05 May, 2007

I stand outside this woman's work

Kansas Bob and Milly both call this a powerful video. They are right. It was done by this lady, though I know nothing about her.

The song is from the movie, "She's Having a Baby." It's one of the best movies ever. It came out in the first year or two of my marriage, and it was so poignant at the time it will always be one of my favorites. I don't know whether it is a good movie or not, but the song moved me again today - hard. It's sung beautifully by a woman, but it's a father's story.

The lyrics are here: http://www.songmeanings.net/lyric.php?lid=53196

The young man, if you'll recall, was having a hard time figuring out whether being tied to a woman who could cook him gruper for dinner was really what he wanted for a lifetime. Toward the end of the movie, when she actually is having the baby, she experiences complications that threaten hers and the baby's life. While the young man sits out in the waiting room, dealing what he may be about to lose, this song plays in the background.

Choosing this song for the background of this video was inspired.

The video highlights a series of mostly famous quotes, starting with the granddaddy of them all, "Woman, you are the devil's gateway," launched by Tertullian. There are thoughts that ripple through societies and cultures, and that have tremendous power because they are silent. You can only see them if you look for them. Europe once believed that faerie folk were behind everything they didn't understand. It kept them from developing science for centuries. Breaking that misconception took centuries, and advances came in fits and starts.

The church is learning that women are profitable to the church in every area and by every gift, but the progress is coming by fits and starts. The quotes in this video are appalling, and very few people would agree with them in this context, but the underlying matrix of thought that allowed them in the first place must still be replaced - thought by thought. We need each other in every way.

I love a few women, and knowing that the things this video records have been said to them breaks my heart. Knowing that the true selves of these people, upon whom I have depended, are impugned in these ways weighs so heavily on my heart.

We love you, sisters.

10 comments:

kc bob said...

I echo your sentiments CP:

"the underlying matrix of thought that allowed them in the first place must still be replaced - thought by thought"

I first saw the video earlier this week on a website that offered it as an answer to Mark Driscoll's church planting video. I blogged about both videos ... each causes sadness for different reasons.

Anonymous said...

Thank you.

Jeffrey Pinyan said...

Perhaps this is why Catholics place so much emphasis on Mary, to show that, against the rhetoric (not doctrine) of Early Church Fathers, there is the role model of Mary, the mother of Jesus, a woman of virtue who said "yes" to God and was blessed abundantly for it.

No disrespect to Bob or Milly or the author of the video, but these one-sided presentations are never fair. There was nothing positive presented at all, which makes you think there was nothing positive said about women.

It was also devoid of passages from inspired Scripture, like 1 Cor 11:5-15, 1 Cor 14:33b-35, and 1 Tim 2:9-15. Of course, it's important to understand the context behind such passages, as it is to know the context behind the quotes presented in the video.

Caritas

Anonymous said...

japhy,
The positive is that those a from the past. It's positive that women are more and above those quotes. The positive is that you as a man can see your about to be wife as a woman with a brain a woman to stand beside. It’s a look at the past to lead us to the future something to remember when you’re raising your children.

Kevin Knox said...

Japhy,

Milly has answered you so well, I hate to say anything. But, I will say a couple things to prove that I heard you.

The emphasis on Mary in Catholicism seems to me to rather indicate the problem than absolve it. Praise the Lord, yes, Mary was blessed for her obedience - but she was hardly the first and not even close to the last.

As to the video's one-sided presentation, I could not disagree more strenuously. A two-sided presentation of an evil can be a compelling rhetorical technique, but this was not rhetoric. This was passion. There is no sin in passionately mourning the damage done to sisters I love.

You might as well go to a funeral, and ask the eulogist to share some of the negative about the person being laid to rest - for balance' sake.

kc bob said...

Ditto Milly's and Codepoke's reponses for me. I encourage everyone to go to the author's explanation of the video.

Lynne said...

I have delayed commenting on this, because it is a very personal issue for me. I have felt the full force of the misogyny of the church directed at me, and, without wanting to go into inapproriate details, it took me a long time to believe that my Father loves girls as much as He loves boys. That I have learned so, in spite of the church, is testimony to His grace (and that, for, now, I have a church home where women are treated with the same respect as men)

karen said...

Thank you. CP. We love you, too.
wow...I have some catching up to do. You're smokin'!

kc bob said...

This just in - you have been tagged.

Kevin Knox said...

Praise the Lord for your healing, Lynne, and may God continue to bless.