My Summer Reading List

Hello friends! Summer is here which means it's a great time to pick up something fun and thought-provoking to read! Next week Scott and I leave for vacation and I am looking for a couple more books to read as well. Any recommendations are appreciated :)

• Faith Unraveled by Rachel Held Evans

• Searching For Sunday by Rachel Held Evans

• Introduction to Internal Family Systems by Richard C. Schwartz

• I Thought It Was Just Me by Brene Brown (yes, still haven't finished. #longlivebookclub)

• Peculiar Treasures by Robin Jones Gunn

• On a Whim by Robin Jones Gunn

• Coming Attractions by Robin Jones Gunn

• Finally and Forever by Robin Jones Gunn

• Headstrong by Rachel Swaby (click here for my review on this book!)

• Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie

• The Penderwicks: A Summer Tale Of Four Sisters... by Jeanne Birdsail

• The Highly Sensitive Person by Elaine N. Aron

• The Rosy Project by Graeme Simsion

There is my list! I am so excited for August and September when Rising Strong by Brene Brown comes out! And the final book in the married series of Christy Miller by Robin Jones Gunn. #fangirl Lastly in September Mindy Kaling's latest book comes out! Just a reading party waiting for me! 

True Love Waits And Virgin Gates: 5 Harmful Messages Purity Culture Taught Me

Growing up in the church and culture I did, I couldn’t conceive of a Christian not knowing about “purity culture”. But lo and behold, I met my husband, in seminary, who had never been exposed to it.

Just so no one feels left out, here are the details.

Purity culture is a belief system as well as a lifestyle that places high emphasis on virginity before marriage (i.e. abstinence for those of you not familiar with purity culture) while maintaining emotional purity. The emphasis historically seems to have been placed on females maintaining virginity as well as staying away from sexual thoughts or any sexual activity. Purity culture can include purity balls, purity rings, purity pledges, and a specific modest dress code. (Think avoiding short shorts,spaghetti strap tank tops, red lips and mini skirts) AND PLEASE FOR YOUR LOVE OF THE LORD: DON'T WEAR A TUBE TOP. Since purity culture was a way of life, it also involved certain types of movies and books. I specifically remember one movie involving a teenage girl with mossy brown hair who became pregnant and her life was basically over*. There was terribly sad dramatic music and even worse acting. And the father-of-child seemed to be entirely missing in action from what I recall. (If you are envisioning Teen Mom from MTV, it's not quite like that.... think more Lifetime). Generally purity culture believes in abstinence-only sex education in public schools. In some purity cultures, people give up dating for courtship or even marriages arranged by parents.

From what I’ve come to understand the purity culture started in response partially due to the mid-20^th century sexual revolution. Around the 1980’s conservative evangelicals wanted to move back to prioritizing sexual purity. To be pure meant you didn’t engage in any sexual activity before you were married, you guarded your heart and dressed modestly. It encompassed the heart, soul, mind and body. This was no easy vow.

The first purity ball was held in 1998 in Colorado (yes I said purity ball.) Fathers and daughters dress up and attend this ceremony or ball. Daughters make a pledge of purity to their fathers and to God. In a lot of cultures, the daughter is considered under her father’s authority until the day she says her vows to her husband. After that the daughter is under the husband’s authority.

In my family, we weren’t that extreme. I don’t remember attending a ball or moving from being under father's authority to husband's authority. Our marriage was certainly not arranged. However I do remember picking out a purity ring with my dad as a child. I do remember dressing up for a ceremony at our church when I was 13 years old with my best friend Hannah.

At that time, it was rather exciting because I got to dress up and look fancy. It was also exciting because one of my favorite things to do was to go shopping with my dad. Usually I would shop for toys and later clothes. But this time was special. I got to shop for jewelry! I chose a ring that had 3 little hearts clustered together. The big heart was my promise to God to remain pure till my wedding day. The two other small hearts represented my promise to my parents and then my future husband.

For further disclaimer I would also like to note that I am not blaming my parents for living during the purity culture. After all, they had just witnessed this crazy sex revolution and now their oldest daughter was 13! How terrifying! I’m not a parent, but working with minors and high-school students has helped me empathize with my parents. Once I have children I am not going to want them to engage in numerous sexual activities at the age of 13! Thinking about children without their brains being fully developed and wandering around with raging hormones is absolutely terrifying.

I am also the kind of person who if you tell me to run one mile, I will run 5 miles. If you ask me to read one chapter, I will read the whole book. So imagine my personality living in the purity culture. You tell me to stay pure? Well, that meant no kissing, no two-piece swimsuits, no feelings that resembled anything close to sexual desire. What can I say, to my detriment, I have always leaned towards the extreme.

Nonetheless at some point, it’s good to challenge some of cultural’s constructs that were not helpful so that we can move and grow from here. After what I went through, I want to encourage others to be a critical consumer of what the purity culture teaches. Though the purity culture came with noble intent, there are some truly harmful messages I encountered that I would like to share. 

    1.   Purity Culture Teaches Men It’s Okay and Normal To Objectify Women (and also promotes sexism): Ever since I was little I felt uncomfortable with the way Evangelical Christians talked about men and sex. Books like For Women Only by Shaunti Feldhahn terrified me and made think that men were out of control sex-obsessed creatures. (which, in her defense, was probably not her intention at all) In truth, I’m sure this notion made men feel similarly. They probably felt like they had no control over their own bodies. I always felt confused about bold statements about “men being visual” and that short skirts and shorts turned them on so much they could have an erection right then and there. No one ever cared about my experience as a female. No one asked if I was visual. In fact, I consider myself to be a visual learner and one who is drawn to color and art and fashion. Purity Culture taught me that I was responsible to control and help men’s “lust problems” by dressing modestly, not looking at them a certain way and by avoiding all signs of physical affection. This was detrimental to me because it caused me to feel responsible for someone else. It was a very co-dependent system if you ask me.

      2.   Purity Culture Teaches You To Obsess About Sex At An Early Age: Let’s be real. If you live in our culture, Christian or not, everyone seems to be a little obsessed with sex. (take for example how much money the porn industry is making: however this is violence and not sex soooooo….mute point) However Purity Culture taught me to obsess about sex long before I was ready to think about it. I made a vow to abstain from sex before I knew what it was or even if knew if I wanted it. I learned that it was of utmost importance to keep my virginity and hopefully to find a man who did the same for me. When I should have been focused on school, my friends, and being young, I was already obsessed and terrified of purity. I was terrified of being raped. I was paranoid that every boy was lusting after me. I was scared that I would date a guy who had sex with countless other girls. These are not the things a 12, 13 or 14 year-old-girl should be worrying about. I could have been thinking about what I wanted to do when I grew up or thinking about ways to pursue my hobbies. But instead I ruminated about purity.

    3.   Purity Culture Teaches You That Your Body Is The Enemy: This has been one of the most hurtful and detrimental to me personally. Purity culture taught me to bully my body into submission. Purity culture taught me that discipline was the highest of virtues. People who couldn’t control their bodies like me were lazy and dumb. I had so much pride in how I could control my body. I didn’t understand people who over-ate, did drugs or had sex. Little did I know how hurtful this was to me and my relationship with my body. Since sexual desires came from my body, purity culture made me believe that my body was the enemy and could not be trusted. Thus, if my body felt sexual attraction, it was my job to kill that feeling. Yet my tendencies to take things to the extreme didn’t let me stop there. I had to be in control of every aspect of my body and take away its voice all together. If I had headaches, it was my job to tell it to go away and ignore it. And worst of all, if I was hungry, it was my job to tell my body “mind over matter” and not eat. Before I knew it I was so “disciplined” I was lost in an eating disorder, forgetting how valuable and beautiful my body is. I stopped listening to my body because it was ”evil” and against me. I didn’t stop to think that my body was given to me by God, that it was enough, that I was enough and it was my responsibility to be kind and gentle to the only body I would have. Where purity culture didn’t give me my eating disorder, it helped foster they type of thought process that fueled it.

    4.   Purity Culture Teaches Black and White Thinking: Either this person is a potential future husband, or a temptation, who might make you lose your virginity. A male is not a person, he is a temptation who might make you compromise. This was also a hurtful approach to sexuality. Rather than seeing people as people I only saw them as a threat to my sexuality or I saw them in terms of their sexual experiences. Rather than getting to know someone I was dating in terms of how they treated me, their passions and hobbies, their beliefs and values I immediately started obsessing about their sexual experiences. Were they a virgin? Did they masturbate? Had they looked at pornography? How many girls or guys did they have sex with? Rather than getting to know them, I dehumanized them by their sexual experiences. I broke up with guys over and over again who had “too many sexual experiences” because it scared me, because I was told those sexual experiences would rule their life. These were guys who loved Jesus and respected me and cared for me. They did not like their past sexual experiences or flaunt them like a badge of honor. It didn’t matter to me.

   5.   Purity Culture Teaches All Or Nothing Approach To Sexuality: Let’s break this one down. Purity culture teaches to avoid wearing bikinis, short shorts, and mini skirts, to avoid kissing and making-out, sexual pleasure and sexual feelings at ALL costs. It teaches you that having sex has horrible consequences before marriage and anything on that trajectory can have lasting impact in your marriage. So for me, it’s no wonder I avoided ALL those things. I didn’t kiss my boyfriend in college. I didn’t even let him hold my hand till we had dated for almost a year. So just imagine this kind of living and thinking and then one day you get married. And then BOOM. WEDDING NIGHT. Now you are expected to kiss, make-out, wear something small (and full of strings) and have intercourse. One day you can’t do anything, the next you SHOULD (actually it is required now) have sex. How confusing for the brain and body! Talk about a shock to the system. Are you kidding me? One day you are not allowed to have sex but after your wedding vow you are not allowed to NOT have sex. In fact, if you don’t have sex you are putting your marriage at risk! Now this is really ridiculous. This line of thinking is dangerous. We are not robots. We don’t have “on and off” switches or buttons. We all need to show a little more respect for our bodies, brains and hearts that acting like this is a GOOD thing for us. I am grateful I didn’t go from wearing a turtle-neck and holding hands to being completely naked and having sex. There’s enough anxiety out there for things we can’t control. This, now this, we can control.

 My experience is not the only one out there. If you have any questions or stories you would like to share, please don’t hesitate to comment below or shoot me an email. Your story matters!

*This film did NOT, I repeat, did NOT show them having sex. To be honest, I think they looked at each other and she became pregnant. (Note to teenager self: Don't look guys in the eye for too long or else...SURPRISE!!!)

Headstrong

I just read a new book* this summer. As you already know I love reading but my reading list likes to grow exponentially during the summer. It seems summer brings about a loose structure and schedule (it's a blessing and a curse for me) and invariably more heat. So I find myself at coffee shops or hiding in my apartment with fans swirling as I read. 

This new book is called "Headstrong" by Rachel Swaby. Swaby writes biographies for 52 female scientists who have influenced our every day life. It's a very inspiring and educational to read about women throughout history who have changed science and our world. These are women I never learned about growing up. I wish they had been in my text books in school but I usually only learned about male scientists. 

When you think about it, sexism has limited us so much. Today, as I worked on an art project with a second grade boy I was again reminded of strict gender rules. He exclaimed that he wanted his superhero to be ugly and so he would color him pink of course! Because pink is a girl color! I explained to him how this can sound insulting (as his sister's favorite color is pink) to women in general that whatever color a female would dare to like is inherently ugly. I explained how the rainbow includes all the colors. There aren't "wrong colors"  In fact, the color pink is not actually owned by girls. Thankfully he was receptive and decided his super hero was now going to be very cool AND colored pink and purple. 

There is no "wrong gender" to have a certain career. For years, women have been discriminated against in the science world. The book talks about Helen Taussig who wasn't allowed in Harvard's medical school because of her gender. However women could attend the School of Public Health but their efforts wouldn't EVEN earn them a degree! She didn't let that stop her and went on to become the founder of pediatric cardiology. One would hope we've moved from the 1890's but it was only recently that we heard this stunning and ridiculous sexist remark from Tim Hunt, who has since resigned from his position, "Three things happen when girls are in the lab-you fall in love with them, they fall in love with you, and when you criticize them, they cry" So I guess it's understandable why so many females have shed their lab coats and have chosen to go a less difficult route and apparently controversial route. 

The hard part about this book is that there are 52 very short biographies about all these women. I think I wanted to keep reading about one particular woman. I wanted to know more about her personal life, her family, her hobbies, what she did on Saturdays. It made me curious about who these rock star women were; who were publishing the first mathematics book, revealing the importance of fluid and salt for bodily functions, serving as the American Heart Association's first female president, as well as coming up with cures and inventions that still influence us today. (how food fuels our muscles, penicillin, the cotton industry, leprosy, just to name a few) I wanted it to read more like a conversation over coffee and less like a text book in all honesty and I wanted to create a multi-faceted image of these incredibly brilliant women in my head.

If you're not a scientist, it might be tricky to read. Don't even get me started on the math and technology section. Swaby does a good job of breaking it down for you but you have to have an attention span for it because it can sound clinical and sterile at times. (especially if you are not used to this genre) 

While I am not a scientist myself, I really resonated with this book because ultimately I hope that little girls and women everywhere know that they can be scientists and that they don't have to fit the narrow and rigid gender stereotypes that have been thrust upon us for centuries. They don't just have have to use the color pink to influence and impact their world. They can use green too. And any other color they like. 




*I received a copy of this book from Blogging For Books in exchange for this review

Spiritual Ladders and What Really Matters

Understanding success in God’s eyes is a tricky thing. I just read Matthew 6&7 and I’m trying to see how God views “success.” Our culture is unbelievably preoccupied with success. We want to be successful at school, in our careers, our marriages and in our friendships. As Christians it often seems that we are obsessed with “spiritual success,” yet many of us need to take a time out and really think about what that means. It seems to me that far too often we view spirituality as something that can be earned, achieved, or mastered. We take spirituality and try and make it into something akin to a corporate ladder, that can be climbed all the way to the top.

Nope sorry. It doesn’t work like that.

But seriously haven’t we all heard Christians talking about being at a “deeper level” or someone being a more “serious” Christian? Or what about the Christians who are just a little above average Christians? What about the ones who are clearly set-apart or chosen? Called to a higher purpose? The ones who are getting the crowns? Sure, there are the "Christian janitors", but then there are the "Christian PRESIDENTS".

Who do you think God’s finds successful?!?!?  In the past, when I thought about spiritual success, I have often let culture write that narrative for me. I think about numbers first of all. How many people did they bring to Christ? How many books did they publish? How big is their church? How long do they pray daily? How often do they read their Bible? How many mission trips have they gone on?

Numbers on numbers on numbers.

Rung after rung after rung on the ladder.

Yet the more I’ve thought about it, the more I have realized that this ladder of spirituality is pretty rickety and unstable. With each step, you feel more successful, but less stable. At any minute, your foot could slip and down you could stumble. This is the image I get of “spiritual success.” It feels un-attainable and yet people all over seem to be achieving it!

I really enjoyed reading Pete Scazzero’s blog recently. He talks about success and how freeing it is to live and lead from the center of God’s definition of success.

He went on to explain that if the ministry of John the Baptist was to be put on a bar, it would peak and then have a steady and precipitous decline.

He also talked about the prophets, Jeremiah and Isaiah who both served God with passion but most people just wrote them off. They didn’t exactly have a “successful ministry” if you will. No one wanted to listen to them!

Lastly he talks about Jesus in his blog and how some of his disciples turned away and deserted him (John 6:66). This certainly does not sound like a ministry where numbers are increasing and favor is just exploding.

Tonight as I read Matthew 6 and 7, it made me think about what success is and isn’t. I had some thoughts. I’m not exactly a theologian and I didn’t go to great lengths to have a thorough exegesis on these chapters but this is what came to mind…

Success in God’s eyes isn’t about having money or being spiritually loud.

You don’t spend energy on stuff that doesn’t give back.

You put your soul and heart before material and wordly success, you put it before awards, your pant size, your full calendar, your nonprofit, what others think of you, and your GPA. You put it before being perceived as spiritual.

Your heart is intimately linked with your treasure. So we seek to make our treasure carry eternal weight.

Spiritually speaking, success is SEEKING, ASKING, KNOCKING. It is not judging, should-ing, and shaming. It’s knowing that good gifts, enough and abundance are around every corner.

Success in God’s eyes is narrow, it is not wide. By this I don’t mean it’s hard to get to God. I am not talking about one-way tickets to hell or heaven. I'm talking about our lives right now. We’d rather do things culture’s way and climb a “spiritual ladder.” We’d rather get really busy and really distracted saving the world before we sit down and stare at our souls. It is narrow because it's not natural and it's not always easy. It takes intentionality to choose the road less traveled. 

Spiritual success in God’s eyes isn’t doing miracles, prophesying or speaking in tongues necessarily, not that these things are bad. It’s about just being with Jesus. It’s seeing God’s image all around and treating others like that’s the case. We treat them like they are the light and salt and the image carriers they are.

It’s standing our sacred ground even when the storm hits and our house or world threatens a deadly collapse. It’s believing we are loved, valuable and enough. Sometimes we just learn to breathe through it and ask for the rescue. One day, we open our eyes, the storm has passed and the house still stands.

Success to God isn’t about being a hero. God doesn’t need more heroes. It isn’t about having a busy schedule, being frantic and having a following of 1 million. It’s about giving to the poor, the weak and those in need (and some days YOU ARE THE POOR SO GET OVER YOURSELF ALREADY and start giving to yourself). We don’t need to shout when we give (sorry, I just did). We don’t have to yell or join 10 nonprofits or bring 100 people through the “become a Christian” prayer and then post about it and create a bar chart on the size of your ministry.

When we pray, we pray to be rescued and delivered daily.

We pray for daily bread

We stay present in today.

Grounded in enough.

Tomorrow will come but today is here and so we stay mindful of right now.

We ask that heaven gets a little closer to the here and now.

Success is hearing God reminding you….

I see you

I know you feel small

I know you don’t think you measure up to the world’s definition of spiritual success

But here, listen

Listen

I don’t need you to parade your frantic-hectic-urgent do-gooder, do-better, schedule around.

I just want you.

You’re enough.

Here’s what I actually want you to do

I want you to find some space, some sacred ground, your tranquil room, your safe place….

I want you to close the door on all the noise, the toxic comparisons, the bars, levels, graphs and pie charts of measuring true Christianity, close the door on spiritual performance anxiety and never enoughs, shoulds, always, musts; close the door on your narrative of what spiritual success and favor means. 

Let me erase the numbers, and let’s paint your ladder. What is it reaching for anyway?  Let’s stop striving to reach unending heights. Let’s lay it on the floor and pretend it’s a blank canvas. We’ll start there.

Your Fool Proof Two-Step Guide To Achieving Your Bikini-Body

It’s about that time again where the covers of all the latest fashion and fitness magazines are giving us tips for how to become bikini- body-ready. Everywhere on Pinterest there are workout plans, new diets and life style changes to achieve that swimsuit-body goal.

Everyone seems to believe it is very necessary to get that body as soon as possible however no one can seem to agree on how long it will take. Just Google it (or maybe don’t…) Apparently it can take anywhere from 1 week to 2 months.

Since deep down I’m a little rebellious (okay it’s actually very much on the surface) I would like to challenge this status quo.

Who on earth is benefiting from our frantic rush and urgency to get our bikini body on at lightening speed? 

And who exactly told us what a bikini body looks like?

As women we are constantly inundated with messages about how we should look.This includes our hair, our skin, our bodies, our faces, and even how we smell. We hear these messages spring, fall, and winter. But I think the pressure starts to rise and heat up as summer starts to unfold.

Brene Brown, author of I Thought It Was Just Me, writes, “Appearance expectations exist to keep us spending our valuable resources-money, time and energy-on trying to meet some ideal that is not achievable.”

Personally I hear the pressure each spring as summer our inevitable future is waiting around the corner. I hear my clients talk about avoiding certain foods and I hear them talk about their stomachs in degrading ways. I hear the urgency in their voice as they talk about “not working out enough”. Then I hear my friends and they are certainly more used to the pressure but not immune to it. I can see the shame in their eyes.

As for me, I can totally relate as I took 3 whole months to find a swimsuit. Because obviously finding the perfect fitting swimsuit will erase all body shame and fear. Right?

According to Brown, Americans spend more each year on beauty than we do on education.

Allow this to upset you. No wonder we (me) so easily give into our culture’s narrative of what beautiful is. We spend our money on something we are clearly not educated on.

Let’s break it down*.

The $38 billion hair industry
The $33 billion diet industry
The $24 billion skincare industry
The $18 billion makeup industry
The $1.4 billion over-the-counter teeth whitening industry**

These were statistics from 2008. This year, the diet industry has brought in $60 billion. That is a WHOLE lot of our hard earned money!

Think of all we could do with that money. Some of it could go towards the foster system or adoptions; some of it could go towards educating others on eating disorders, racism, sexism and ageism. It could go towards helping to end sex trafficking. Maybe it could towards helping those who are persecuted for their faith in other countries. It could go towards paying for someone’s college education. Maybe it could go towards helping those recovering from job loss, or your church family, or or or… and the list goes on.

I am by no means trying to shame anyone for buying make-up or working out or wearing perfume. I do all of these things.

Rather, I am saying it is time for us to stop letting these industries TELL US WHAT beauty means.

Let’s challenge the why behind are working-out and our make-up wearing lives.The pressure we feel to have a swimsuit-ready-body is supported by a multi-billion dollar industry. Even the most intellectual of us get sucked in.

And certainly I am not trying to shame these industries because they are under a lot of pressure as well. They depend on us to believe them about what is beautiful so that they can pay their mortgages and provide for their families. They need to put food on the table and they want to send their kids to college just like us. I don’t often like how they go about marketing and advertising but I can understand it. I get why it’s effective.

So next time you think you need to try the next diet fad, or get on new rigorous work out plan or nit pick every part of your body before you can go out in public in a bathing suit I want you to ask yourself a question.

Am I letting culture define beauty for me? And if I am, how is this hurting me?

Also I have a very short two-step plan for how to achieve a-bikini-ready-body if you are interested. You could spend two months trying to achieve it or you could go ahead and participate in my two-step plan…which takes approximately 60 seconds. And, it’s free!

GUARANTEED TWO-STEP PLAN TO A BIKINI-READY-BODY

1.   Do you have a body?
2.   Do you have a bikini?

If you answered yes to the questions above then, congratulations! You are bikini-body-ready!!! Meet you at the beach!

* Statistics and research taken from I Thought It Was Just Me by Brene Brown, Ph.D., LMSW.
** MSNBC

20 Signs that you ARE INDEED Growing Up

Being 29 years old has made me think about a lot of things. It's crazy to think that in a few short months I will head into a whole new decade. The 30sssssssss. It's made me think about how I've grown in my 20's. The idea of becoming an adult is so vague, so gradual, you barely realize it's happening and then suddenly you look back and think, wow, I'm kind of adultish! (Besides the fact that I STILL enjoy snuggling random puppies in the neighborhood,  and STILL have the urge to jump on hotel beds as well as  STILL thinking that a hand stand in the pool is pretty cool. I also generally need prizes to motivate me just like I did when I was a child. )

Maybe I'll write a blog next on "signs that you'll always remain a child at heart". But for now, here's the trusty signs that you are becoming an ADULT!!! Celebrate your stunning adult life!

1.    You have learned how to say no. (this is the height of luxury!!!!)

2.   You have learned how to use other kitchen appliances besides the microwave and the keurig.

3.   You know what a savings account is.

4.   You don’t plan your weekends around hangovers anymore.

5.   You don't have to be like everyone else to be happy.

6.   Dashboard Confessional is no longer your favorite band.

7.  .You don’t make jokes about gender, disability, or race. (and hopefully you never did…but now you at least know these are real issues with real wounds)

8.   Good health insurance excites you like nothing else!!!

9.   You are able to listen to other perspectives besides your own.

10.  You vote in the elections instead of complaining about the government.

11.  You know what the word empathy means and you can remember the last time you accessed it on behalf of someone else’s pain.

12.  You no longer believe you are invincible. You willingly take vitamins. Sometimes you go to the doctor. You don’t brag about “never being sick”. 

13.   You have a faint understanding of what a 401k is.

14.   Instead of using non-real adjectives to describe experiences or feelings, such as “that’s so gay” or “that’s retarded” or “I want to bang him” you put your grammar to good use and use a thesaurus when struggling.

15.   Doing laundry is now an event. You can’t go out.

16.    It is exciting to go to Target to get cleaning products.

17.     It’s a relief to go to bed by 10pm. Extra fun points for reading in bed.

18. You've figured out what you believe and what your values are. 

19.  You don't have to have alcohol to have a fun time.

20. You don't let life happen to you. You are intentional with what you are after. 

Clearly this is something adults do.