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Peg

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The “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” concept only works so far.  How do you deal with the situation when they don’t return the favor?  I feel like I’m constantly giving out 20 dollar bills, and not getting anything back – not even a thank you.

I have often felt like a square peg in a round hole. How people treat me is often at odds with how I feel they should treat me. I asked God about this and God said that perhaps it’s me. Perhaps I need to change my expectations of the world.

God says “My ways are not your ways.”

Jesus asked his disciples to stay in the world but not to be of the world.

Jesus said to forgive people without count.

Jesus said that we should treat our enemies with kindness, and in so doing we will prove that we are children of God.

God says to me that I am supposed to stay the way I am and stay in the world as it is,

and feel that hurt

feel that pain

feel that dissonance.

…in part, so that I understand and can empathize with people who are excluded and left out. But also so that in holding my ground I can teach others how to act in a Godly way.  Sometimes we are to be teachers through our actions.

Many years ago,

I had asked God to be able to spread the messages he gave without attention to me. I want to be anonymous, and live my life without fame. This way I can go to the gym or the grocery store and live like a normal person. In the meantime God uses me as a conduit. I want to be a good steward of the gifts that he gives me.

 

So why am I upset when a message I share is taken up and adopted (stolen, in my mind) by someone who acts as if it is theirs? I don’t want fame or money, so it doesn’t make sense for me to be upset.

I brought this to God this week and got a lot of peace.  That feeling I had is the human part of me, rearing its ugly head.  It is important that I felt it, and brought it to God.  That is what God wants – to heal all of our brokenness.  But we have to take it to the Healer to be healed.

Here is what it means to be a child of God: It isn’t natural, but spiritual.  We are all created by God at birth but the true children of God, once they are spiritually awake, then choose to be further formed and shaped by God. They choose to align themselves with God and then let God work through them.  It is a two-way adoption.  God wants all of us to choose to follow God’s ways, but not all of us do.  It is our choice.

I need to give my immature feelings of jealousy (because these messages are not mine, but God’s) to God, so God can transform them into selflessness.   I need to do this in order to become a pure vessel for God’s Spirit in this world.

Sometimes for healing to take place, there has to be a reconciliation – a balancing of the accounts.

It is important to let other people know how you feel.  They can’t read your mind. It is like being a bill collector who issues the bill (with interest) ten years after it is due.  It is better to issue the bill early, to get it over with and have the accounts settled as soon as possible.

Jesus says that if we have an issue against someone, to not take our offering to the Temple, but to leave it and go make peace with that person first.

So today I wrote sent this message to a lady in a head covering group I belong to:

“Hello!  I thought it would be important to write you.  At least a year ago I mentioned something on the “Cover me happy” Facebook page about how it would be a good idea to focus on the idea of covering, instead of covering with a lot of fancy wraps.  I said that too many fancy wraps would make it difficult for the beginner, or someone who is poor and can’t afford a lot of scarves.  I also pointed out that modesty is an important part of covering, so calling attention to it with fancy wraps didn’t make sense.  Not long after I said that, you posted on the Wrapunzel page this very idea, saying that you’d read it in another group but wasn’t sure who said it.  Then it became a thing, where people were posting their single scarf wraps and tagging you.  I felt very hurt by this, since I am the one who suggested it.  I said nothing at the time, but now that something like this has happened to me in a different context, I think it is important to speak up and set things right.  I don’t want fame for the idea – it was just an idea.  I don’t want to be tagged when people post when they wear one scarf.  But I also don’t want my ideas claimed by someone else.  I think it is important to make things right, so that is why I am writing, to let you know how I feel.”

I have no idea how she will respond to it.  She probably doesn’t even remember.  Because of the message system on Facebook, she might never see it.  But I needed to write it.  It is important to balance the accounts.

Yesterday I wrote to the administrator of a group I’d been submitting newsletter offerings to, saying that she could not claim that she was writing the posts.  My first several posts were given the anonymous “from a member” credit.  I wasn’t sure about this – there was nothing saying that what we submitted would be anonymous.  But now it didn’t even say that, and at the bottom I noted that she’d said the contents were copyright (to her group – not to me).

Perhaps it was good for it to be anonymous – that way one member wouldn’t stick out.  I was also still wrestling with the idea that at least my messages were getting out.  I still don’t want fame or attention.  But I also don’t want my work to be claimed by another.

It is why I say that anyone can use anything I wrote for “The Condensed Gospel” for free, but they cannot claim that they wrote it, or charge money for it.  I don’t want money for it – but I also don’t want someone else to make money on it.  I now feel that credit is a sort of money in a way.

So now I’m holding my ground and speaking up. I’m telling people that they have hurt me as soon as I realize that they have, without “charging interest”.

 

Why do women have to cover?

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Why don’t Muslims cover up men’s eyes rather than cover up women’s bodies? Why don’t they make some sort of headband/facemask combination that forces their eyes downward and makes it possible for them to only see a few feet in front of them while they walk? It would make life difficult for them but it would certainly stop them from accidentally becoming aroused by women and being unable to control themselves and feeling like they have to attack them.

They must think that women are very powerful and that men have no power at all. Merely by existing, merely by showing an elbow or a calf, a woman can cause a man to lose his self-control. If he has so little self-control then doesn’t this mean he has no self-control? Why do women have to cover themselves up for modesty when it is the fault of someone else if they cross a line?

If I am an omnivore, should I stop eating meat in front of vegetarians for fear that it will make them start eating animals? This is the same issue. It is saying that my actions control another person’s actions.

The Muslim faith is not alone in this. There are sections of the Orthodox Jewish faith that have women not only cover their heads because their hair is seen as sensuous, but the women have to shave their heads as well. The idea is that by shaving their heads (at least monthly) there is no chance that a hair will accidentally show – and thus accidentally weaken a man’s resolve.

I have a strong belief that the original intent of Islam and of Orthodoxy was not to control women, and to reduce men into knee-jerk autopilot sex machines. I believe that both faiths originally respected both genders. I have a suspicion that over the many years since the faiths’ inceptions some radical detours have been made by well-meaning, but control-happy people (namely, men).

How about we stop coddling men by making policies that say that women are responsible for men’s behaviors? How about we stop saying “boys will be boys”? How about we expect men to have self-control, and not feel the need to disturb (and I’m putting it lightly) women?

Hair covering butterfly

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In thinking about my new (sometimes) practice of covering my hair:

I’m comparing it to a caterpillar becoming a butterfly. It has to cover itself up in order to transform.

The funniest thing is that it is the easiest way to color my hair. I can have blue or purple hair quite easily and change it very simply. No chemicals, no risk.

I’m of mixed opinions as to people commenting on it. Most people say that they like it and I like to think that what they see is not the covering or the color but they like the fact that I am transforming myself and trying to make myself better than I am. I like to think that what they’re noticing is my practice of self-improvement rather than my fashion sense.

I’m being transferred to a small library in a very close community. I feel that it is very conservative. I’ll be under the microscope for a bit, from the staff as well as the patrons. They are very protective and proud of their library, and they don’t want some stranger in there. I’ll have to let them know early on that I’m OK. Sticking out isn’t going to work.

Nothing sticks out more than covering your head, but it is for religious and modesty reasons. Thus, even though it is unusual, it is unusual in a very conservative way.

I have to work every Saturday now, unless I ask off. That will be tricky, because there are only three people in the branch. There isn’t any wiggle room. Sure, they can borrow from another library in the cluster if needed. I hear it is slow enough that two people can run the library with no problems. This is amazing to me since having just two people in my department was an emergency in my previous library. My department was one of three in that branch.

I’d started covering my head at the library on the Saturdays I work about four months ago. It was my way of remembering that Saturday was the Sabbath, and keeping it different and special. I’d cover at home on my weekends off. I worked every other Saturday on average. It was awkward when I was at work. I got asked questions, people would comment. Generally they liked it. They didn’t really understand, but they were kind. Explaining something as personal as a religious conviction is hard. I had to explain it and get it approved by the branch manager because there is a library policy against head covering (except for religious reasons). I only stuck out at work 26 days a year because I only covered at work every other week on Saturday. Working every Saturday at the new place, I’m going to stick out more.

I remember Jesus says that we should not make our piety obvious. We should pray in private, and not show others our religious acts. They are to be seen by God, not others. Jesus also worked on the Sabbath, and said that the Sabbath was made for us, not the other way around. Jesus also reminds us of the words from the prophet Hosea – “I desire mercy and not sacrifice.”

So should I worry about working every Saturday? Is Saturday the Sabbath, or is Sunday? Do I have to take a full day off from work to rest, or am I covered if I’m doing God’s work? Should I cover my head or not?

This is all a work in progress.

I think like Jacob, we are praised for wrestling with God. God wants us to actively engage with our faith and our practices. God wants us to be mindful and fully alive. Our practices should draw us closer to God and to other humans. If they put up walls, then we have to stop.

For now, I’m going to modify how I do it. I have seen that opinions vary as to if women are to cover all their hair, or just their head. It is not a commandment to cover – just a tradition, inferred from a story in the Hebrew Bible. In the Christian texts, Paul has his own things to say about it, but Jesus is silent on the matter. So I see it as optional – if it draws me closer to God and reminds me to be kinder to others, then it is good. Since I can’t see my headcovering, it is the pressure of it that reminds me to modify my actions. I can achieve that pressure by tying the tichel like a headband. I’ll be covering my head, getting the pressure as a reminder, but my hair will be exposed as it falls from the back.

I’ll see how this works out. Hopefully it will be seen as a fashion statement and not a religious one. I’m not doing this to make other people change their ways. I’m doing it to change my own.

Hair covering?

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I’m feeling a strong desire to cover my head. The traditions of my religious upbringing don’t tell me I must, but they don’t tell me I shouldn’t, either. I’ve been studying Judaism more and more in the past few years, and I know if I was an Orthodox Jewish married woman I would be expected to cover my hair with a tichel (hair covering) if I was out in public. At a minimum, I should be covering my hair when I light the Sabbath (Shabbat) candles.

I’ve been lighting the candles for Shabbat for a year now. At the beginning I was only lighting them when it was time for supper, which was always long after sunset. In the past few months I’ve been making sure to be home to light them before sunset (yes, there is indeed an app for that). The more I learn and practice Jewish prayers and customs, the more of them I want to do. So should I cover my hair or not, in light of the fact that I am not only not an Orthodox Jewish woman, but not even officially a Jew at all?

When I was in college I covered my hair all the time. I wore a bandanna or a snood every day. This lasted for a few years afterwards as well. It wasn’t for religious or modesty reasons. In part it was because I liked it, but in part it was to hide the fact that I had a Mohawk. I was happy with my hair that way, but teachers and managers weren’t. So in a way it was for modesty. My real self was hidden, and I covered my hair (or lack thereof) in deference to others. Even now I cover my head when I am outside, unless I am on a walk and trying to soak up a little vitamin D. I wear a fedora daily unless it is windy, and then I wear a hat that I can cinch up. So covering my hair isn’t a new thing for me. It is just the motivation that is different.

There are New Testament verses telling women to cover their hair, but all of them are from Paul. The verses are a little confusing. Some of them seem to indicate that a woman’s “covering” is her husband. Some of them say that a woman should cover her hair if she is praying or prophesying – but the same writer says in other books that women shouldn’t talk in church at all.

Jesus, however, said nothing about woman covering their hair, and I feel that he wouldn’t care one way or another as long as it was done out of a sense of mindfulness and respect for God and others. Jesus did say that we are to make sure we don’t advertise our piety, however, and that is the biggest reason I’ve not gone ahead with this.

If I were to start wearing a tichel at work, I’d be questioned. Co-workers, managers, and patrons would ask about it. There is actually a policy at work saying that employees cannot wear head coverings except for religious reasons. They know that I’ve been studying Judaism for a while now, so it wouldn’t be a huge surprise. But I feel that this would call a lot of attention to me, and I would stick out. I’d have to explain it. It wouldn’t be for modesty at that point – it would be the opposite. I’d be cancelling out the whole idea of modesty and piety by calling attention to my modesty and piety.

So at what point should I follow my convictions or follow the world?

Dress (modesty as a safety issue)

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I dress modestly. I don’t think people need to see the shape of my body. And while doing think it is fair for people to say that “she was asking for it” when a woman gets raped and was showing a lot of skin and curves, I think a little discretion is wise.

You can’t wave raw meat in front of a dog and not expect it to react.

I have no desire to have women cover themselves up from head to toe. But I also am grateful that the fashion trend of wearing short shirts and showing off your belly button piercing is over. There has to be a middle ground.

I’ve seen girls wear shorts that barely covered their butts. I’ve seen more cleavage than I ever need to see.

Take whatever fashion it is and think – would this amount of visible skin be OK on a guy?

If we want women to not been seen as sex objects, we need to stop presenting them as sex objects.

In the summer I wear loose skirts, and if they are not floor-length, they stop at least an inch below my knee. In the winter I wear loose jeans. They aren’t really baggy, just loose. They don’t hug my curves.

I think it is about respecting myself, others around me, and my husband.

I don’t think it is kind to others to strut your stuff like you are at a strip club.

I think it is insane for a woman who dresses with revealing clothing to be surprised that she gets hit on. Guys are like that. They can’t help it. They should have better control of themselves, but they don’t. Until they collectively do act in a civil manner, it is safer to dress modestly.

I read a story about a TSA guard who commented to a 15 year old girl that she needed to cover herself up. She was travelling on a school trip without her parents. She was wearing tight jeans and a top that was low cut. She was shocked that he said this to her. Her father was livid when he found out. In my opinion, the way she was dressed would be more appropriate for a lady in her 20s. In my opinion, I’m surprised that her parents let her own such clothes.

I agree with the TSA officer’s assessment. He was trying to protect her. Yes, it wasn’t part of his job. But if we are all part of a village together, responsible for the raising of our collective children, then he was doing her a favor, indignant though she was. It is a safety issue, simply said.

There are parents who dress their little girls in dresses that are really short. Again, how would it look if a boy were to wear clothes that short? There is no reason for anybody to wear a dress that is above their knees. You can’t sit down without showing everybody your business. And if your business isn’t being a hooker, nobody needs to see it.

Until guys and men can control their animal nature, girls and women would be safer if they dressed in less revealing ways.