the needs of a small minority?
Let’s try this: I have just as good a chance of seeing anthropomorphized animals in a Disney film as I am seeing heterosexual love. Does anyone grow up to believe that anthropomorphized animals are the standard in the animal kingdom?
No.
Why? Because there exists a great big real world outside of media.
Yes, media have influences on minds small and large, but they are not the only defining influences on our lives.
In a recent study, psychologists have proven not only a child’s ability to distinguish between fantasy and reality, but that our extended dependent childhood allows for greater time spent on the imagination, which has a payoff when we reach adulthood (this comes in the form of innovation and problem solving). Anthropomorphized animals are not the only fantasy elements in Disney movies. Fairy godmothers float from the sky, animals become people, people become animated inanimate objects, and evil stepmothers cast spells. Even more so, when was the last time you saw an honest to God castle, complete with kings, queens, princesses, and princes anywhere in America? Anyone? Bueller?
Right.
So why should we expect that children will acknowledge so much fantasy and then draw a line at sexuality? And not just any sexuality, but magic-induced, royalty-heavy heterosexual love? Especially when those kinds of relationships don’t present themselves anywhere in a child’s actual life?
Give the kids some credit.
(Happens every day to me.)
In the late fall of 1991, I was eight, and my dad took my seven-year-old sister and me to see Beauty and the Beast in the movie theater (my seven months’ pregnant mother stayed home and had some quiet time). We were (and are) a big Disney family, my dad especially. At that point, I didn’t have a particular favorite; my sister had been a concrete-firm fan of Cinderella (both the cartoon and the Lesley Ann Warren version) since she was in preschool.
(I want to go to there.)
Beauty and the Beast was the biggest, best shout-out to nerd girl children everywhere. I loved it. (Still love it.) What I took from the movie then, and still carry with me today, are two things. First, whoever plans on wooing me better offer up a sweet library. (Or, in grown-up terms, the person who really loves you will see you for who you are and not try to change that about you, no matter how much society might beg to differ.) Second, the loudest, scariest, gruffest people usually are hiding something broken inside. (Yes, that’s Psych 101, but it comes in handy quite often.)
Those aren’t terrible lessons to learn, and I’d be hard-pressed to believe that I’m the only child who walked out of that movie with that knowledge.
Just because an institution is successful and plays to the largest market share does not make it inherently evil. Does that mean we shouldn’t question it? No. (See depictions of female beauty in Disney movies for an argument as to why Disney isn’t always spectacular.)
A lesson from intro to fiction workshops everywhere: no one is entirely evil, no one is entirely good. It’s worth applying that lesson elsewhere.
