Nancy's Musings

If a woman speaks and nobody listens, does she have a voice? I am often concerned and frustrated by the (ill-conceived, in my opinion) strategies of feminist movements like Ordain Women who seem to wish to undermine faith, priesthood, and "established" (quotation marks brought to you by Becky) patterns of revelation. I react to that frustration by encouraging people to listen to what these women are trying to say, rather than trying to shout them down: I can't hear with all that shouting. They're saying a lot of things, some of them contradictory (as befits the feminist movements generally). But a common thread is that women are feeling that they are not being given a voice. Whether they are actually given a voice in church leadership is up for some debate, but it doesn't change the truth that women feel like they are being silenced. And we are, though not necessarily in this context. I realized something last night while praying to a male God. I realized that wh...

This world likes its dichotomies, its binaries, its uneven halves. We have decided to divide ourselves into introverts and extraverts, now. Do you get energy from crowds, or do you find them draining? Do you "recharge" with alone-time, or are you restless and empty without people? Here's a question: do you find that you label yourself in some attempt to find refuge in the naturalist fallacy ? What I mean is, do you use extraversion or introversion as an excuse to be less than your best self? Introverts have many important qualities, but they also have a reputation for being prickly when their energy is low, or when they are tired of company. They scrooge their time. Extraverts aren't spoken of in quite as great a detail (mostly because they don't think about themselves in quite the same detail, being, you know, extraverted), but such a brain will have its drawbacks. Extraverts probably don't keep secrets very well. They're probably difficult to pin down to...

About seven or eight years ago, one of my oldest and dearest friends tried to set me up on a blind date. The guy ditched me (called half an hour before the date to say he had a sore throat), and then blogged about his close call. The only differences between what he did to me back then and what I'm doing now are that I actually went on the dates and gave the guys a chance, and as far as I'm aware, the gentlemen are not among my readers. Yes, friends, without meeting me even once, he bragged about how horrible I was on a blog of which he knew I was a reader. A clear winner. Compared to him, these men are Galahad, Lancelot, Bedevere, and Percival. I don't date much. I recently had a flurry of dating activity (four different gentlemen asked me out within about three weeks. It was bizarre), so I got to know four different men, and compare their dating styles. It was delicious! The first flake (no insult intended) in the flurry was a kind, spiritual man. I loved hearing his life...

This post is humorously dedicated to the number three, and the philosopher Paul Ricoeur. My life is a fairytale. I acknowledge that privilege, and the many other privileges that have contributed to this particular philosophy. Fairytales aren't what you think, though. I'm not talking about the sanitized, Disnified versions where everything conforms to a wildly blind secular humanistic optimism. I'm talking about the H.C. Andersen versions where sometimes the fairytale is three beautiful wishes, and then she freezes to death. I'm trying to say that I've seen a kind of magic, miracles, and wonder. And I'm going to tell you how I wish.   1. A wish is something for which you would sacrifice all the other wants. It is the want who wins King of the Mountain.      In a fairytale, the character is often given a very limited number of wishes (three is traditional). That means that each time the character wishes, the reader winces, second-guessing the value of that particu...

Before the Fall, everything was soft and kind to Eve and Adam. Everything produced food, scent, utility, or beauty. I'm not sure how that's possible, but I suppose it's something I'll have to try to remember when I'm dead. (I'm not at all certain the effect of the veil of forgetfulness is intended to be reversed.) The Fall produced a lot of discomfort: animals became predatory; plants became reluctant, bitter, and sharp; people encountered disease, age, and injury. I have often wondered how many of these effects are intended to be reversed when Earth again becomes a paradise, either temporarily or permanently. And what about ugliness? If all of the senses (what are we up to: like twenty-eight ?) are at risk from some fallen sensation, why shouldn't ugliness be a consequence of the fall, and subsequently vanish during the millenium and afterlife, like other consequences? I mean both human ugliness and otherwise (if either exists). Another possibility is that...

I hear, on a fairly regular basis, the claim that suicide is selfish. Who says this? Those people who would rather see someone else in unbearable agony than have to deal with her/his temporary loss? What an obscene irony. The truth is that suicide can be a selfless act. I don't mean to glorify self-destruction, because there's no real glory in it, just a facade of triumph over the reality of defeat. There's not any redemption in making your final decision one of gross destruction. But if you convince a person that the world would be better without her/him, then you yourself have done the glorification. Then you have given that person the illusion of redemption. There are people in the world who will destroy themselves before harming others, and if you convince them that they do nothing but harm they will take the necessary steps to prevent more harm. Today, I am not so selfless. I am a horrible person . I undoubtedly do more harm than good. I serve no real purpose. I fail a...

I have always wanted to write a Magnificent Bastard . I find charisma and competence somewhere beyond appealing, in the range of intoxicating and breathtaking. I also love genius heroes - the Ender Wiggins, the Miles Vorkosigans, the Peter Wimseys, the Scarlet Pimpernels. . . Yes, I am aware that they are all male. This is the stuff I read. Note that three of them are written by women, and those three all find romance, so there's something about the trope that satisfies the female fantasy. Also note that the women in their lives are not quite as clever. . . That's partly out of necessity. If you OTP your genius heroine to a female who is smarter, she becomes. . . Elementary 's Moriarty. She must be the Magnificent Bastard. Because what happens if they stick? Does he become Batgirl? Or because what happens if you genderswap that dynamic? What if you make your genius hero female and her hetero-partner smarter than she is? That's just sexism, whether he's ultimately ev...