Simple Minds
Maybe it’s because I haven’t been in a philosophy class in five years, but I find myself lately being struck by really simple, somewhat cliché kinds of things. Tonight at yoga the instructor was talking about being strong while being flexible . . . like bamboo. Like the lyric from that Carpenters’ song: “like the tall trees in the wintertime/I’ll learn how to bend.” Later, she was talking about something else, equally simple, and yet seemingly (to me) profound. "Yes, we need to be strong AND flexible. Yes, attitude IS everything." I find myself nodding along.
In college, I would’ve written off most of this stuff as irrelevant, boring, and cliché. I would have been much more interested in discussing something deeper, something I’d never heard before, something that would twist my brain into knots. And I still love that stuff. But maybe, for where I am now, this simple stuff is actually relevant. Or maybe I studied the complicated stuff already, and now I’m going back to the basics. Or maybe I’m still just hormonal. Sometimes that just makes everything MORE.
But despite finding profundity in simple things, I still haven’t been able to get much out of the series of books that I’m currently reading. Sometimes, when I want a break, or want to read mindless stuff, I go back to the Christian fiction that I adored in middle and high school. I have a couple of books that I’ve probably read twenty or thirty times. When I open them up, it’s like my mind slips into a familiar, well-worn groove and I just let myself be taken along for the happily-ending, non-disturbing ride.
So, I decided I was ready to try something new on the Christian fiction front, and I’m reading a series called Redemption. There are five books, I started the first on Sunday night and tonight I’ll probably finish number five. Light reading. But the simple, and quite irritating thing about these books is how absolutely black-and-white (and how ridiculous) they are. They are entertaining, because they’re basically a long series of soap opera drama, but they annoy me at the same time.
Every instance of sex outside of marriage in these books results in death or pregnancy. Or both. One girl got pregnant by a bisexual Frenchman and for a whole book thought she was HIV-positive. Apparently no one in early 21st century Indiana has ever heard of condoms. Another young couple was in the process of getting carried away when her father called to say hi. She didn’t pick up the phone, being caught up in illicit passion, and the next day her father was killed in the World Trade Center attacks. And she got pregnant, too.
The father of her baby was so shaken by September 11 that he completely lost his faith, grew his hair and a goatee, became a humanist (the horror), moved into an open relationship with his hippy girlfriend (who got pregnant by another man, had an abortion, and developed a raging infection that nearly killed her), and started hanging out with members of the ACLU. He was cut off from his friends and social life because apparently freethinkers refuse to play basketball and pool because sports are just preparation for war, and only male chauvinists play pool. He refused to attend his sister’s wedding because he “didn’t believe in marriage.” He did eventually see the light and cut his hair and shave his raggedy goatee when he came back to the faith of his family.
That’s just the beginning. Within the horror that is the Baxter family there’s also pain killer addiction reminiscent of Jessie Spano’s addiction to caffeine pills, alcoholism, murder, near-drowning of a four-year-old child that results in her mental retardation, a movie star son given up for adoption long ago (because even the godly parents of this family had sex before they were married and ended up pregnant), end-stage breast cancer, and infertility (this couple just should’ve had sex before they were married, and no doubt would’ve ended up with child).
I know that the author of these books is coming from a different place than I am, but it’s just SO unrealistic and ridiculous. And very melodramatic. Short haired male=good Christian. Long haired, goateed male=hippy lunatic who’s not allowed to play basketball. Liberal=bad. Conservative=good. And any time you cross any kind of line, you’ll end up pregnant or dead or both. Still, I have to keep reading. Because Dayne the super-famous movie star is about to find out that he’s the long-lost son of Elizabeth and John, brother of Luke and all the girls, and I just know that he’s going to leave Hollywood for the simple life and end up with that 27-year-old girl who just moved to Indiana to start a Christian theater program.
I hope they wait until they’re married to have sex, though, because the Baxter family can’t handle another tragedy when Elizabeth is dying of breast cancer and Hayley’s still in the wheelchair.
In college, I would’ve written off most of this stuff as irrelevant, boring, and cliché. I would have been much more interested in discussing something deeper, something I’d never heard before, something that would twist my brain into knots. And I still love that stuff. But maybe, for where I am now, this simple stuff is actually relevant. Or maybe I studied the complicated stuff already, and now I’m going back to the basics. Or maybe I’m still just hormonal. Sometimes that just makes everything MORE.
But despite finding profundity in simple things, I still haven’t been able to get much out of the series of books that I’m currently reading. Sometimes, when I want a break, or want to read mindless stuff, I go back to the Christian fiction that I adored in middle and high school. I have a couple of books that I’ve probably read twenty or thirty times. When I open them up, it’s like my mind slips into a familiar, well-worn groove and I just let myself be taken along for the happily-ending, non-disturbing ride.
So, I decided I was ready to try something new on the Christian fiction front, and I’m reading a series called Redemption. There are five books, I started the first on Sunday night and tonight I’ll probably finish number five. Light reading. But the simple, and quite irritating thing about these books is how absolutely black-and-white (and how ridiculous) they are. They are entertaining, because they’re basically a long series of soap opera drama, but they annoy me at the same time.
Every instance of sex outside of marriage in these books results in death or pregnancy. Or both. One girl got pregnant by a bisexual Frenchman and for a whole book thought she was HIV-positive. Apparently no one in early 21st century Indiana has ever heard of condoms. Another young couple was in the process of getting carried away when her father called to say hi. She didn’t pick up the phone, being caught up in illicit passion, and the next day her father was killed in the World Trade Center attacks. And she got pregnant, too.
The father of her baby was so shaken by September 11 that he completely lost his faith, grew his hair and a goatee, became a humanist (the horror), moved into an open relationship with his hippy girlfriend (who got pregnant by another man, had an abortion, and developed a raging infection that nearly killed her), and started hanging out with members of the ACLU. He was cut off from his friends and social life because apparently freethinkers refuse to play basketball and pool because sports are just preparation for war, and only male chauvinists play pool. He refused to attend his sister’s wedding because he “didn’t believe in marriage.” He did eventually see the light and cut his hair and shave his raggedy goatee when he came back to the faith of his family.
That’s just the beginning. Within the horror that is the Baxter family there’s also pain killer addiction reminiscent of Jessie Spano’s addiction to caffeine pills, alcoholism, murder, near-drowning of a four-year-old child that results in her mental retardation, a movie star son given up for adoption long ago (because even the godly parents of this family had sex before they were married and ended up pregnant), end-stage breast cancer, and infertility (this couple just should’ve had sex before they were married, and no doubt would’ve ended up with child).
I know that the author of these books is coming from a different place than I am, but it’s just SO unrealistic and ridiculous. And very melodramatic. Short haired male=good Christian. Long haired, goateed male=hippy lunatic who’s not allowed to play basketball. Liberal=bad. Conservative=good. And any time you cross any kind of line, you’ll end up pregnant or dead or both. Still, I have to keep reading. Because Dayne the super-famous movie star is about to find out that he’s the long-lost son of Elizabeth and John, brother of Luke and all the girls, and I just know that he’s going to leave Hollywood for the simple life and end up with that 27-year-old girl who just moved to Indiana to start a Christian theater program.
I hope they wait until they’re married to have sex, though, because the Baxter family can’t handle another tragedy when Elizabeth is dying of breast cancer and Hayley’s still in the wheelchair.
posted by Melanie at 10:07 PM
