queer slice-of-life stories
This is the second part in the continuing saga of Disharmonia. Click here to read part one. How will Lucifer react now that he’s conscious again? And what will happen to Disharmonia’s lover when her sisters get hold of him? [Read more…] about The Royal Family of Hell: Episode 2, Meet the Parents
![By Gunnar Creutz, Falbygdens museum (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/01/Skr%C3%A4ck_o_skrock_7a_Fyrkl%C3%B6ver.jpg)
Some of you may have noticed this blog has been pretty quiet in the last week. I’ve been on vacation, and I still have 4 days left. I will resume my regular blogging next week, starting with more Fifty Shades fun. I didn’t want to leave you all hanging, though, so I thought I’d drop by and let you know what I’ve been up to on my vacation. Right now I’m feeling like one of the luckiest, most blessed people for many reasons.
We spent Easter weekend with family. I have an aunt who lives just about smack in the middle of nowhere. I love the atmosphere there–not just the fresh air or the fact that they have much more sunshine than we do here, but the absence of the usual bustle of suburban life. I left feeling refreshed.
Meanwhile, I’ve been keeping myself from having writing burnout by doing a hefty amount of beta reading. I am fortunate to be working with two authors whose work I admire. As much as I like to write, I enjoy editing even more. My inner Grammar Goddess (see what I did there, Ana Steele?) does her happy dance–she’s a details gal. But my two favorite things about beta reading are discovering new writers and the collaborative process of working with writers to create something wonderful. And for the first time, I have a dream again–a goal, a plan, a future. I’ll keep you all posted on what that means as it develops.
Finally, we are in the last few days before my amazing and wonderful son’s baptism. This is not something we told him to do or asked him to do; he chose it for himself. So this Sunday, he will receive the sacraments of baptism and his first communion at this church. Here begins the long process of letting go of his spiritual development and allowing him to travel his path rather than ours. It will be a pleasure to watch him grow.
I’m most likely off again until Monday. Until then, happy reading, and I’ll see you on the other side of the weekend.
Recently, the question of faith and art came up in my online writers’ group: How does your faith affect your writing? My first thought was, It doesn’t. Of course, that’s not strictly true. I write about faith here on this blog all the time. But when I think of Christian writing, what comes to mind is usually non-fiction books that explain different aspects of faithful practice or junk fiction like Left Behind and Amish romance novels. How could I explain what the intersection of faith and art are for me?
I’m not always sure that I’m writing about spiritual matters in the right manner. I frequently don’t write in an explicitly “Christian” way–or at least, not the way I think some Christians expect me to. I worry about the same things fellow writer Andrea Ward does:
I worry that my writing will not reflect God.
I worry about putting God in there artificially thereby making Him artificial and the story weaker.
I worry that writing about him will just make people tell me how wrong my theology is.
I often think my writing reflects God the same way monster trucks reflect safe driving tips.
Have you ever been to one of those monster truck rallies? You know, the kind where the trucks drive through mud and run up ramps and pretty much just cause chaos? My faith and my writing collide like a monster truck at a rally. Creativity is the truck, splattering the mud of my faith everywhere. Or perhaps it’s the other way around; it doesn’t really matter. What’s important is that it’s messy and random and sometimes only makes sense from the inside, but it’s exciting and intense and one heck of a ride.
My faith is what drives me to seek justice and equity for all people. When I write, it’s out of a deep need to put words to the feelings that bubble deep inside. I can’t separate the two. So when I take to my blog or I crank out a story, it’s infused with my sense of what-should-be. Because of my faith,
I no longer worry that I need to mention Jesus every couple of sentences as a reminder that I’m technically a Christian writer. I don’t expound on Bible texts, and I don’t often have fictional characters go through a moment of Christian salvation. I work harder to explain the domestic abuse in Fifty Shades than I do to condemn the premarital sex. Where my faith and my art collide, that is the space in which I find justice, peace, and wholeness.
How does your art reflect your spirituality?
Just in case the title of this post wasn’t clear, or you haven’t ever read my blog before, I support marriage equality. There. I’ve said it twice now.
Yesterday, I had the unfortunate lack of sense to use Human Rights Campaign’s flashy red logo with the equals sign as my profile picture in several places. Yeah, my apologies to anyone I offended. I’m normally a person who does enough research to know whether something is a good idea. I had a pretty spectacular fail there, and I’m sorry. I have since changed it, of course, out of respect for others. Yes, it was hurtful to some people I care about, but I also care about not harming people who randomly follow me on the Internet. Kindness shouldn’t require personal connection.
Anyway, because I kept seeing people tweeting about the HRC logo, I did do some digging. Naturally, I came across some good information that explained the problem. Unfortunately, I also discovered several disappointing rants about marriage equality, and not from conservative religious people.
The main point of the anti-marriage rants wasn’t necessarily specific to same-sex couples marrying. It was more about marriage in general, and specifically marriage as it relates to family structure. The argument was that legal marriage perpetuates a certain type of family structure and is therefore discriminatory.
I don’t entirely disagree. I have long said that I think the government should just butt the hell out of marriage in general. Religious institutions can keep it as a sacrament if they want, but removing the legal stamp of approval would make it much easier on everyone. However, that has nothing to do with whether or not I think a certain type of family is “better” than another.
There are a few reasons why I still support marriage equality, despite the fact that I don’t think a legal document should be necessary. First, the way the law is written, there are literally dozens of legal benefits to marriage. It’s a worthy goal to strip those away and make sure everyone has those rights regardless of a piece of paper, but that isn’t going to happen overnight. I think the place to start is by giving everyone the right to marry if they so desire. (And in case you were wondering, no, I don’t include children, pets, and immediate family members in that, but I do include multiple spouses; that’s a post for another day.) I think marriage equality is a temporary patch, but a necessary one.
Second, I think arguing against marriage from a family structure point of view is on shaky ground. Even though the argument is intended to sound like it isn’t heteronormative and biased toward procreation, it actually is. It should not be surprising that of the three anti-marriage arguments I read, two were written by white cisgender heterosexual parents with long-term partners–in other words, people who have the freedom to marry but have chosen not to. I concede that “marriage,” with all its varying definitions over the course of human history, has indeed been at least partly driven by procreation. However, that is not what marriage is; it’s only one of the things marriage can do. Claiming that marriage only legitimizes a two-parent family structure assumes that every married couple wants to parent, or that the potential for parenthood was their only reason for getting married. Should they not have bought into the system? Should they have remained unmarried because there were no children to be “harmed” by their lack of legal contract? It also assumes that there are absolutely no other family-related benefits to legal marriage other than making sure kids have two adults in the home.
Third, no one said that marriage equality is the last battle–or even the first one–toward an inclusive society. I have never heard that as an argument in favor of marriage equality. Maybe I need to read more, but I’ve never read anything in which someone tried to claim that if same-sex couples can marry, it will end all discrimination. But even if someone did say that, so what? Saying something doesn’t make it true, nor does it take anything away from protecting other rights. If one person wants to spend his or her time and money on marriage equality, why would that prevent someone else from making a different choice? As long as a person is not actively supporting discriminatory legislation, I don’t see the problem here. (I feel differently about whole organizations, though, especially when they claim to speak for a community. I certainly don’t want, say, Concerned Women for America suddenly claiming to support “women’s rights.”)
Finally, people want to get married. Couples everywhere want to get married, and not all of them do it because they know the secrets of the tax code. Not all couples need religion as their reason either. Since there are many, many people who want to be married, I support that. I support their right to have a legal document stating that they are married. I don’t really care what their reasons are for doing it; I just want the law to reflect their right.
I do understand why some people feel differently, but I still stand behind marriage equality. Not everyone will choose to marry, but everyone should legitimately have the right to make that choice.
TW for “ex-gay” and mentions of rape at the end of the post.
Yesterday, I read this article in Christianity Today. It’s long, but I suggest you read the whole thing if you have the chance. The post is titled, “My Train Wreck Conversion,” and it’s the spiritual journey of a woman who was once (in her words) a “leftist lesbian professor.” She apparently had a miraculous experience which led to her leaving her partner and joining a Reformed Presbyterian church. She is now married (to a man) and appears to have traded in her entire previous life to be the wife of a minister and write a book about her conversion. (Tellingly, her “about” below the post says nothing about her career or her life other than her marriage and book.)
I do not know this woman. I cannot speak to her experiences, because they belong to her. It makes me very sad that she doesn’t mention the hurt she surely caused her partner when she “rose from the bed of [her] lesbian lover” to go to church and ask God to explain why homosexuality was sinful. It makes me angry that she glibly uses the word “queer” in reference to herself, though she no longer identifies as such. It makes me grind my teeth when she uses transphobic language in reference to a friend (she calls the friend “she” but makes mention of her “large” hands*). It makes me roll my eyes when she talks about her “butch” haircut standing out in church. It disappoints me that she gave up a career in academia to become identified by her role as minister’s wife. It makes me feel sorry for her that she felt she could not be both a lesbian and a Christian or a feminist and a faithful believer.
All of that saddens me. I hope the writer has found peace, and I do wish her well. I would like her to stop using this as a platform to silence other people, but other than that, her life is her own and it isn’t my place to say what she should or shouldn’t do with it. The real problem here is the way she is being used by Christianity Today.
Full disclosure: I haven’t been a fan of CT for a very long time. A lot of what’s in there is far to conservative for me–something which should not be surprising to anyone who’s been around my blog for more than, say, a day or two. Even so, CT is hardly the worst offender when it comes to conservative Christianity. There have been occasional posts that even I found meaningful. “My Train Wreck Conversion” is not one of them.
The problem I see is perpetuation of the myth of “ex-gay.” I can understand actual gay Christians who believe that, despite their orientation, they are called by God to remain celibate. That is their choice. But those people are not doing harm by giving people the impression that being gay is a choice and that it’s possible for God to “heal” one of being gay. And honestly, I’m not concerned that this article will cause droves of gay young people to think they will be changed. I’m more concerned that it will cause heterosexual Christians to hold this woman up as yet another example of, “See? We told you it was a choice. Now go pray away the gay.” I’m worried that it will lead to more church leaders doing damage through “counseling” or “laying on of hands.” I’m afraid it will decrease, rather than increase, the compassion of conservative Christians.
Christianity Today will never be a place where we can find balance. For every story about an “ex-gay,” there is only a story about an “ex-gay.” There are no stories about people who have reconciled their faith and their sexuality. There are no interviews with Justin Lee, only a rather poor review of his book Torn: Rescuing the Gospel from the Gays-vs.-Christians Debate. There is no place for the voices of thousands of gay Christians** who are living faithful, devout lives. There is no room for this beautiful, moving story of how the writer posting as Registered Runaway came face-to-face with the living God and found love. In the world of CT, there only seems to be an echo of the recurrent theme that morality is on a downswing because more and more Christians have rejected any version of “God hates fags,” including the cleaned-up, low-cal version that God likes “ex-gays” better.***
Really, Christianity Today? This is the best you’ve got? Interesting that your example of God’s work in the world is a story about a woman’s transformation from a strong, independent professor to an “ex-gay” little wifey. Clearly those damn gay people aren’t going to ruin our country after all. Meanwhile, jocks get away with raping a comatose drunk girl and a thirteen-year-old child. Wonder what their “conversion” stories will look like and if we’ll see them in a CT article down the road.
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*Normally, referring to someone’s hand size is not an issue. But in this case, the writer is making an unnecessary comment about hand size in order to indicate the external birth gender of her trans* friend. It’s explicitly transphobic; she could have left that out and simply said her friend took her hands without the gender reference.
**This is a fraction of the work out there by gay Christians.
***This post is specific to “ex-gay” because that’s what the original CT article was. I was not intentionally slighting those navigating faith and gender identity, but my post is pretty cis-slanted. For more on trans* issues and faith, please check out Father Shay’s blog. In addition to his discussions relevant to being trans*, he also has in-depth theology. Bring a lot of brain power.
Subtitle: When Ana meets Christian’s parents.
Of course, several chapters ago, Ana already met Christian’s mother. Remember the time they were just coming up for air and she showed up at his apartment? And he acted like a 16-year-old caught in the act up in his bedroom, even though he’s nearly 30 and his mother would probably not be shocked to learn her baby boy has sex? Yeah. Well, now Ana gets to meet his parents in a somewhat more appropriate context. I mean, other than the fact that she goes to their house without any panties on.
Yep. In the last chapter, Christian kept them after divesting her of them in the Red Room of Pain. Instead of asking for them back, she decides not to wear them…to dinner at his parents’ house. Now, I don’t really have a major problem with the no-panties thing. When wearing certain outfits, it does actually make sense. But Ana spends several pages making a big deal out of it. Can someone say, “I needed to meet a word count”?
When Ana arrives at the Greys’ mansion, we get to meet Alice Mia for the first time. I admit to enjoying the original Twilight books. I can acknowledge their problems, and I won’t minimize them. They were a fun read, though, and I particularly liked Alice. But here’s the thing: Alice’s mannerisms worked for her in Twilight; they do not work for Mia in Fifty Shades.
For one thing, Bella was a teenager, and Alice was supposed to be acting like one. Ana is not a teenager, and Mia (who is supposedly Ana’s age) is not behaving like a young adult. I find it hard to believe that two women in their early twenties who have just met for the first time would continue to hold hands as they tour the premises. And Mia’s enthusiasm is just a bit over-the-top. Again, this fit Alice’s character perfectly in Twilight. On Mia, it just looks creepy.
Once everyone is settled down for pre-dinner drinks, we get another look at Ana the World’s Worst Friend. First, Ana manages to seem scandalized by Kate’s happiness that Elliot will be joining her in Barbados. Seriously, Ana? You spent your afternoon being whacked in the privates with a riding crop, then chose to attend family dinner without underwear, and you are chiding Kate for not showing some “dignity”? Let the woman be happy, for Pete’s sake!
Following that, Ana lets it slip that she’s planning a trip to Georgia for a few days. This was the first Christian heard of it, and he’s upset. Now, I actually think that in a normal relationship, that might be reasonable. If you’re in a relationship with someone, you’d think telling them your travel plans wouldn’t be a big deal. Informing your significant other that you’re flying across the country for an unspecified amount of time is kind of important. And doing it while having dinner for the first time at your partner’s house is in poor taste. However, Ana and Christian do not have a normal relationship. I can easily see why she wouldn’t have wanted to tell him sooner.
Anyway, Kate makes it clear to Christian that Ana has the right to go visit her mother and have some time away. Because Ana is ever so grateful to be defended by the wonderful best friend she gushes about whenever the woman isn’t actually around, Ana thinks,
Why is she so antagonistic towards him? What is her problem?
Yeah, Kate, what’s your problem? It’s not as though you see Ana cry nearly every time she’s been with him. It’s not like you’re worried about the way he stalks her. So you should probably just shut up and go enjoy Barbados with your hot new honey. (For the record, Ana’s behavior is not uncommon for people in abusive relationships. Many people go out of their way to defend their partners, accusing others of being interfering, self-righteous, and just plain wrong. I’ve been in Kate’s shoes before. In fact, even leaving the abusive relationship doesn’t always clear that up. Some people continue to defend their abusers long after they have left, including telling friends that the abuser “changed” from prince to beast or that their friends just “didn’t know” the abuser. But Fifty Shades isn’t supposed to be about domestic violence; it’s supposed to be a “love story.”)
The dinner is awkward and full of really strange conversations. These include Ana basically asking Christian if he’s going to spank her for planning a trip to Georgia behind his back, Kate bringing up José to make Christian jealous, and Christian threatening Ana for seeing José. Meanwhile, Ana is eying the Greys’ staff with suspicion because the maid is ogling Christian. Later, Dr. Grey waxes self-righteous about vaccinations. And we, the readers, have to suffer through this along with everyone else.
Once again, we have Ana waffling about her relationship with Christian. She gets territorial and defensive about the maid, but then she thinks she might stay in Georgia to avoid returning and signing the contract. Five seconds later, she’s gushing about how he’s “fifty shades of fucked up, but he’s mine.”
Believe it or not, I think the worst dinner table moment is when Mia is talking about Paris and starts randomly speaking in French. Christian notices and speaks French back to her, which causes the entire table to burst into flames laughter–not because the weird French thing is so funny, but because Mia finds it funny and her laugh is “infectious.” There are no words.
I’ll leave it there for now, but before I go, one last thing. If you are a writer, please learn that words mean things. So do phrases. The thesaurus is not a writer’s best friend. Please do not just open it up to find synonyms for common words, because chances are, you will use a word wrong. This is not just using big words where smaller ones will do (though that abounds in Fifty Shades); it’s about knowing the subtleties of the language well enough to use the right word in the right context. Case in point: Ms James, in situ is not an appropriate phrase to use to describe having a two-parent home. Now go watch an episode or two of Word Girl.
