Inspired

Fear and The Food Bank.

/ toseealife / 1 Comment

So, ending the first week of confinement at home for most of us around the world–the first week for my part of America, for many people this is already getting old.

Today I got to bend the rules a bit with my church and help out with their weekly Food Drive. Of course they had less people there than usual, my sister and I had never helped out before, but we felt they would need the extra hands–my real reason was to get out of the house and be around other people for a while.

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Image result for image of food bank

So after 3 hours of stuffing food into bags, not sitting down, and carrying boxes and dishes around, I was ready to go home and put my feet up.

The talk at the event was a bit concerned. The people who come in for food are low income, or homeless. They are the most at risk of getting sick, as one person in charge explained to us. We had to wear masks if we were going to interact with them. Someone donated the masks and the gloves we wore, form what I heard. Or someone was lucky enough to find them, since those things are getting sold out everywhere.

But more than worrying about infecting anyone, the helpers were worried about whether we can have this in the following month. Without it some of these people might not get food at all, a lot of food banks are closing because everything is getting bought out so quickly. My grandma could only buy one bag of bread this morning. She was lucky there was even any left.

However, my family is not at risk of starving any time soon. If we were homeless, without access to a kitchen or pantry, that would be different.

My family has been on the brink of poverty plenty of times. Having a small business meant job security depends on the public demand of a small ring of customers. It’s not like widely known department stores that people know to search at. We had to move because we couldn’t pay rent anymore. If we hadn’t had a relative who would take us in, my dad said we could end up in a tent on the field. My dad was rather melodramatic. WE have plenty of friends who would probably help us out before that happened.

What goes around, comes around. We’ve let people stay at our house too when they didn’t have anywhere. Never for very long, but still.

I don’t like being so dependent, but am I glad that we have somewhere. Especially now that my dad’s income is not supporting us. My mom has gotten a 2nd job, so that will help we hope. But if we didn’t live here for free, we couldn’t make it.

All this to say, I’m hovering on the edge of the lower class here, though no one would think so to look at me. Looks can be deceiving. But there’s still so many people worse off. On top of that, they have to worry about catching cold and not being able to shower.

I guess what bothers me is this mass panic over the virus is so selfish.

People are buying up supplies who don’t really need it. Rushing in to get more. They don’t realize that stores donate food to charities, or people go to stores to get food to donate, and that goes to people who cannot afford it themselves. Who can’t even get it by going to a charity, if the charities are closing.

My church is afraid to close because so many places near it are closed that the people would have no where else to go. So we still had our event. We’re hoping to have it again next week. Hopefully through the rest of the crisis.

The Virus is terrible,  I get that. I maybe don’t get it as well because I haven’t seen it in action. Part of the reason it’s so devastating is that it’s new, and people don’t have immunity built up to it yet. In a few years, it’s likely to be a smaller problem. hopefully by next year, even.

It’s scary, sure. But it’s not the apocalypse.

It amazes me how scared people can get. It’s like we’re trained to react this way.

Though generations of books and movies about the end of the world and a post-apocalyptic world probably aren’t helping. I’ve known people who half believe in zombies and AI taking over, who see it as inevitable.

Christians know that the end of the world is inevitable. However, we’re told to walk boldly and wisely, redeeming the time because the days are evil (Ephesians 5:16).

Christians are basically paying rent for living on the planet by doing our good works. Not that we have to pay to life here, literally. We just see this body as a loan, a temporary home, meant to be used to help people with. And yes, enjoy life, because who says helping people has to be boring? It can help people a lot to just enjoy things. “A merry heart does good like a medicine, but a broken spirit dries the bones” (Proverbs 17:22).  Give me an anime with my sisters when I’m feeling down over a sermon any day.

We are allowed to participate in all parts of life, as long as we keep in mind they are fleeting and our real object is God. Balances is the key.

So when we face these crisis, we are supposed to feel as if we are just returning a borrowed book to the library, or a rented car, checking out of our resort, ect. Sure, it was fun while it lasted, but if the fun part is over, or even suspended, who was surprised?

“In this world you will have trouble,” Jesus said.

Our security does not depend on the world, and the world cannot take it away. People with God’s hand on their lives tend to evade life’s threats with a seeming ease of just being unaffected.

Sometimes Christians do suffer the same diseases, money problems, and terrible crimes as other people. A lot of the time actually, but it is not the end of our lives. We have a hope, we come out of it.

Of course, we’re human. Some of us grow faint and lose courage. Jesus also said “He who endures to the end shall be saved.”

In a crisis, the difference between a Christian and a non-christian might be compared (at it’s worst) to someone dangling off a cliff by their fingers.

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As long as they hold on, they won’t die, but they could slip at any moment. The cliff could give way. Some jerk could even come and kick them off.

Their strength will only last so long, even without another thing happening.

But, if there was a safety net hung below them, none of that other stuff would matter in the least. Whether they fell because they were tired, or the handhold wasn’t stable, or someone else pushed them, or it was just an accident, the end result it the same and the cause no longer matters.

I guess either way that’s the case. You can survive falling, sometimes. But you never need to survive if something catches you.

That’s Christianity. Even death isn’t a failure, if heaven is the safety net you fall into.

Whether that net takes you back to the cliff of this world and its problems, or take you home to heaven, you were still saved. So why worry?

Of course, it’s scary to dangle. It’s scary to free fall even for a few seconds. Just like it’s scary to endure a crisis not knowing what your escape will be.

But, you’re still 1000 times better off than the person with no net, no fall back, relying on their own strength to keep them alive.

The world will be afraid, because it has no hope. But we do not have to be.

I just wonder, over the world, how many Christians are contributing to this scare? And how many are choosing to trust God to catch them. I know my own dad tends to make it worse, but my mom and sisters tend to try to make it better. I hope I’m on that side also.

Maybe my challenge to you is to think about which one you are. I’m not hating on you if you’re scared, it’s normal to be scared, but are you trying to stay calm even so? Or are you adding to the chaos?

That could be as simple as texting a reminder about it when you didn’t really have to, and we all know people who feed off drama and the attention people give them when they bring up bad stuff.

We never know who might be affected in the long run by us giving way to fear.

After this post, I think I’ll stop writing about the Virus unless a really important thing comes up, because it’s not worthy of all my attention, or yours.

Until next time–Natasha.

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Anime Bondage: Fairy Tail

/ toseealife / 5 Comments

It’s been awhile…hey. 😁

Well, I think anime fans, sorry, weaboos, might laugh at me for using Fairy Tail as an example in this series.

I’ll admit Fairy Tail is on the lighter-hearted side, this is more about an anime trope that fairy tail introduced me to, but I’ve since realized is common.

It’s really pretty sad how common it is, and unquestioned.

For lack of a better term, I dub this trope the “I am too much of a sinner to be happy.”

In Fairy Tail, the character who fell under this trope was Jellal, who also happened to be criminally underused, and the other half of one of the better ships.

Saltiness aside, I was a bit surprised.

As someone who’s grown up on American media, and English Fairytales, I expect happy endings, pure and noble characters, and positive messages.

While anime features characters so relentlessly good they’d almost meet George MacDonald’s standard of the “common good uncommonly developed” it is a lot darker as a rule than our stories. Happy endings are hard come by and can feel rushed and incomplete compared to the rest of the story.

I started to like anime because it showed very real problems and made love and goodness the answer to them.

But I started to get frustrated the more I realized anime is incomplete also.

Here’s the skinny on Jellal if you don’t know:

Jellal is a villain in season 1, but he’s being controlled by another character. he began as a very brave, kind, and noble boy of around 8, and in a moment of weakness to hatred, was possessed by dark magic from a different villain looking for a victim.

Jellal goes on to try to kill all his old friends, and resurrect the Black wizard Zeref, causing a lot of pain and suffering along the way.

Later he survives being blown up (like you do on anime) and loses his memory. he meets his love interested again and tries to prevent a catastrophe. Then gets arrested and imprisoned. About 6 years later (time skip) he gets out and forms a group of former villains turned good guys to try to atone for their sins.

At this point he meets up with his love interest, Erza, again, and turns down her offer of a relationship and forgiveness. Telling  his new friends that for someone like him, love is out of the question. Love and happiness.

He then spends most of the show running from just that, and treating his own life as negligible. At the end he is told he should try to live to make Erza happy. We’re given a hint that he intends to do this, but it’s not shown.

Now, I’m happy it worked out in the end…but the pattern went on for a long time. It’s gone on longer on other animes. Including freaking Naruto (almost done with that finally.)

The reason I would call this attitude of self-inflicted punishment bondage is because it does not even work, even if it were acceptable.

No one ever changed themselves by punishing themselves.

I’m more concerned with how unchallenged the idea goes on anime then that it appears in the first place.

It’s even on my favorite MHA when Iida chooses to leave his hand injured until he can deserve healing.

It’s a very real struggle people have. My dad is one of them. In the past I’ve wondered about it myself, if I need to punish myself for things.

I remember it was humorously explored in one of the Anne of Green Gables books, the 7th one, Rainbow Valley. Where four children elect to bring themselves up by implementing rather creative punishments whenever they do something wrong. It does not work.

Interestingly, the Bible has strong words to say about people harming themselves, and treats the idea of self punishment as rather abhorrent.

1 Corinthians 6:19-20 “Don’t you know that your body is a temple that belongs to the Holy Spirit? The Holy Spirit, whom you received from God, lives in you. You don’t belong to yourselves. You were bought for a price. So bring glory to God in the way you use your body.”

Leviticus 19:28 “You shall not make any cuts on your body for the dead or tattoo yourselves: I am the Lord.”

In 1 Kings it says of the prophets of  Baal “And they cried aloud and cut themselves after their custom with swords and lances, until the blood gushed out upon them.”

This worship practice is not something you’ll find God telling His people to do.

Now, we are sometimes told to repent in physical ways, dust, ashes, sackcloth, fasting, but there is no health damage in any of this.

The same applies to emotional damage. Making ourselves miserable is discouraged by the Bible.

In speaking of guilt, Paul says “Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death.” (2 Cor 7:10).

After repenting initially, we are supposed to receive God’s forgiveness, and give up thinking about our sins.

We no longer need to be haunted by regrets.

The reason for this is that God takes even our mistakes and uses them, once we’ve repented, to bring us into more freedom. We have to take sin seriously in order to want to be free of it, true repentance is not wallowing in guilt, but acknowledging how serious sin is, then trusting that God can deliver you from it.

There are many christians haunted by regrets, but that is not biblical. Some churches have taught it because they misinterpreted the teaching of the bible…or ignored it.

In my experience, actually, it’s not the chruches fault. A christian chooses to live in regrets.

I have had, since becoming a christian, been mostly free of regrets. Early on I embraced the idea that I do not need to beat myself up anymore about my past.

Probably because I watched my dad live that way for years, and saw how little good it did, and then had to deal with him imposing that on me because we treat others how we treat ourselves.

I let my past go, I only wished he’d do the same. I still do.

And so, when it comes to the self-punishment thing, I just can’t get on board.

From a logical standpoint, nothing is really accomplished by choosing to keep yourself either injured, or emotionally empty.

One might say ” I do not deserve love.” But welcome to the human race. None of us do.

Love is not about what you deserve, it’s about what you need to be a full person.

Jellal never has much success atoning for his sins while he is doing it out of guilt, the few times he does it out of love are when it ends up working out. Contrast it to Erza, who learns earlier to start forgiving herself and living out of love, and has success after success against impossible odds because love’s power fuels her.

The bondage of guilt is one any honest human being has to face, but we do not have to stay in it. God’s forgiveness sets us free if we just ask it.

And human forgiveness is good too. Honestly, more people need to learn to accept each other’s forgiveness and quit worrying about it.

Perhaps I leaned more on the christian side for this, but I can’t separate my idea of forgiveness from my faith.

Christianity is a very free religion in that way. The only one I know of that says guilt can be completely gone, that you can no longer require punishment, and can live free and happy no matter what your past is.

Until next time, stay honest–Natasha.

Answer to what someone said.

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Taking a break from my anime series in order to write a post that I felt inspired to write after reading something that popped up in my recommendations.

I don’t want to name the blog because I think it would be unfair to criticize them by name when I have not asked them, and I don’t want to be one of those people who ends up bringing down a hate storm on another social media person just because I disagree with them, publicly.

That being said, what grabbed me about this post was how strangely vague it was. It’s really a perfect example of a modern 20-30 year old’s viewpoint, as is commonly expressed in media. And, I meet college students who talk like this.

The post was discussing someone’s search for meaning, and going through school, not really taking philosophy, then studying mythology and wondering why the gods punished people for stuff they were fated to do, and how he went on to become a Marxist, and later a Romantic, that is, someone who denies that God, love, justice, beauty, are real.

He denies being a cynic, saying he appreciates them more because they are not real. And thinks that Jesus, when he was dying and felt forsaken by God, is a remarkable idea.

In the end, he almost laughs at himself for wanting to be real, when he’s made of wood. That he cannot dream himself into being human.

The last sentence of the post  declares himself Alone, and Meaningless in a dark, empty world.

(Any more and I’ll be directly quoting him.)

In all fairness, I can’t repeat it word for word, so you’re taking my summary of it as accurate, but the blogger himself admitted to basically finding meaning in nothing.

He reflects at one point about a Christian girl who once told him that God has put it into everyone’s hearts to want to know him.

He laughed it off then, but admits that it’s basically what he’s describing, but, he knows God is a lie.

After I finished reading this, I had one question: How does he know God is a lie?

This guy pretty clearly suffers from depression, I believe it’s even in other posts on his blog, so his thoughts may have a morbid tenancy anyway.

But I couldn’t help noticing that at no point in his story did he ever say he sought God personally. He asked other people about Him, and pondered the idea of God, as well as other values most people agree are real, and he found them unbelievable, for whatever reason.

But there is no record of Him approaching God face to face and seeking revelation.

Ironically, many times when nonchristians tell me they’ve sought truth, or sought God, it ends up meaning they sought ideas about Him. Perhaps they went to church briefly, they talked to a christian…and failing to be impressed by it, they left.

Well, Christians can be bad at representing our faith, however, part of the problem with nonbelievers is that they expect something of us that we are not able to give them.

God, frankly, never makes sense to anyone who has not tried to meet Him personally.

Not because God can not be explained in a way that makes sense, but because the explanation is not enough to make you know what He is like.

I can give you the best description of my friend, till you almost feel like you know them already…and until you hear them talk, see their face, or even see their handwriting, you will still lack a true impression of their character.

The God of the Bible, distinctly unlike gods of most religions, is not high up in the clouds, or deep down in the heart of the earth, He’s not in the sun, or the planets, or the wind.

God is not in one place, He is in everyplace, one can meet him in a closet, at a beach, on a mountain top, in a bar, in an alleyway, a brothel, a prison, a church, a battlefield…anywhere at all.

It is no use to say you have sought the truth about God, and found nothing in it, unless you have spoken to God directly. From the heart.

Someone might say “If you do not believe in God, then you cannot speak to Him from the Heart.”

If you yearn for meaning, if you feel dissatisfied with how empty life is, then, you can speak to God.

If you can speak to the void, to people who will never meet you, you can speak to God.

This is the one thing no one ever wants to do. In the Bible, in Exodus, when Moses approached God on the mountain of Sinai, the people begged him to talk to God for them, they said if they tried to, they would die.

Moses, in contrast, begged God to let him see His glory.

Was it really so impossible for the people?I wonder.

There is no record in the Bible of anyone ever praying to God sincerely, one on one, and not getting some kind of answer, even it it took awhile.

What there is a record of is God lamenting constantly that people do not seek him. He promises if He is sought, He will be found, if we seek with all our heart.

I will say, God is not found by anyone who is looking for him like one might look for a free show.

People who search for God flippantly, with the attitude that if He is not exactly what they want, they will bail, are unlikely to find anything.

I do not know this blogger well enough to say for certain why He has not found God, he seemed quite close, in some ways.

But, if I went just by what he said, as an idea, then my answer would be this: He did not find God because He did not seek him one on one.

It’s the simplest thing in the world to pray, yet, people are scared to death of it. It feels like such a commitment.

It’s funny too, since, no one else will ever know if you pray alone in your room, even in your head, but it still feels huge.

I may make someone angry by claiming that atheists are just too afraid to seek God, and I do understand that some of them have other reasons besides this…

…but, by and large, the people who hold the belief that all of life is meaningless are cowards. They believe that because they are afraid to believe it has meaning, because the meaning might be something they cannot handle. And if God could direct the meaning for them, they fear He will direct it a way they don’t like.

The meaning I even give to these people themselves is because I believe life has meaning, they ask that I listen to them, that I care, but deny the reason why I should. The honest ones admit that, but fail to see how the fact that they even care would in itself prove life has meaning.

You can’t want something that does not exist, you have a hunger because there is a food for it. You thirst because water exists. You feel pain because nerve endings are real.

You can’t ache inside without there being a balm for it.

This has run long, so I am going to end this post with this:

I don’t think this blogger will read my answer, and, I am not sure it would help him if he did, unless he could face his fears and look at God for himself.

But to me, it’s so beautifully simple. When I struggled with those feelings myself, the solution came when I spoke to God directly and surrendered to him.

That has no meaning to someone who despises that approach, thinks it’s too simple…Well, to that, all I will say for now is I don’t see much happiness in thinking the other way.

Until next time–Natasha.

Virtue vs. Holiness–Sister post.

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By my sister, from a class we were taking.  3/1/2017:

Lack of morality is running rampant in our nation, today. One only need turn on the TV to see the promotion of drugs, sex, abortion, lack of responsibility, and lack of virtue in general. Still, do we need virtue? Is taking back our virtue, our standard of acceptable morality, the way to fix things? Will it help us, as individuals as well as a nation, to recover from this moral dryness?

One Webster’s dictionary definition of virtue is,

“Moral goodness; the practice of moral duties and the abstaining from vice, or a conformity of life and conversation to moral laws . . .”

Virtue is like a moral code of conduct or the action of living up to that code. People’s “codes” may vary, but a few suggestions come to mind. Generosity, kindness, decorum, temperance, purity, marital loyalty, honesty, etc. Our country could use a little of that, right?

This brings me to my next question: Was Jesus virtuous? 

Whoa, whoa! Stop. Of course Jesus was virtuous! He didn’t commit one sin–not one! I can’t even go one day without sinning. How much more virtuous can you get? 

“As obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance: but as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy.” (1 Peter 1:14-16 KJV)

You’ll notice the key word here is holy. Is there a difference between virtue and holiness? What is holiness?

John Eldredge talks about this in his book The Utter Relief of Holiness:

“For years I thought of holiness as something austere, spiritually elite, and frankly rather severe. Giving up worldly pleasures, innocent things such as sugar or music or fishing; living an entirely “spiritual” life; praying a lot; being a very good person. Something that only very old saints attain . . . Yet in order to make human beings what they are meant to be, the love of God seeks to make us whole and holy. In fact, the assumption of the New Testament is that you cannot become whole without becoming holy; nor can you become holy without becoming whole.”

He later goes on to cite Hebrews 12:7-13.

“‘Endure hardships as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father? If you are not disciplined (and everyone undergoes discipline), then you are illegitimate children and not true sons. Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of our spirits and live! Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. ‘Make level paths for your feet,’ so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed.’”

Mr. Eldredge then says something very singular.

“ . . . Severity is not the point; discipline is not the point. The point is the restoration of your creation. Whatever holiness truly is, the effect of it is healing. That’s what it does to a person.”

When Jesus took our sins to the cross, He also gave us something in return: His holiness. Now God sees us not as we are, with our sin, but as we can and will be as He continues His work in us. Our accepting His gift of eternal life and salvation allows Him to gradually change our sin and chains to righteousness and freedom. It’s not that we don’t experience freedom and righteousness when we accept Him as our Lord and Savior. He helps us to live it out through His holiness in us. Adhering to a moral code doesn’t do that for us. It doesn’t change us; it doesn’t make us good on the inside. 

A nation’s society is made up of people. You can hold a standard up for them to follow, but that doesn’t help them to follow it. I may have a list of characteristics I want to live out; that doesn’t enable me to do so. 

Matthew 5:20 “For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.”

Our righteousness has to be greater than the Pharisees’. They weren’t holy. They were concerned only with appearances, with outward shows of goodness. They adhered strictly to a moral code. They had virtue without holiness. Holiness is the true goodness that comes from God. God’s Spirit is called the Holy Spirit. The fruits of His Spirit are, “love, joy, peace, long suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control.” (Galatians 5:22-23) What does this tell us? Holiness is the wellspring from which true virtue comes. It cannot be the other way around. We cannot acquire holiness through virtue. Anything less than God’s holiness is flawed–Pharisaic–and it’s putting a load on people’s backs that they can’t carry.  

Here’s another reason why holiness is superior to earthly virtue. It’s a relief. Eldredge, in his book, says,

“Look at it this way: Ask the anorexic young girl how she would feel if she simply no longer struggled with food, diet, exercise–if she simply never even gave it another thought. . . . Ask the raging person what it would be like to be free of rage . . . Take the things you struggle with and ask yourself, ‘What would life be like if I never struggled with this again?’

“It would be an utter relief. An absolute, utter relief.” 

Jesus didn’t struggle with sin. It couldn’t touch Him. His virtue came from an inner holiness that drew people to Him. Giving people a list of dos and don’ts will not help them become free from sin. Jesus helps them. He gives them His holiness. I consider holiness–Jesus–the answer to society’s problems today. He is the only way to be free–free from wanting to sin–free from even being able to sin. That is what I want for my life. Jesus’ freedom. 

Thanks sis for letting me post this–Natasha.

 

 

Sanders Sides Fandom–What the heck?

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Hello, so this is a pretty specific post, kind of a rant post, my sister and I are collaborating on it, so some of these thoughts are from her.

This happens in every fandom, not just the Thomas Sanders one, it just so happens that his exploded after the Intrusive Thoughts vid I mentioned a couple posts ago, into a prime example of this phenomenon, if it is a phenomenon.

So, Remus, the embodiment of Intrusive Thoughts, basically the embodiment of the word smut, has become….popular.

He’s been shipped with people.

People are adopting him as their smutty son.

He’s made a splash…

My feelings: AHHHHHHHHH!     😤😠😯😢😡😧😬😥

Sister: This is not surprising, unfortunately. We’ve seen it happening before with similar characters but it’s more obvious here, because this character is just so focused on beignt he embodiment of all terrible thoughts…like just the worst.

Me: Yeah… so why are people adopting him. As their son!

Sister: For one thing, they feel like they’re like him.

ME: HOW?

Sister: They feel like they are like him because–which is actually really sad–because the whole point was Thomas convincing himself that he wasn’t like Remus, that Remus was intrusive not a reflection of himself. But these people don’t get that. They don’t have that freedom, Sanders has a limited freedom, but compared to theirs, it’s still more.

Me: I don’t think Thomas was trying to give people a complex about loving intrusive thoughts, since Remus is basically a bully, to Thomas. A jerk, not good at all. The Dark Sides are the sides that do nothing good for Thomas, especially Remus, because even deceit can at least help him realize the truth by arguing with him, but Remus doesn’t help him at all. He just stresses him out.

S: So this brings us back to the question, why are people–ugh– attracted to Remus?

Me: You have an answer?

S: Your thought first.

Me: What I think, is that people strain out a gnat and swallow a camel. Like we nitpick the smallest, stupidest things, but then we accept the most outrageous stuff because it is outrageous on purpose. I think that people don’t think of Remus as a character showing a problem, they only see his flamboyant personality. And many people would say there is nothing wrong with liking his personality, as long as you are admitting that is what you like.

But the problem with that is, again, straining out a gnat, this one thing you like, and swallowing a camel by accepting all the things that come with it. Liking Remus means not noticing how bad he really is. Because his personality is to cover up how twisted he is, it’s embracing the twistedness of what he represents, shamelessly, and liking that, means you are not really seeing the reason he exists.

S: My thoughts are similar, I think People like Remus because he is so reveling in who he is, and what he is, in this day and age that’s a virtue values above almost everything else.

Me: But the problem is, vile people can love being evil. Thomas even brought up in the video a guy who went form hating his intrusive thoughts to enjoying them, and that led him to murder people. It’s like the virtue of pride in who you are, outweighs who you actually are. As long as you’re confident, people don’t care if you’re a jerk.

S: That reflects on the state of people’s souls today. All over you see people whether humorlessly or not humorlessly being self deprecating,

Me: Like sheep

S: But my point is it means we’re so hungry for any sort of self-love or being okay with oneself that we are willing to swallow gallons of poison just to get it.

Me: You think we’re exaggerating this?

S: Not in the slightest.

Me: Well there are a lot of characters like this in media, anime, reality shows, and a lot of jerk characters get to be popular because they are confident. Rainbow Dash from MLP, Bakugo form MHA, Gordon Ramsey, (I am not saying Gordon Ramsey is really a jerk, but the persona for his show was like that, and it was popular)

S: Loki, villains form all sorts of franchises, even Thanos.

Me: Can you elaborate more on what the appeal is? Or why people can’t resist it?

S: They can’t resist it because they don’t have any better examples. Almost all the characters who display this kind of self confidence are villains or at least natural in the war of good and evil.

Me: And good characters are often nervous, socially awkward, and lack confidence.

S: And that’s okay because those are obstacles they are meant to overcome not stay in, we love it when that happens. But no one gives a powerful example of a good person who is so confident in who they are. That’s why people over Bakugo.

M: I don’t think that’s why a lot of people love him. It’s why we love him. Also if we do have such a character, they usually die. Or get de-powerd.

S: That’s because the author doesn’t know how to write them properly.

M: *cough Pyrrha Nikos *cough.

S: But I think it’s what our culture desperately needs, what everyone is looking for, but we’ve been forced to look for in the wrong places.

M: You maybe be cutting people too much slack when you say we’ve been forced to look in the wrong places. More like, we lost interesting the wholesome stuff, and even when we are presented with innocence, many people go out of their way to corrupt it with their imaginations. Remus is more like a version of what some people willingly do, they’ve embraced it, maybe it started out as intrusive thoughts, but now they think them on purpose. And then they like it. And they spread it around to the rest of us, and that’s why characters like Remus end up popular. Because it’s popular to embrace the gross, smutty, pervy side of things. Even when they don’t really exist.

S: There’s a reason for that attitude though. It’s lack of power. See, people have abandoned innocence and 1950’s values, because they don’t think they work. They are faced with their won inner demons and the outer problems of the world running rampant, and if those things are supposed to be so great, why aren’t they working? Why don’t more people use them? Why is everything to terrible?

Me: Okay

S: People don’t think they can afford to stick with something that won’t be powerful enough to save them. So why bother? Just abandon all those useless values and platitudes. Embrace the smuttiness because that’s all you’ve got.

M: Remember I said intrusive thoughts are based in the fear of yourself? And that people embrace them because that is less painful than fighting them and not seeming to ever win? It’s the coward’s way out, but when you have no solution, it can seem like the best way out. Because it’s painless. Except when your conscience does bother you, but that’s less often over time. Like 1 Tim 4: 2 “Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron;’

S: Yeah, but it’s almost hard to blame the people who stop fighting it and start embracing it.

Me: (Maybe for you o_O ).

S: Because look at what they think their only other option is: People who keep fighting are in a constant state of inner turmoil and self hatred, just look at Thomas’es reaction through out the whole video, Thomas doesn’t know how to stop these thoughts, and neither do the people who embrace them. So it seems to reflect on who they are. If I’m damned either way at least I can be damned and comfortable. But the hard truth is it’s not comfortable it just pretends to be.

Me: Like I said when we talked about it before, in Romans 7 Paul asks “who will deliver me for this body of death?” and the inner turmoil he describes is just like Thomas’s, and all of ours, it’s the human condition.

But what is our solution then?

S: Well we both know, we can’t stop ourselves from having those thoughts, all we can do is deal with them when they come. The truth is we can’t save ourselves from it. That’s kind of the conclusion Thomas came to.

But Thomas, all he’s doing, is putting down faulty weapons, he doesn’t know how to pick up effective weapons.

Me: I think that would tick some fans off to hear, but he admitted it himself.

S: So the only way to be completely and totally free is to not think those thoughts anymore, but that’s impossible isn’t it?

Me: I could argue that you can be completely free while still having the thoughts, because you can be free of bondage to them. You don’t have to feel bad, and you don’t have to like them, they can just cease to have any power over you at all. And then they don’t come very often. I don’t have them nearly as much as I used to.

S: But why?

Me: Because I started asking God to fight the thought for me, instead of doing it myself. I would tel them to leave, but also ask Him to take authority over them, I remind the thoughts that God is higher than them, and that I have the mind of Christ. And then, it’s just doesn’t bother me anymore. And they go away. And I forget about it in a hour or so.

S: What really has been working for me, is remembering who God says I am. If He says that I am not some demented disgusting thing.

Me: Like Remus

S: But instead I am a pure, powerful, beautiful, warrior, who don’t have to take no crap, and royalty which helps, then these thoughts can’t be part of me. They are obviously from somewhere else.

Me: And that there is what I think people don’t have. Any sense of a better identity. So they have no other recourse than to say these are me, and I suck. Poor Thomas.

S: Well, he even decided they weren’t a reflection of his character.

Me: Yeah, but he didn’t go far enough. He still thinks it’s art of his imagination. I’d say it’s not, it’s just using his imagination. And what we feed our imagination is important. Part of the problem is that many people out all sorest of horror imagines, smutty images, inane humor, dirty jokes, into their mind, and then they are surprised when it regurgitates in a form they are less comfortable with. What you laugh at and enjoy effects what kind of intrusive thoughts you’ll get.

S: (Nods)…so to come back to the original question, as to why people like Remus and are reacting this way to him, it’s because we don’t think we can have anything better. And to an extend we don’t want anything better.

Me: If you’re satisfied with mud, you won’t get a trip to the beach, right? But also, he who is loves silver won’t be satisfied with silver, these people are never satisfied.

S: Yeah, cause they are taking their questions to the wrong place.

Me: We need to wrap it up.

Well, thank sis, for helping me discuss this, and figure this out. I feel kind of somber now. I feel bad for all these people. But I hope that some people found this post helpful as an explanation, or as a guide to maybe how you can deal with this problem better. I  like Thomas, and I didn’t want to criticize him, I just think he’s not got the whole picture.

So, until next time, don’t like Remus–Natasha and co.

 

Ladylikeness is weak?

/ toseealife / Leave a comment

I was just scrolling though a comment section for MLP and I found someone trolling people about feminism.

A little context: The episode is called “A Dog and Pony Show.”

It ends with Twilight saying that just because someone is ladylike, it doesn’t make them weak.

And there weren’t too many people harping on about it. In fact, I didn’t see any feminist comments, but I did see someone who was clearly trying to get some kind of reaction by calling it feminist and saying “Face it, ladies are weak.”

What’s funny? No girls were taking the bait, but one other guy watching did.

Now, I really think this is not most men. I somehow doubt this particular dude even hates women, he probably just doesn’t like feminism.

But I can’t help but think, feminists overreact all the time to pretty innocuous stuff, but I guess it can go both ways.

It makes me think of a Girl Meets World episode Girl Meets STEM, which a guy who reviewed it said had a feminist message. He wasn’t against the message, but I had watched it and concluded the episode was actually warning girls not to swallow the man-hating pill.

As a woman, I really can’t call it anything else. If I talked about men the way many of these feminists and their shows do, I’d conclude I hated them.

And let’s talk about this.

A lot of women become feminists because they had poor father figures who did not respect them, some come out of abusive households.

It’s just as likely to produce weak women, but I’d also argue that not all feminists are particularly strong.

I have to think of what my Mom said of one woman (it wasn’t a feminist by the way, just some girl on a survival TV show talking about having a hard life) who said her experiences made her strong, but then after two days of the challenge was KO-ed.

My mom made the observation that just because you survived something it doesn’t make you strong.

I’ve talked about why I’m not a feminist before. I believe in equal rights, same as any smart person, I would hope. But its’ for the same reason I don’t like Black History month, I don’t see the point of flaunting it.

Black history should be taught along with other history, as it makes sense in the curriculum, not set aside for it’s own month. If we gave every ethnicity its own month, we’d have a hopelessly disjointed curriculum, and unless we do that, we’re still being biased. Better to dot hem all together as it chronologically makes sense, then we can give everyone attention.

And I don’t seem the point of flaunting womanhood either. It’s not like it’s something you could control being.

I think the real reason for many women who really hate men and demand special treatment is that their father did give them the kind of treatment they should have received. Girls want to be treasured (so do boys) and loved, when they aren’t, they can become depressed or angry, or both usually.

I remember, I was angry. At age 11 or so, I got called out on it. No one tried to find out why I was angry.

Looking back, my problem, among other things, was that my dad did not pour into my life… he was hardly in it at all personally, though he lived at my house and my parents have a decent relationship. But my dad, the older I got, paid less and less attention to me. Unless I was in trouble. I think you know the story.

And I never did the things teenage girls usually get in trouble for. You’d be surprised how little it took to get me sent on a guilt trip as a young teen.

Even to this day that has not changed. But I changed. I’m not living in anger anymore.

And in full honesty, I have had my times of being tempted to put men into a box. I also know men have the same temptation with women. A lot of them have had moms who didn’t do so well with them, girlfriends who didn’t, and so on.

I suspect that they are just quieter about it. Now that the culture is more in favor of women.

I really don’t think it make one gender worse or better that we’re both tempted to stereotype each other, it just make sense. Once bitten, twice shy. You have one bad experience with a man, it’s easier to make all men the face of your problem. And vice versa.

The best thing to do is not to play into it. Don’t be what they think you are. Nevermind if they interpret all your actions into their image of you, if you know you are doing it, then that’s what matters.

Justice, I’ve learned, can come slowly, but it comes.

As for the question of ladylikeness being weak, I really think it’s obviously not true. The examples are getting rarer now that girls are encourage to act like bros, a thing that suits some women, and puts others at a huge disadvantage.

From my experience, ladylikeness is power. I’m the type of girl who gets doors opened for her, has boys pick up things for her, and offer to carry things (that happens more as a general rule with the guy though.) I credit the guys for choosing to be chivalrous.

I am also the kind of girl who puts effort into her appearance to show I respect myself.

See, the beautifying thing women do, it’s not all about attracting men (though it has been minimized to that.) I think the movie I’ve seen do this best is Miss Congeniality, where Vic asks Grace if she respects herself when she doesn’t want to put any effort into her looks because the contest is rigged.

It’s not that much of a conundrum, really. Men will wear work clothes to work, dress clothes to the office, sports clothes to a sports event. They don’t even care as much as us usually, but it’s a simple matter of showing respect and support.

I think women dress up for the same reason. We embrace beauty as a way to show we appreciate it, and that we want to spread it around. We put care into our appearance to show we respect ourselves, and if we respect ourselves, we are likely to respect others.

There’s a reason decent men usually feel a healthy respect for a woman who dresses with care. It’s always worked for me. Though, I think they can also tell is you’re doing it because you’re insecure. I think anyone can usually tell that.

Ladylikeness is about respect, really. It’s about not opening yourself up to scorn by being unladylike, not because it’s okay to scorn a girl who acts more tomboyish, but because it is also okay to have style that is distinctly feminine.

One more thing: Ladies, for goodness sake, do not freak out if a guy says you look good! I know a lot of you don’t, but if you do, remember, even if he is being a jerk, you don’t have to let it get to you, and chances are he might just be complimenting you.

Personally, I don’t care. I know I look good, if you say it you’re just acknowledging the obvious. You don’t gain or lose  a lot of points either way. So long as it’s not said in a creepy tone.

Anyway, that’s my take on it for the time being, until next time–Natasha.