The Simple Joys of Maidenhood

Over spring break, I discovered this little lovely website. Okay, okay, a lot of these reasons are rather bizarre and kind of stupid, BUT I think the idea behind these jokes are valid. Girls (smart girls) bond over the awesome fact that they're girls. Silly girls spend their days griping about how the female sex has been oppressed by patriarchal society or some such nonsense. I don't even know. Okay, okay, I'm being too flippant. I should acknowledge there have definitely been societies throughout history that have been radically downright cruel towards women. And my heart burns with indignation. And there are women in Muslim countries who face untold atrocities, and my heart aches for them. And women who undergo stoning, or mutilation, or enforced rape are being violated and oppressed in the most disgusting and cowardly way possible. But that just proves how great it is to be a woman. Good men appreciate (albeit with a twinge of wry bemusement), and are rapt in awe. Evil or weak men want to bring down women and seek to oppress them. I think it's radically unfair to our Muslim sisters-and all women who face those dangers- to even pretend that we're oppressed. The majority of women in America are fortunate beyond our comprehension. We should be grateful, so grateful for the opportunities and freedoms that we have.

AND we should giggle with sheer delight and joy that we are women. (Heh. I just realized this blog post might not be the most relatable to the gentlemen who are part of this blog's readership. Whoops. Feel free to stop reading now if you want.

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Are you still reading? Awesome.)

Women are a community-a sisterhood. There are so many times I sit at lunch/dinner/coffee/pie with one of my nearest and dearest sisters of the heart and we bond over the fact that we are women, we love being a woman, and begin to list a thousand big and little things why being a woman is awesome. We have solidarity with each other, and when someone attacks our sisters, we bristle with unsounded wrath. "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned," you know. In fact, playwrights ever since Aeschylus have gotten what a force to be reckoned with an unhinged woman is. Clytaemestra is a ferocious, fascinating, remorseless killer who murders her husband, and has no qualms about taking an axe to her son's head. Euripides tells the story of Medea, who kills her two innocent boys in order to break her faithless husband's heart. Yikes. I feel as though I've digressed by ranting about these insane women, and I feel as thought they're not supporting my point that being a woman ROCKS. Whoops. Well, here's evidence that being a woman rocks. People make songs about it, so dude, there's gotta be something there. Rogers and Hammerstein penned: "I Enjoy Being a Girl," and then there's the classic "How Lovely to Be a Woman," which is one of my personal favorites. Kim sings: "How lovely to be a woman/and smile a woman's smile." There's some sort of delicious, intriguing and solely feminine mystique captured in a woman's smile. And in the very fact of being a woman means your something of a mystery. Mystery and secret are at the core of womanhood, which is why secrets mean so very much to girls. And when someone confides a secret to them, women hold it to their hearts-a bond forms between them and their confidante.

And beauty. Beauty is so, so important for a woman. We are called to bring beauty to the world. Although it is undeniable that men can be incredibly beautiful (I'm sure you ladies can easily think of several gentlemen that prove this point. Ahem.), women have a beauty all their own. I'm trying to attempt to explain it, but I feel like I will fall short of the endeavor. So I'm leaving that subject to sit and ruminate in our minds. We'll touch on that another day.

In conclusion, I enjoy being a girl. That's all this post really is- a thanksgiving and celebration for being a woman. There's nothin' like it, kids.

P.S. Also, stay tuned for a post coming soon-that's been in the works for 8 months now. Yipes!-about Arwen, Eowyn, and womanhood. See how nice a segue this post is for that post? Eh? Eh? Thanks for reading-now get off the computer and go enjoy your day. Bask in the sunlight. Take a walk. Sing a song. Dance in the grass. Feed some birds. Live life.

This Crazy Thing Called Love

Love is oftentimes thought of as an emotion or feeling that one falls in and out of at one's leisure. However, through my own limited experience I have found this to be untrue. Love is so much more than your fancy's inclination. It is rather a true desire of one's heart in conjunction with an act of one's will. It is often not expressed in the stereotypical manner of sonnets and ballads, but in thousands of little inconsequential ways that go largely unnoticed.

Love hides itself in the small corners of our beings and pervades all that we do. Love is present when we are awakened in the wee hours of the morning to a sister who is suffering from the stomach flu and is in need of assistance. It is in every skinned knee that needs to be kissed. It resides in every friend that needs a sympathetic ear. It rests in every thoughtful deed that is done with no expectation of thanks.

Love outpours when we make the decision to put others before ourselves. Love is the unselfish desire for the welling being and happiness of another.

It is in this way that God loves us. God so desires our well being, both physical and spiritual, and our happiness that He sent His only son into the world to die for us. Above all things He wishes us to attain true happiness through sharing in His eternal perfection. His love for us is so great that the only thing He desires from us is our love, as imperfect as it is, in return.

Brothers and Sisters in Christ

My dear mother introduced the lovely blog of the Visionary Daughters to me a few years ago. I have found their articles both inspiring and insightful. It has been a delight to read the musings of two Christian young women on various topics, including, but not limited to, Christianity in the modern world, modesty and the relationships between young men and women. In this particular article they address the roles of young men and women of today and their relationships to each other as brothers and sisters in Christ. Take a gander and enjoy!

http://visionarydaughters.com/2008/07/brothers-and-sisters-in-christ

Picnic Poetry

Penned by the Good Catholic Homeskillets (alias: GCH)

There's something to be said

for sunsets in the park

for pumpkin streusal muffins

for dancing hand-in-hand

for paroxysms of cute

for whipped cream and Oreos

for mocking the avant-garde

for picnicking in the park

for watching pigeons fly

for laughing with best friends

for people-watching in random places

for wearing pretty skirts

for nuns who wear pink habits! (Holler. Love them.)

for the Basilica on the horizon

for skirts on a sunny day

for talking random nothingness

for ripples

for Italian soda

for people who sing/talk to themselves

for ducks on the water

for plump squirrels

for babies with big hair

....feeling the breeze on your legs.

There's something to be said

for duck diapers

for the limitless sky

for cat-tails

for being a woman

...and for peanut butter

for living life

for calling people/anmials/inanimate objects: "sweetie"

for wee voices

for long hair blowing in the breeze

for knowing how to count

for bronze that looks like wood

for little brothers

for kung-fu fighting

for secrets, mysteries, and illuminating the truth

for cottonwoods rusling the in the wind

for dreaming

for learning from mistakes.

There's something to be said

for trees over londs*

for sculptures which you are not allowed to climb on (but you do anyway *mischievous smirk*)

for coaxing wild animals

for summer adventures with dangerous women.

Happiness is in the small things- in living life moment-by-moment, and by finding delight in each little blessing that comes your way. Because those small things are really big things. Each moment, we're given a choice; a very simple choice: to choose God or to choose ourself. But that's a huge choice. That's the original choice that our first parents were given. And they botched it.

The more we choose God- the more we hand ourselves over to Him- we grow ever closer to being the person He intended us to be. But the oftener we choose ourselves, the smaller our spirits will shrink. The questions of a small spirit are: "What's in it for me?" & "What can I get out of it?" Those questions cut us off from all the joy God has to offer us. Because if you approach a sunset with the question: "What's in this sunset for me?" you'll miss the whole point of that sunset. You don't get anything from a waterfall, sunlight piercing through the clouds, listening to birdsong, or climbing trees-you climb trees for the sake of climbing trees. Because the tree is there-and it's beautiful- and, praise the Lord, you have limbs, which means you can climb that tree, so why not?

There's something to be said for living life as a seeker of Beauty and Joy, for choosing God in each moment instead of self (easier said than done, right?). And, by choosing God, opening yourself up to the beauty He's poured into each moment.

(Disclaimer: All these thoughts are the product of recent conversations with wonderful and intelligent friends. Major kudos go to them.)

*Lond (lah' nd): Eng., noun: a mix between a pond and a lake.

Dangerous Women

My mother recently found this gloriously inspiring speech about the "Dangerous Christian Women" by Nancy Wilson and strongly suggested that I post it for your reading pleasure.


This is the speech Mrs. Wilson delivered to the Trinitas Christian School Class of 2010 at their commencement Thursday night in Pensacola, Florida.

Good evening, Mr. Trotter, board of trustees, faculty, parents, grandparents, students of the Trinitas graduating class of 2010, ladies and gentlemen. I am delighted to be your commencement speaker tonight. It is an honor to address this graduating class of eleven young women. Thank you, Mr. Trotter, and thank you, senior class, for inviting me to be here. It has been a pleasure to get to know some of you, and Doug and I have enjoyed your gracious hospitality.

I’d like to speak to you young ladies tonight about your future (now that’s a novel idea for a commencement address, don’t you think?) but, more to the point, the kind of women you want to be in that future.

You live in a time when women of all ages are hungry for purpose and direction in their lives. And it’s not just the young women who are flailing about trying to find their bearings. Even Christian women can be confused. The lies of the feminist story have had more than a whole generation in which to ripen and bear fruit, and it turns out, it is a bitter and barren fruit.

Middle-aged women who opted for the career instead of the home twenty years ago are now asking themselves what they have done with their lives; they feel dissatisfied and unfulfilled. Even those with lucrative careers are finding that they’ve missed something that money can’t buy, and they are not even sure what it is. If you have any doubt about this, wander through a bookstore and take a look at the titles of the books about women, and you will see that women are searching.

The barrenness of the birth-control pill and guilt of abortion and the tenuous status of live-in girlfriend don’t add up to a recipe for long-term happiness and fulfillment. Many women are panicking, feeling that they have lost their opportunity for a home and missed their reproductive window for having children. They feel cheated, and they don’t know what they are looking for. And the world, with their story about liberation and reproductive rights, cannot answer their questions.

Today everything is pretty much up for grabs. We really only have two cultural problems–but those are significant. First, we don’t know what our men are supposed to be doing, and secondly we don’t know what to do with our women. Other than that, everything’s fine. And because the church has become more and more enfeebled and compromised with feminism over the past generation, in many cases, it is not in a position to answer these questions either. Someone needs to talk about the men, but that is not my task tonight. I am going to speak to you about the women.

This is one of those moments in history, like many other moments in the past, when we need godly and dangerous women. And the hopeful surprise is that I believe many Christian schools like Trinitas are helping parents train up just this kind of woman.

Women are by nature dangerous. They will either be dangerous in a destructive way or dangerous in a constructive way. Our mother Eve was dangerous, but unfortunately, she was a threat to her husband instead of to the serpent. A harlot is a dangerous woman, but obviously, in the wrong direction. Christian women who just go along unknowingly are actually a liability and not an asset to the Christian cause. There really is no neutral ground. So I’m going to be talking to you tonight about the need for dangerous women in our day who see through the serpent’s cheap talk, who are not deceived by the lies the other team tells, and who are actively engaged in building a Christian culture. This is where your education comes in. You graduates have been given a healthy start to your education. Don’t let it stop here. Education is not an end but a means of equipping you to be and do all God is calling you to do. The being part must come before the doing. You want to be a godly and dangerous woman so that you can do the work of changing and rebuilding our culture. It is very important to keep these things in the right order. A good and godly education is a tool to be used wisely. Keep it sharp.

Graduates: Don’t let this be the end of your education, but continue to pursue wisdom. In a minute I will be talking about the role of women in the home, and I don’t want you to think for a minute that an education is unnecessary or superfluous for such things. Far from it. Your education is your preparation for life.

What is a dangerous woman? Is she a member of the NRA? Does she know karate? No. That is not the kind of woman I am talking about. Let me lay out a few of the characteristics of the godly dangerous woman.

1. First of all, she knows who she is. She is not having a life-long identity crisis. She knows who her people are, and she is loyal to her people. This, in itself, is a tremendous blessing. A woman who knows who she is can be free from herself to be herself. She can change the subject and think about others. She is not cowering and fearful, trying to find herself, because Christ has found her. She knows where she belongs.

Today, many young people are rootless and unconnected. They never sit down to dinner with a family around an actual table. Many don’t really have a family at all; they are isolated and disconnected.Their lives are more connected to and they are more loyal to a mythical heart-throb vampire than they are to their own parents and grandparents. This is a tragedy.

But the kind of woman I am talking about is loyal to her people because she knows which side she is on, and she does not wear the enemy’s uniform. She identifies herself among God’s people. She stands with her family, her church community, and her school community. And because she knows who she is, you cannot take her where she doesn’t want to go.

This kind of loyalty is a powerful protection that keeps her from getting swept up into unwise friendships, foolish relationships, or led into stupid behavior. She knows that she is a character in a story, and she wants to be the good, wise character, not the foolish one. We live in a culture that has been demolished, and much reconstruction is required. That is the building project that Trinitas is part of. And women who understand the project and have a view toward the final result are a tremendous asset to have on the construction crew. And the last thing we need right now are more people standing around in the wreckage, fishing out some keepsakes.

Graduates: Be loyal to your people. Never forget who you are and what side you are on.

2. Second, a godly dangerous woman knows what she is called to do. Women typically underestimate the scope and the significance of what they have been created to do on this earth. The truth is, God created woman to have a profound impact on the culture around them.

I have mentioned the construction project. God says in Proverbs that a wise woman builds her house and a foolish woman tears it down with her own hands. This building is what women are called to do. Woman is created to beautify and glorify and remake. She beautifies and glorifies all God gives her, and the results are amazing. Call it the woman’s touch.

You know what I mean. We’ve all seen the old stock Western film where the old dirty bachelor cowboy gets a mail-order bride, and the new bride looks around at the wreck and ruin of his forlorn cabin, rolls up her sleeves, and changes everything. She remakes him and she remakes that cabin. (This may not be a popular stock scene anymore in this politically correct era, but the idea of the woman remaking the world is still as true today as it was in the beginning.)

Consider, for example, a house. It is just four walls until a woman moves in and transfigures it, beautifies it, glorifies it, and makes it into something new: a home. What is a kitchen but just a room full of shiny surfaces until a woman glorifies it with pies and mashed potatoes and loads of dirty dishes and singing. A woman receives her husband’s love, and God mysteriously glorifies it within her, and a baby is born. Woman is the glory of the man. She is his crown.

This is God’s creation design for women: they do this mysterious thing of remaking people and homes and cultures. Men want to be made new; homes are begging to be humanized; our culture is crying out for help. A woman’s touch is a powerful thing, and this is what homemaking is all about. This gift of remaking does not originate in the woman herself: God puts it there, and she reflects, manifests, and returns the glory to Him.

A godly dangerous woman understands that God has given her the tools to do this. She knows who she is and she understands what God has designed her to do. She is not distracted away from this truth. It is what enables her to be a productive asset to the community. She is indispensable. Women have this gift, married or not. They exert a tremendous influence on their community, whether that community is a home, a church, or a school. They are either constructing or tearing down.

Graduates: Be builders. Each of you, be the kind of woman who never forgets what she is called to do. Take the things God has given you and glorify them. Get your hands busy beautifying the world. You can begin now. You don’t have to wait.

3. Third, a godly dangerous woman understands that she is the root of this tree called humanity. God has created the human race this way. The woman is not the tree, but she nourishes it, and she grounds it because that is what God has equipped her to do. And the more she does this, the more dangerous she becomes. She has this strange power to extend herself, bestowing and adorning the world with a fruitful radiance.

Feminism has successfully drummed its story for women into our culture’s psyche. It is a bad story about women, a story in which the women play their assigned parts, detached, independent, unconnected, and autonomous. And millions of women have bought the story and tell it over and over again to themselves and their daughters. But the story makes no sense, and the devastating effects of it are easy to see.

If the root obviously cannot be disconnected from the tree, and do its own thing. Not only is the whole tree affected, but the root crumbles. The feminist story has gotten old. Many of the old guard are even starting to defect. The story that women should be disconnected and autonomous has taken its toll. You might as well put the root in the driveway or in the sky. What good is it there? Even a child can see the nonsense of such a thing.

Our military has even adopted this foolish feminist fairy tale. So now the root is in the submarine. What a silly story this is. Would someone please interrupt this story and talk sense to these people? Put the root in the ground! That is where it belongs. That is where it will grow. That is where it is dangerous! When it isn’t in the ground, it is weak, foolish, helpless and worthless. Nature itself teaches us these things. The feminist story is destructive, not constructive. It keeps telling women to keep the roots OUT of the ground.

The soil for the root is the Christian home. This is the domain and the dominion of the godly dangerous woman. G.K. Chesterton described the home as “a sphere of vast importance and supreme spiritual significance; and to talk of being confined to it is like talking of being chained to a throne.” The home is the kingdom where the woman has inestimable influence and power; this is where she can be dangerous to the serpent, where she bruises the serpent’s head by self-sacrifice and obedient love.

The home is where the root grows, where it does its work of nourishing, establishing, and glorifying the world. Women not only nourish and sustain the tree, they provide stability in unstable times, they anchor a culture to the ground. And if ever a culture was in need of stability and nourishment, our American culture is now. Quoting Chesterton again: “Despite efforts to find one, there is no alternative to the family.”

The home is where the action is. The home is the center of operations for the woman from which she extends herself, where she finds her fulfillment and purpose. This is the vantage point from which she can see future generations of faithfulness rising up. This is the Christian story about dangerous women.

Graduates: Let your roots grow deep. Love the true story and hate the bad. And be able to tell them apart.

4. Fourth, a godly dangerous woman believes and loves God’s covenant promises which He has made to His people. She is thinking long-term. Even when she is just about to graduate from high school, she has an eye toward when she will be a great-grandma to a hundred or more great-grandchildren. And she is loyal to them already. Think about this! This is why your parents want to stay in the neighborhood and not settle down on the other side of the world (though they may be hesitant to say so).

My children attended Logos School from kindergarten through twelfth grade. This is the school their father helped start for them. Now I have nine grandchildren there. Now I can see with my eyes what I could only imagine back when my children were little, and I had no idea wonderful it would be. It is hard to see ahead like this, but it is very important to think this way.

This is why a godly dangerous woman can stand up for what she knows is true. This is why she won’t be swayed by a stupid guy who tries to get her to do stupid things. Her calling is too important to squander on a man who doesn’t get it. What would her descendents think? She wants to raise up sons who will be leaders and daughters who will be pillars, equipped to raise up the next generation. This is why she is not interested in weak men. She is looking for strength and courage, not a man with wobbly knees.

If you doubt the tremendous impact that women have on our culture, here’s a thought experiment for you. What would happen to our culture if women all across our country had God’s promises in view and said something like this to their boyfriends: “Are you kidding? You must be crazy if you think I will move in with you without a wedding first.” Can you imagine the upheaval and dislocation? Suddenly marriage would be much on men’s minds, and not just on the women’s minds, and there would no doubt be a diamond shortage. Because women have believed the serpent’s lies, marriage is in a sore state, and this has an obvious affect on the heart of our culture.

God’s blessings flow downstream, and a godly dangerous woman understands that her behavior now will have consequences in generations to come, and this is a very big deal. My husband has taught this for years. When fathers are living with “secret sins,” they are in essence giving their sons covenantal permission to sin in the same way. When women are living sinfully, whether by being anxious and worrisome or in some other sinful way, they are giving their daughters and granddaughters covenantal permission to live the same way. A godly dangerous woman is not simply thinking of the present; she is thinking of the next fifty years, and she wants to live in a way that will bless her descendents and not scramble them. This kind of woman is rare. Her price is far above rubies.

She sees the long-term blessings that result from seemingly mundane decisions and tasks. She doesn’t mind; she can afford to be patient. God works over generations, and He takes His time. She can interpret the times in light of God’s unfailing love and providence. She sees His hand in all that comes to pass. Like the godly women of old, she sees that she is standing in a long line of God’s covenant faithfulness. He always blesses obedience, and He never forsakes His people.

Graduates: Love God’s promises. They are for you and your descendents. Live in light of them! Be this kind of woman.

5. Finally, a godly dangerous woman is not threatened by the unbelief in the culture around her. She is at war with it! She does not give way to fear. She knows who wins. She does not keep her head down when she enters into a secular job or a secular university. She knows who she is and what she is about, and she is not afraid of everyone else finding out. In fact, she is eager for everyone to find out, and this takes backbone. And this, it turns out, is actually threatening to everyone else! A dangerous woman assumes the center. This requires courage and faith. A virtuous woman is a courageous woman.

She laughs at the days to come. She sees through the lies in the serpent’s story clear as can be; she is not deceived. She is uncooperative with his agenda. He lied to our first mother, and she stumbled and her husband with her. But God has promised that the seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent. And that is what the promised Messiah did.

So there is no need for a woman to go wobbly because she might lose friends or lose her job or fail the class. God’s purposes and plans are much too big to be squandered on such petty threats. She has too much to do, and time is short. She understands the final outcome: we win, they lose. A dangerous, godly woman is a threat to the other team because she is building, and refuses to tear down. A godly home is a dangerous weapon and a strong defense. It is both an offensive and defensive weapon.

Women of the graduating class, I urge you to be dangerous women. You have the tools to get to work on the next thing. After all, you have received a good and godly education. The world is in great need, and women like you need to roll up their sleeves and get to work, preparing to raise the next generation to play their part, transforming the culture one home at a time. You know who you are, who your people are, and what needs to be done. So get to work.

As you begin your life after high school, keep these things in your mind. The future is coming. What kind of woman are you going to be in it?

In closing, thank you again Mr. Trotter and the board. And congratulations, graduates!

Love and Friendship - Part One

No, no, this post has nothing to do Jane Austen’s satirical short story. That is a post for another day. This post will address the difficulties that people face in their attempts to forge friendships that are lasting. In this day and age “social networks” such as myspace and facebook thwart these efforts every which way. Although these networks can be used as tools to connect and stay in contact with people, they do not facilitate very deep connections between people.


They can only operate on a superficial level, to check the status of the people on your friends list, to chat occasionally, etc. Such things help us to stay informed as to our friends' and acquaintance's movements in their day-to-day lives, but it cannot assist us in knowing the state of our friends hearts and minds. This can only be obtained through true conversation, whether face-to-face, in a letter or on the telephone.

There is an intangible, yet very real, connection of minds and hearts that is completely lost when posted for the whole world to see. True friends take personal interest in the feelings and ideas of those they have befriended, not just their recent activities. True friends are able to bear their souls to one another and feel safe in the knowledge of mutual understanding.