Mary Magdalene Is My Role Model

 

This morning Travalon put on his new Nepal shirt.

He thought it was a bit tight on him, so he let me wear it.

Not that many people are around at work right now, and yet two people said how much they liked this shirt. Which is especially noteworthy because people never comment on my outfits at work.

Here is a beautiful sunset Travalon took pictures of some nights ago.

I was going to try to post a video of the train yard in Nebraska, but I have messed up the audio somehow and am too tired to fix it. Instead, I will blog about something I have been pondering: Christianity is supposed to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable, but lately it seems to me that everything is set up to work out for the people who are already on top. For example, if you are a good-looking heterosexual person who can find a spouse, then you can have all the sex you want, but anyone else is out of luck. Yet good-looking heterosexual people are already at the top of the social heap. I have been feeling like for the last decade or so that my church, which used to be neither too feminine nor too masculine but just focused on God, has been creeping toward toxic masculinity. I am feeling less and less welcome all the time. It hasn't escaped my notice how many people have said, "Stop besmirching Mary Magdalene's name - she wasn't a reformed prostitute!" But how is it besmirching her name if she is REFORMED?? If a male saint was originally a sinner, then his conversion is seen as that much more glorious. Shouldn't it be the same for a female saint?? We women have very few examples to cite of women who have fallen and gotten back up - our model is supposed to be a woman who never sinned. What?? Can't relate!! And then in the midst of this growing sexism, someone posted a video about how the Church needs to welcome young men. I can support a ministry of reaching out to young men, but this video didn't seem to be suggesting that; it seemed to be implying that the Church isn't masculine enough, so we have to cater to the tastes of young men. The speaker actually said, "Bring in the young men, and the young women will follow." Not necessarily, and when you've lost the women, the religion dies because that's who teaches it to the next generation. Maybe Christianity does have a death wish, and looking around at the falling number of adherents, I'd say it does seem to be so. But how strange to look at the very thing that is driving away so many women and say, "Making things more masculine is scaring women away. What we need to do is make things EVEN MORE masculine!" Now I have seen overly feminine religion, and it doesn't appeal to me either, but really the focus should be on God, who transcends gender. Sometimes I feel that my connection to Christianity is very tenuous, and making things more about men is certainly not going to make me feel better about it. We're already presented with an all-male Trinity and an all-male priesthood. Making the Church appealing only to men just seems a bridge too far.

Famous Hat