When in doubt, ask! Ask the recipient, or ask the person who facilitates donations. The one thing poor people feel very keenly is that no one asks them. The only real mistake we can make is to decide it’s too complicated, and to do nothing.
More family games you can play sitting down
We finally got some snow on the East coast.We were hoping to get out the sleds for Christmas vacation, but what’s covering the ground is more of an icy, grainy, slush, not great for coasting. So I’m wracking my brains to recall more family games, besides the ones I suggested for Thanksgiving gatherings. Here’s what we’ve been doing:
Caption This
My sister Abby (who may have invented this game, I’m not sure) describes it like this:
“One person writes a sentence or phrase and hands the paper to the next person. He illustrates it, and then folds the paper so only his illustration is showing, and passes it to the next person. He writes a caption for the illustration, and then folds the paper so only his caption is showing, and passes it to the next person, who illustrates the caption, and so on. The round ends with a caption at the bottom of the page. Then you compare the original phrase with the final caption.”
It’s sort of like Telephone, but with words and pictures. This game works the best if you have lots of people playing, and it’s actually more fun if the people involved are not great artists. We also made it zippier by making a thirty-second limit before you have to pass the paper along.
I wish I had a sample to show you, but I may have been filling some time this week by shrieking, “We need to get this place cleaned up! I cannot live like this! Get up, get up, we need to throw all this stuff away!” So I think we threw them away.
One-Word Round Robin Stories
In a standard round robin story, each player contributes several sentences before passing the plot along to the next person. In this version, each person contributes only one word. So you might end up with an opening sentence like this:
“One day, four miserable Russians decided to excavate their uncle’s bedroom floor, and they found something TERRIFYING.”
This works best when you play with siblings or people who know each other’s thought patterns well, and some element of telepathy helps to keep the sentences afloat.
Werewolf
Werewolf is an actual store-bought game with cards that one kid got for Christmas (we have the deluxe edition), and it’s been a big hit. The play is simple, but it’s the psychological aspect that makes it entertaining.
I’m not great at explaining games, but here’s the general idea: The premise is that, when night falls in the village, a werewolf comes out and kills someone; and everyone else has to figure out who the werewolf is and what to do about it. Everyone closes his eyes, and the leader instructs one person at a time to wake up, take a look at the card that reveals his role (werewolf, bodyguard, witch, villager, etc.), and then go back to sleep. There are several rounds of play, in which the players anonymously decide to kill, save, protect, or silence each other.
[img attachment=”86257″ align=”alignnone” size=”medium” alt=”Sometimes the werewolf is the last person you’d suspect” caption=”Sometimes the werewolf is the last person you’d suspect” /]
Then everyone has to vote on whom to lynch. Players are eliminated one at a time, and it becomes more and more evident who is killing everyone, who is being framed, and who is lying through their teeth (and, in my case, who forgot the rules and accidentally blabbed too much information).
[img attachment=”86258″ align=”alignnone” size=”medium” alt=”Sometimes they are a little too eager to lynch each other.” caption=”Sometimes they are a little too eager to lynch each other.” /]
Depending on your family dynamics, you may not want to play more than a few rounds of this game! It tends to bring everyone’s core personality front and center.
And oh yes, I do have “Where, oh werewolf” stuck in my head 24/7 now.
***
So, what are you doing over Christmas break, if you’ve got one? Any games you can suggest for us? Because night cometh, and I may have given birth to more than one werewolf . . .
No, “Baby It’s Cold Outside” doesn’t need to be updated to emphasize consent
Unpopular opinion time! “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” isn’t a rape song. It’s not even a rapey song. It’s a seduction song, and we used to know the difference between seduction and rape, before we elevated consent to the highest good.
Apparently there is an arch parody that updates the song to emphasize consent. I despise arch parodies, so I refuse to watch it, and you can’t make me.
For the record, I don’t even especially like the original song. It’s okay, as far as cutesy duets go. It does an adequate job of capturing a familiar relationship between a man and a woman. As with any song, you can make it come across as creepy and criminal; but you can also make it come across as it was originally intended: as playful. The couple is literally playing a game, a very old one, where the man wants what he wants, and the woman wants it too, but it’s more fun for both of them when he has to work for it a little bit. It’s a song about persuasion. That’s what seduction is, and that’s what makes the song interesting: the tension. If there is no tension, there is no song.
Here are the full lyrics. The woman’s lines are in parenthesis. If you’re convinced this song is a rape song, please do read through the lyrics before you read the rest of this post!
You’ll note that the only protests the woman makes are that her reputation might be soiled. She doesn’t say that she wants to go, only that she should. This is because . . . I’m dying a little inside because I actually have to say it . . . she actually wants to stay. As women often do, when they are already in a relationship with a man they are attracted to and with whom they have been spending a romantic evening, and whom they have been telling repeatedly that they are actually interested in staying.
Most critics get hung up on the line, “Say, what’s in this drink?” The assumption is that he’s slipped a drug into her cocktail (or, occasionally, that he’s spiked her virgin drink with alcohol). Okay. Or maybe, at the end of an evening of dancing and drinking, he’s added a little more liquor than she’s expecting. Or maybe he hasn’t done anything, other than give her the “half a drink more” she just asked for, and she’s playfully making an excuse for what she’s about to do: Whoo, what’s in this drink? I’m acting all silly, but it can’t be my fault, mercy me! This was a standard trope of that era. Anytime something weird goes on, you blame the bottle.
Again: there is no indication, unless you take that one line out of context, that there is anything sinister going on. There is overwhelming evidence, if you listen to the whole song, that it’s a song about a pleasurable interplay between the sexes.
Heck, if we’re going to give this song the darkest possible reading, and single out one line while ignoring the context, why not call it the False Rape Accusation song? After all, the woman says, “At least I’m gonna say that I tried!” You see? She’s calculating a malicious plan to claim that she didn’t give consent, so that when her family and neighbors look askance at her for spending the night, she can make it seem like it was against her will!
Humbug. This is what happens when we’re all trained to see consent as the highest good. This is what happens when we’re trained to ignore context. People who can’t tell the difference between persuasion and force are people who have forgotten why consent is so important.
Consent isn’t valuable in itself. If it were, then it would be a holy and solemn moment when we check the “I agree” box when signing onto free WiFi at Dunkin’ Donuts. Consent is only a good thing because it’s in service to other things — higher things with intrinsic value, such as fidelity, free will, self sacrifice, respect, happiness, integrity, and . . . love. These are all things that you can’t have unless you have consent.
But when all you look for is consent, and you ignore the context, you get two human beings who see each other in rigid roles — business partners with black and white contractual obligations. In short, you have what modern people say they despise about the bad old days: love as a business arrangement.
My friends, I firmly believe there is such a thing as rape culture. When we wink and smirk and say, “Boys will be boys,” we degrade both women and men, and we teach women that they have a duty to give men whatever they want so they’re not a tease or a downer. We teach men that they can’t control themselves. We teach women that they can’t really say no, and that if they do, they’ll be scoffed at or blamed or disbelieved. When we tell the world that “no means maybe,” we’re setting the stage for rape.
But is this song doing that? Or is it just a little vignette of that deliciously warm in-between place, where reasonable people can have fun together? Because when we step outside, and make everything black and white, then, baby, it’s cold. So cold.
We degrade both men and women when we tell them that sex is just another contractual obligation — and that there’s no difference between a violent encounter between strangers, and a playful exchange between a romantic couple, and a violent exchange between a romantic couple, and a loving relationship in marriage, and a violent relationship in marriage. We’re told that the relationship doesn’t matter, and that the actual behavior has no intrinsic meaning. The only thing that matters is consent. We think that focusing on consent will ensure that no one will be degraded or taken advantage of; but instead, it has won us abominations like “empowering porn” and 50 Shades of Gray and even the suggestion that children can give consent. It wins us a generation of kids that asks things like, “How can I tell if she consents or not, if she’s not conscious?” (A real question I read from a high school kid; I’ll add the link if I can find it again!) These miseries are not a side effect; they are the direct result of a culture that elevates consent to the highest good.
It’s not only promiscuous, secular types whose lives are impoverished by the cold rule of consent. I’m a member of a group of Catholics where one young woman wrote for advice about her husband, who, she tearfully reported, kissed her without first asking consent. This made her feel violated.
It was her husband.
Who kissed her.
And she thought he needed to ask consent every time.
This is where the pendulum has swung. We’ve pathologized the normal, healthy, give-and-take of love. We’ve taught people that there is no such thing as context: that’s it’s fair game to ignore the entire relationship and to reduce each other to business partners.
Now, if you’ve been victimized or abused, then this is probably not going to be your favorite song. You’re free to find it creepy, and you’re free to change the station. But we don’t heal from abuse by turning the whole world into an isolation ward. Healthy relationships, where the context does allow for some interplay and ambiguity, should be the norm, and they should dare to speak their healthy name.
And one more thing (and I could write volumes about this): not everything is a lesson. Not every pop song is a primer for how to behave. I tell my kids that it’s our duty to be aware of what the world is teaching us, for good or ill; but just because we’re learning something doesn’t mean there was a life lesson intended. Sometimes art, including pop art (like pop songs) is just giving you a slice of human experience, and when it feels familiar, then it’s done well, period.
No wonder people have no idea how to stay married anymore. They expect everything to be a lesson, and they expect those lessons to be black and white. They think that life is going to give them crystal clear boundaries. They think that it’s always going to be obvious what they can expect from other people and from themselves.
I’m not talking about sex, here; I’m talking about love, and about life in general — life without context, life without tension, life without ambiguity, life without play. Baby, it doesn’t get any colder than that.
***
Image: Pedro Ignacio Guridi via Flickr (Creative Commons)
This essay ran in a slightly different form on Aleteia in 2015.
Stop by after work to visit the new baby!
Our Christmas art miniseries continues with the fresh and lovely work of Matthew Alderman, who graciously shared several of his drawings with us. Today’s piece is this remarkably lucid Madonna and Child, originally a Christmas card design.
When I saw his art, I immediately thought of the great Walter Crane, who illustrated so many children’s books around the turn of the century. This Madonna and Child recall that courtly, allegorical style, but in place of a characteristic smoldering, guarded expression, Mary and Jesus’ faces are open and enthusiastic, and the design looks nobly ancient rather than old-fashioned. Lovers of children’s books will also be reminded of Trina Schart Hyman, who drew heavily on heraldry and illuminated manuscripts, nodded at the pre-raphaelites, and then opened the window to let some air in.
Ohh, I have questions for Mr. Alderman! More about his extensive work later.
I chose this work of art for today because I can imagine Mary and Jesus having had a few days to rest and freshen up after the birth. They are clearly feeling fine and are ready to receive visitors. Mary wears rings and a circlet of pearls, as an honored queen, but just like any new mother, she is proud of her beautiful new baby boy, and wants to show him off.
[img attachment=”85785″ align=”alignnone” size=”full” alt=”christmas art Matthew Alderman madonna and child” /]
A nice reminder, on a day when many of us are heading back to work and taking up our daily chores and routine again. Take a moment, at some point during the day, to visit with this happy young mother and her wonderful Child. Praise him, and pass along this openness and joy to the next person you meet!
***
You can see the rest of this year’s Christmas art here: John the Baptist by Matt Clark, some pregnant madonnas by Teresa von Teichman, and Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming by the extraordinary James Janknegt.
Roses
See how the small king opens His arms to you with all His strength. See the roses blooming in the dead of winter.
It was hard to choose just one painting by Texas artist James B. Janknegt, who generously gave his permission to share his work. This one seemed to reach out especially to so many of my friends who are suffering today, separated from their children, spending Christmas day in the hospital, or waiting for the doctor to come, or looking forward to the new year with fear or dread, or facing the day alone.
See the roses in His palms, red as blood. They began to bloom on Christmas morning, and they are the flowers of love. His arms are outstretched for you.
Music for Christmas Steve
This is Christmas Steve. He appeared on the bottom of my son’s foot on December 24th, as a way of reminding me that some people haven’t had a shower in a while.
As you can see, Christmas Steve is running a little bit behind. Christmas Steve’s house is not clean. Christmas Steve may have made more promises than can reasonably be kept, and Christmas Steve is feeling neither calm nor bright.
However, Christmas Steve is going to make one last stab at getting it together. Christmas Steve is going to breathe slowly, drink plenty of fluids, and pause before speaking. Christmas Steve is going to set a good example for the next person Christmas Steve meets today. And it is going to be a good day.
Here is what Christmas Steve is listening to today (and yes, Christmas Steve is recycling this post from the Register last year):
1. Of the Father’s Love Begotten
Tell me again how there’s this wide, unbridgeable gulf between people who love theology and people who just love God. This is a pure love song, stuffed to the gills with doctrine. Read all the verses here.
2. Creator of the Stars of Night
I don’t know the musical term for this, but notice how each verse ends on a note that goes up, instead of down? But it doesn’t feel unsatisfying. Instead, it creates the impression that here is a song we could continue singing forever. Here we see the difference between a question that can’t be answered, and a question that we can delight in hearing answered forever.
3. The Friendly Beasts
It was strangely difficult to find a plain, pleasant version of this song that wasn’t gooey or groany. Some cowboys do a decent job with this good little Christmas tune.
4. How Bright Appears the Morning Star
I’m torn. The full-on Bach experience makes me feel like I’ve wasted my life, since I’ve never been one of the altos involved in this:
But on the other hand, this Texas Boys Choir does a neat, sweet job of it:
5. In the Bleak Midwinter
Now, give these young folks a chance! This is the Bombay Bicyle Club:
Or, if it’s not to your liking, here is enough Holst to hold you over:
6. Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming
At first I was skeptical at the slow tempo, but now I see how this rendition gives the music all the room it needs to expand, or, well, to bloom. Perfect.
7. Huron Carol
Adapted from a 16th-century French folk song by the missionary martyr John de Brébeuf. This version is in the Huron language and uses instruments like the ones that would have been played at the time.
8. Angels from the Realms of Glory
I couldn’t find the tune I’m more familiar with; so as long as I’m not getting quite what I want, here’s an Annie Lennox version.
Beause it’s Annie Lennox, she sounds earthy and androgynously powerful, but so fragile at the same time — and then it just sort of veers off into that trademark mechanized Annie Lennox boogie hamster wheel. Oh, well. Try it, you might like it!
9. Josef Lieber, Josef Mein
Whenever someone says they love some cheesy Christmas song because it makes Mary seem so familiar and so human, I want to say, “But wait, listen to this!” It doesn’t get more familiar than a young mother turning to her husband and asking for a hand — and he obliges so tenderly. This is a lullaby originally sang during Medieval mystery plays. Here are a few of the verses:
1. “Joseph dearest, Joseph mine,
Help me cradle the child divine;
God reward thee and All that’s thine
In paradise,”
So prays the mother Mary.
2. “Gladly, dear one, lady mine,
Help I cradle this child of thine;
God’s own light on us both shall shine
In paradise,
As prays the mother Mary.”
8. Little man, and God indeed,
Little and poor, thou art all we need;
We will follow where thou dost lead,
And we will heed
Our brother, born of Mary.
10. And of course we must end with In Dulci Jubilo.
Big sound from four singers here!
Today I learned the word “macaronic,” which refers to a style of work where all kinds of languages are thrown together, not necessarily in the most elegant or scholarly way. Like, apparently, a peasant dumpling.
Everyone should try singing this song at one point, if only for the sheer pleasure of saying, “Nun singet und seid froh!” (Pronounced “Noon zinget oond zide fro.”) A tasty, raucous dumpling perfect for the most international feast of all, where the whole world is thrown together to celebrate the birth of our king on Christmas morning.
Pregnant with the light of the world
Today, I’m sharing a few pieces by a talented amateur artist, Teresa von Teichman.
Above, we see our dear mother in a stance that every pregnant woman will recognize! Scholars can argue whether or not she suffered pain in childbirth, but I think it’s a sure thing that her back hurt at some point. She also looks very young, as she must have been in real life; and I love how the stars that form a crown around her bow down with her tired head, and she contemplates the hidden light that waits inside her.
Teresa says:
I just became captivated by the thought of Our Lady being pregnant with Our Lord, the Light of the world. After visiting Medjugorje, Bosnia last year, I have grown more in love with Mary and Jesus than ever before! I am a 22 year old university student who strives to live every moment for greatness, I love a good book, and I work as a part time bartender. I love learning about Mary and am especially fascinated by her many varying images and interpretations. Drawing is just a hobby of mine, all for the glory of God!
Here’s another of Teresa von Teichman’s renditions of the pregnant Mary:
[img attachment=”85200″ align=”alignnone” size=”full” alt=”teichman mary 2″ /]
In this colored drawing, Mary’s Semitic features are more pronounced, and she is surrounded by roses — complete with thorns, as a foretaste of her sorrows to come.
Finally, here is Mary nestled within a bower of roses and thorns:
[img attachment=”85202″ align=”alignnone” size=”full” alt=”teichman mary 3″ /]
Here she is — if I remember right — at the stage of pregnancy where she feels like there is no end of her. The colors in this piece illustrate the intensity of the final days of pregnancy, when the outside world fades to a haze and it is almost impossible to think of anything else besides the child.
Thank you, dear mother, for saying “Yes” to the angel. Thank you for carrying that Baby, for bringing His light into the world, for suffering his passion and death, and thank you for being our mother.
Oh, that final verse!
If you’ve driven down the road on December 26, you’ll see a bunch of denuded Christmas trees, tossed out on their ears by the garbage bins, because their owners think Christmas is over. This is because they haven’t heard the “final verse,” as it were – they haven’t listened to the song all the way through. They don’t realize that Christmas is a beginning, not an end.
We make the same mistake if we pin all our hopes for peace and joy and love on Christmas day, or really on any single day: We haven’t listened to the song all the way through. We’re leaving off the final verse, and that one is vital.
What went ye out to see?
“What went ye out to see?” asks Jesus of the crowds who came to see John the Baptist. Here’s a painting of John by Matt Clark, one of my favorite living Christian artists. (You can find my short interview with Clark here, and here is his blog, his Instagram page, his Pinterest page)
I hadn’t been planning to start running Christmas art until Thursday, but I got this one this morning, and I had to show you. It’s so simple, so lucid, so urgent and direct. (And I have never seen a scroll wrapped around a prophet’s beard before, but now that I’ve seen it, I don’t know why I haven’t seen it before.)
Jesus asks a good question — really the only good question — as we hurry through the final days before Christmas. Why are we doing this? What are we hoping for? And what have we done to prepare?
What did you hope to find on Christmas morning? A God who is impressed by cinnamon buns and glazed ham? A Savior who is satisfied with something you found on Pinterest? Friends, the one thing and only thing that the Christ Child wants for His birthday is the gift of your heart, which you turn over to Him in that dark little box of the confessional.
Figure it out. Find a place. Make a phone call. Get to confession!
The doors are open to refugees and reverts. Cue the serpents and doves.
Here’s a fascinating story from the NYT: Norway offers migrants a lesson in how to treat women. It’s not about filtering out terrorists or screening for infiltrators; this is an article about modifying the behavior of people who are who they say they are, and who, because of the accident of birth, behave like aliens because they are aliens. These men have to be taught, very explicitly, that they’re expected to treat women well, and not like objects.
The article says,
Fearful of stigmatizing migrants as potential rapists and playing into the hands of anti-immigrant politicians, most European countries have avoided addressing the question of whether men arriving from more conservative societies might get the wrong idea once they move to places where it can seem as if anything goes.
Uncomfortable implications be damned: you can’t just plunk a bunch of strict Muslim men into a western European city and expect them to be chill about all those women walking around wearing tank tops and drinking beer. “Back home,” says one immigrant, “only prostitutes do that, and in locally made movies couples ‘only hug but never kiss.’” Where they come from, married women can’t say no to sex, and the rape of a stranger may very well go unpunished. This is just a fact. It doesn’t mean that Muslim men are animals. It means they’ve been raised in a certain way, and have to be reeducated.
So they’re trying to figure out how to let these guys in, but get them to change their behavior:
[W]ith more than a million asylum seekers arriving in Europe this year, an increasing number of politicians and also some migrant activists now favor offering coaching in European sexual norms and social codes
[…]
In Denmark, lawmakers are pushing to have such sex education included in mandatory language classes for refugees. The German region of Bavaria, the main entry point to Germany for asylum seekers, is already experimenting with such classes at a shelter for teenage migrants in the town of Passau.
Norway, however, has been leading the way. Its immigration department mandated that such programs be offered nationwide in 2013, and hired a nonprofit foundation, Alternative to Violence, to train refugee center workers in how to organize and conduct classes on sexual and other forms of violence.
What I like about this approach is that it manages to be compassionate and practical at the same time. It doesn’t scream, “Muslim men are all violent animals, so let’s seal them out of our borders”; but it also doesn’t purr, “Muslims are our brothers, and it’s racist and intolerant to imply that there’s a problem.”
It says, “There is a problem here. Let’s figure out how to work with our Muslim brothers so they figure out what’s expected of them.” They’re being gentle as doves, recognizing that migrants and refugees are fleeing horror and tragedy back home, and are entitled to asylum as human beings — but they’re also being wise as serpents, recognizing that there the huge and disastrous culture shock isn’t going to resolve itself, and someone needs to make it very clear to these guys that Denmark isn’t Eritrea.
I bring this up because it’s a balance we could use in the American Church, as we Catholic “natives” deal with an influx of uncatechised “refugees” from the secular world. Pope Francis really is throwing the doors open, loosening up the borders and reminding us all that the Church is intended to be a place, the place, that welcomes spiritual refugees.
But then what happens? A culture clash. Catholics who were born wearing a scapular and a chapel veil are suddenly rubbing shoulders with folks who wouldn’t recognize an encyclical if it hit them over the head with a crozier.
It’s all too easy to fall back on extremes. Those of us who were lucky enough to be raised Catholic may be tempted to say, “These people are animals! Look at them — they’re irreverent, they don’t know how to dress at Mass, they have all kinds of repulsive heterodox ideas . . . and we’re just going to let them into our Church? Hell, no.” In these quarters, the word “mercy” is a punchline.
The other extreme, which is just as foolish, is to bleat, “God is love, and love means never having to say you’re sorry.” In these quarters, beating one’s breast during the Confiteor is considered offensive (or even, for reasons I can’t quite grasp, sexist). We already know how well that approach works out.
So? Cue the serpent doves. Catholicism is all about two things: mercy and repentance. Invitation and response. It has always been about these two things. You have to have both. Catholicism must be inviting; and once we’re in, we have to learn how to behave. We have to have both. Like it or not, believe it or not, we’re getting both.
By all accounts, the final report from the Synod on the Family is a “dove and serpent” statement, reiterating God’s boundless, inconceivably generous welcome, and then following up that welcome with a mandatory instruction on how to become acculturated. I’ve written about this before. The Church invites us to a feast, and then instructs us on how to “dress” as honored guests, so that we will not be cast out into the darkness.
I’m tired, so I’m just going to quote myself now, because when I wrote it, I was quoting Holy Scripture: the part where the King invites his friends, and they don’t turn up — so he throws the doors open and invites everybody, and helps them figure out how to dress for the party.
This is what the Church is doing: it is inviting people to the feast, and it is instructing them in how to “dress” the soul, how to behave as an honored guest so they can participate in the feast — so they can follow up on the invitation. In short, it is teaching us how to be a Catholic.
…
If a cohabitating couple shows up for a baptism, what do we do? Or if a couple with an un-annulled second marriage, or if a gay couple turns up wanting to lead some ministry, what do we do? Do you slam the door? No, we say, “Come in, and let’s talk about what you have right so far. Then we can figure out what’s next.”
…
[A]ll the Synod is saying is what the Church has always said: invite whomever you find, so you can teach them how to be good guests, so we can all enjoy the feast together.
This dove-and-serpent stuff isn’t new. In fact, it couldn’t be older. The question is, will be we be wise enough and innocent enough to understand what the Church is doing? Like it or not, the doors are open.