Saralicia's Speculations

I don't do voicemail. Every once in a while I try and it turns out terrible. Sarah plus voicemail generally equals disaster. Therefore, I was extremely gratified to come across the following YouTube video explaining the best method for leaving a voicemail.

My father, the above-mentioned brilliant David Jordan, is a well-spring of beneficial ideas. We are considering marketing his very simple weight-loss plan which is as follows.

1. Remove a piece of bologna from it's packaging.
2. Set bologna on counter.
3. Let sit for several days.
4. Consume bologna.
5. Hope your health insurance is reliable.
6. Repeat until desired weight is achieved.

Side effects will include agonizing abdominal pain, retching, vomiting, and potentially death.

Weight-loss is guaranteed pending survival.

I had three resolutions this year. They would be New Year's Resolutions but I kind of came up with them the third week of January so that doesn't count. They are as follows.

1. Lose forty pounds. (Give or take a bit. Just so long as I get in shape.)
2. Get out of retail before Christmas.
3. I forgot this one so either it doesn't matter or I'll remember it later.

Anyhow, as I see it the most important thing about losing weight is inspiration. It helps to know what your goal is. I want to be able to run long distances and climb really tall things et cetera, et cetera. But the road to being fit and in shape is a long and treacherous one paved with the blood and bones of those who either fell into the oozing pits of marshmallows and chocolates on one side or fell asleep in the towering armchairs on the other never to rise again. It's a difficult and winding path and it gets hard sometimes to remember what the goal is especially when the armchairs and chocolate look so good.

My solution is this. Everyone who wants to have a fabulous physique should make a regular diet of fun and awesome adventure movies. It keeps your mind focused on the amazing ability for which you are aiming. For example, I watched Sahara with my dad tonight. The moral of that story is if you stay in shape, have a good friend and think outside of the box then you will probably save the world.

Work out.
Watch adventure movies.
Don't fall for that armchair.
These are the keys to workout success.

[  Currently: Listening to Meltdown ]

I had intentions of ignoring Valentine's Day as I best I could this year. It's overrated, thought I. The married and dating folks express their love with flowers and chocolates and candlelight dinners. Single people usually end up crabby because they don't have anyone for whom to buy flowers or from whom to receive chocolate. Retailers make large amounts of money on Valentine's-related products. So much of Valentine's Day has tended to strike me as being silly. Why do we need a day to celebrate romantic love? If you truly love one another will you love one another any less if you do not celebrate Valentine's? Will your love be certifiably validated if you do? I tend to think that love should be more a of a day by day sort of thing rather than a major yearly blowout.

But then there were two thoughts that made me reconsider ignoring Valentine's Day.

Thought One:

A holiday is mostly what we make of it. Perhaps I can still celebrate Valentine's Day and actually have it be meaningful for me. This leads into

Thought Two:

Last night I listened to "Jenny" by Steve Taylor. It's a really sad song about a girl who wants to live beyond the life into which she was born but she falls for lies about love that's not real and in the end commits suicide. She dies feeling worthless. I keep thinking about all the people in the world who are like Jenny after a fashion. How many people out there think that they aren't worth it? How many people feel like no matter how hard they try they will never find the love and worth they need to survive? How many people in this world are trying to cover up a heart-rending loneliness with busy-ness and plans or alcohol or unfruitful relationships? If the veneer of everything that we pretend to be was stripped away and we could see how people really felt, I guarantee that way more of them than one might originally suppose would feel utterly, breath-takingly, heart-wrenchingly, agonizingly alone.

I've tried to avoid being one of those crabby singles who feel sorry for themselves because they don't have a significant other but I haven't always done a very good job of it. But when I stop feeling sorry for myself and stop complaining about how bad I've got it because I'm single I realize I don't have it so bad. I have my Savior who promised that He would never leave me or forsake me. But there are people out there who do not know Him. And while I can't go out there and poke some Jesus into every heart I can make an effort to be who He would want me to be. I can be the hands and feet of Jesus and I can do something, something to show some lonely someone whose path crosses mine that maybe somebody does care. Maybe I can be a light in somebody's cold, dark world.

That's how I want to celebrate Valentine's Day.

I come home with funny stories from work a lot. I think this one is my favorite.

I was manning a register and a lady and her younger teenage son came through my line. She paid with a card and was entering her number into the pin pad when her son exclaimed, "Mom! You're supposed to use this pen to push the buttons. You don't know how many people have touched that. There could be germs." I was thinking that the pen wasn't any better and could be just as coated in vile disease-bearing bacteria as the pin pad when the mom quickly replied, "Yes, but dear, think of all the people who touched that fork you ate with at the restaurant just a little while ago. You put that in your mouth!" The kid was speechless and I mentally high-fived the mom.

They got us new shirts. We had a whole bunch of columbia blue school uniform polos that the school is no longer allowing kids to wear so instead of buying new official Fred's shirts we have to wear these. I hate light powdery blues and I especially hate wearing them. You-Know-Who came through my line and complimented me on the new shirt. "That color looks really good on you," said he. "You should wear it more often." I didn't feel any better about the color.

And today I found out that apparently the bank was going to offer me a job. But I'm leaving town within the next few months so it kind of doesn't matter. But it made me smile. And they told me if what I'm going to do doesn't work out to come back and work there. It looks like my resolution to not work another Christmas in retail may be fully feasible.

I've spent a lot of my life lonely but not just any kind of lonely. I have been afraid. Well, frankly, I've been terrified. I have been afraid that who I am as a person is too much work to deal with that I'm not worth loving. And yes, I know this is a stupid fear because I know that God created me to be who I am for His purpose and glory and He doesn't want me to be lonely.

But the funny thing is so much of the pain that I experience from this loneliness is self-inflicted. I tell myself I'm not worth loving and then I hide myself away in false realities that I dream up forgetting what is real and even forgetting the power of the God that I believe. That's the worst thing. I forget how real and awesome and majestic and wonderful and powerful my God is. I forget what I have seen Him do. And I hurt myself and those around me because I think that I'm not good enough, that I'm not worthy of love.

And yet I know that though I am unworthy in and of myself I am worthy because I have a Creator who made me for His purpose and redeemed me with His great love. If I would only trust in Him I might still be lonely but I wouldn't feel so lost. And I'm better at trusting Him than I was before but it's still so hard sometimes. How can I know something and believe it with all my heart and still hold back in fear that I'm not good enough? Why do I make it so hard for myself to trust God when I have seen His power and His beauty and the wonderful little things that He can do. (Not to mention a few huge things.)

This is not exactly the easiest blog for me to post but I am going to do it for two reasons.
1. Sometimes making oneself vulnerable by confessing a fear is a good way to look it in the face and say, "I don't want you anymore."
2. There might be other people out there who feel lonely like me who need to hear that they aren't the only ones to feel that way and maybe knowing this they can take heart and carry on a little better.

I'm sure everybody has seen those little sayings on signs in front of churches. Here are several taken from the signs of churches in my area.

Does life stink? We have a pew for you.

Honk if you love Jesus. Text and drive if you want to meet Him.

Forgive your enemies. It messes with their heads.

For every giant there is a stone.

The Bible: More up-to-date than tomorrow's newspaper.

Keep Christ in Christmas.

God answers knee-mail.

I've been thinking about these signs lately and the more I think about it the more I realize that I truly dislike the trite, cutesy sayings. I get the feeling these churches think that they are using these signs to draw the lost to Christ but if that is our goal then why do the churches post silly one-liners on their signs? A snide snippet of wit won't win anyone to Christ much less get a skeptic in the front doors of the local Christian establishment. These short light messages are the only thing that many non-Christians will see of people who claim to be Christ-followers. To be honest, if I were a non-Christian and somebody offered me a "pew" because my "life stinks" I would turn around and walk off in disgust. I would feel like screaming out like Buttercup did on The Princess Bride, "You mock my pain!" Remember the response she got? "Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something."

I don't know how seriously the writers of The Princess Bride meant that particular line but I find it to be rather profound. Sure there are good things about life but it hurts. Living without the comfort of God's love is no picnic, but Jesus didn't take away pain when He saved us. That comes later. Everywhere I look it seems like Christians are trying to sell Christianity. And I guess that's why I hate these church signs. I feel like their advertising a new flavor of coffee. (What's next? "Come to church this Sunday and get a whole week of blessing thrown in free"?) This is Jesus we're talking about here! Why can't we stop trying to sell an ideology and just let God be God? Why can't we just let Christ shine through us? It will save so many more souls if we let Christ in to shine through us instead of worrying about keeping Him in Christmas. Sometimes I wonder if the church even knows who Jesus really is.

I've got to be honest. My opinions on feminism and what it means to be a godly gal have changed so much over the past few years. Once I was a good little girl, a la ATI, who spurned feminism in all its vast and ugly forms. It was a Biblical mandate that men ought to be the rightful leaders and women shouldn't try to lead (i.e. make major personal decision without an okay from a father, brother, husband, etc or run for public office etc. etc. etc.). But time has passed and I began to realize that most men who held the point of view that I was upholding didn't exactly make things comfortable for the women in their lives. Women couldn't express their opinions unless it was to other women or their husbands. A woman's role was something akin to a bump on a log. Some people even had the audacity to suggest that God didn't speak directly to women and anything they thought that God was leading them to do could be negated by their father's (or husband's) feeling "led" to do otherwise. Thank God that my family's anti-feminist leanings did not range to being nearly so patriarchist as what I later encountered. I learned that it is good for women to have their own ideas, to know what they believe, to think for themselves, and to follow God as they feel personally that God would have them. I've learned that it's not necessarily a bad thing for women to do things that are not typical women's roles. I also believe that the element that I (and some other anti-feminists) feared is also still a reality. This element is that feminism has the potential to demean men.

My family recently watched Mulan for the first time. We all loved it but somebody *cough* was uncomfortable with it because it promoted a feminist agenda that belittled men. Frankly, I was shocked and a little angry. Yes, it was about a gal who joined the army and ended up being the heroine by saving the entire country from takeover, also saving the emperor's life in the process. Yeah, it was a girl who did that and not a guy. Yes, there were a lot of stupid male characters and not very many stupid female characters. But that's only one side of the story. There were three fairly major male characters in the story. They were none of them stupid. Mulan's father was weak and frail but that was through old age and he would have gone to battle and fought bravely in spite of his ailments. Mulan's captain was strong, bright and a fearless leader albeit a little bit prejudiced against women but considering his culture this was no shocker, in fact, considering the culture his mercy to Mulan should be considered rather more shocking than his prejudice. And there was the emperor. We didn't see him very much but one would think him to be a wise old man and he was quite accepting of Mulan. Mulan is the only woman in the film we see who was anything more than a flat character. The silly men who populated the movie were more minor characters and added comic relief and didn't look as though they were intended to reflect badly on real men. There were simply more men in the movie and we got silly ones, stupid ones, brave ones, and good ones. Yes, I suppose you could say that Mulan is a feminist movie because it's about a girl who steps out of her typical role and found a place for herself pressed upon her by the unique circumstances that she faced. I felt that Mulan was an acceptable story of courage in hard times no matter what your gender. I did not find this movie to be particularly demeaning to male roles in general. (Guys, am I just a nutty girl here, or do you think the same?)


Now Brave, apart from being a significant disappointment, did strike me as being demeaning towards men. The major characters were both strong-willed, capable, intelligent women. All the men were buffoons. Merida's mother was constantly correcting her husband as well as her children. Merida's father was a good-natured likable man but highly lacking any kind of social grace, finesse, or sensibility in the area of self-control. The other men were worse. They were constantly bickering and brawling amongst themselves like children. Perhaps, Pixar felt that the movie already had enough dark elements to it and didn't want to frighten the younger movie-goers with a more realistic view of what would have happened if such events had been portrayed more realistically. Whether or not this is so, the result of what was actually portrayed left me flat. I felt like the role of men as protector and leader was degraded, mocked and ridiculed.

Mulan and Brave are both about girls who defied the typical expectations for women of their time. But they did it in totally different ways. Mulan went to battle to spare her father. Merida turned her mother into a bear because she wanted to ride around on her horse and do frivolous things instead of getting married and learning to be responsible and care for the people under her. Mulan did her best to properly respect everybody around her even though she was doing something that many of them would have considered wrong. Merida was selfish and wilful. She insisted on doing things that she wanted to do and was unwilling to make concessions for the feelings of others until she had already caused a great deal of grief.

I am partially amused and partly grieved that some people would lump these two movies into the same category and say that they both are driven by an agenda intended to demean men and elevate women. Perhaps there are feminist agendas in both movies but my point is that I don't think that respect for women and the capabilities of gals is wrong. It's only wrong when it's pushed so much that it trods everything else (in this case men) into the dust. Maybe feminism isn't all that bad providing we accept men for their inherent worth and value, too.

I've been looking up pictures of hairdos lately with my sisters. We've had such fun and we've made some definite decisions about what we do and don't like. The following are some of our favorite 'dos. Ironically, they are mostly don'ts.















If you aren't too traumatized, here are some Hairdo Dos. (No, I didn't say "doo-doo".)



Curly


Straight


And finally because the Jordan girls are huge fans of this guy and because the rest of these photos are severely lacking in smiles, I leave you with a photo of Shaun White...