7 Takes and Such

It appears to be Friday again, which is such a blessing.

One

My first child, halfway through the afternoon, removed one earbud and told me she was in the middle of her last class…as in, of her last year of high school. This shocked me very much. I had not been expecting such a thing to ever happen to me. Is this the end of an era? Or the beginning of a new and great life? Or something. The nice thing is that she was pretty sad. She isn’t ready to throw off the shackles of education and will go on, I expect, to interesting and thoughtful endeavors.

Two

Also…well, actually, two has nothing to do with one, but apparently, Martin Bashir is a horrible liar:

According to Spencer’s account, accepted by Dyson, the bank statements were used “to groom me, so that [Bashir] could then get to Diana for the interview he was always secretly after”.

Spencer told Dyson: “It hooked me in. I was duped … He very cleverly came to me on my number one bugbear: the bad behaviour of the press, which is of course ironic.”

Bashir also bluffed Spencer, claiming that Diana could vouch for his story that Waller was being paid for stories. He claimed he had developed a “close relationship” with Diana in the summer of 1995 and that she had told him that Waller was one of Spencer’s “pet hates”. Bashir even said that Diana had given him detailed accounts of the payments involved. Dyson dismissed Bashir’s claim of a previous friendship with Diana “incredible” and “unreliable”.

He said: “I do not accept that Mr Bashir and Princess Diana had met and formed any kind of relationship before Mr Bashir showed the fake Waller statements to Earl Spencer.”

At a meeting with Spencer at his Althorp estate on 14 September, Bashir also showed him fake statements that he had forged himself, suggesting Prince Charles’s private secretary, Commander Aylard, was being paid by “dark forces” hostile to Diana.

The whole thing is lurid and terrible.

Three

This, on the other hand, is pretty great. Apparently, that ridiculous army advertisement got one of the best and most wonderful ratios of all time:

One in particular features Cpl. Emma Malonelord, a soldier raised in California by two moms.

Since its upload to YouTube, however, this video’s comment section has been disabled. It currently has nearly a million views, 36,000 dislikes and only 775 likes.

I so love a good ratio. It’s the only time I ever really feel sane anymore.

Four

Gosh, it seems like Friday Takes are turning into Links. It’s just because someone, can’t remember who, sent me all these ridiculous and terrible items from the internet. Sorry, here’s one more. Dorothy takes down a supposedly “Christian” idea of sex. Here is a taste:

3. “It is very stressful to be your family’s leader, provider and protector, and sex is an important way to relieve that stress. Sometimes your husband is going to demand sex at an inconvenient time, or when you are tired. Remember that he probably needs a physical release to help him get through a hard day.” Perhaps another way to relieve the stress would be to co-lead with his wife. Just a thought. I digress. Sex does relieve stress. The chemicals that get released when we have orgasm create an emotional high that lasts well beyond the moment of climax. But when men (or again women) routinely rely on sex as a, or the, main way to manage stress, the wife may feel used. That’s not moving toward oneness. It’s relieving stress.

4. “A man wants an enthusiastic sexual partner. Sometimes you are going to feel that what your husband demands of you is degrading or humiliating. Your obligation is to submit to him, so always have a smile on your face and an eager to please attitude when your husband demands your sexual service, no matter what it is.” The best path to having an enthusiastic partner in bed is to prioritize giving that same partner pleasure. It also helps when said partner knows that they are loved, valued, esteemed, respected, and card for outside of the bedroom. Furthermore, no Christian husband should ever demand anything degrading or humiliating from his spouse. As in ever. Such an attitude is about as far from loving your wife as Christ loves the church as one could get. (See #9 for more on this.)

I didn’t click the original link because, as I said this week, I’m committed to not being so angry all the time. Which is also why I didn’t click on that very strange “gender nullification” thing, nor the ghastly “Eucharist” thing that some Episcopalians at Harvard did. No links because, as I said, I didn’t click on them. What a wretched time to be alive.

Five

On a much more cheerful subject, many of you have asked about my parents’ stuff, which all disappeared last year in Indianapolis on their way from Portland to Binghamton. The UHaul was never recovered, nor even did the police look for it, I think. We were all helpless with rage and misery. But then the wide world was so so generous and gave money and stuff so that their little house has everything that a house needs. I, for example, gave them our mean geriatric cat, feeling that no one should ever be too comfortable, and should always remember that life is a veil of tears. Still, so many heartbreaks, including the china that my mother had been slowly collecting as she went back and forth between Africa and America for so many years. All of it on this side of the ocean was in the truck, and so it was gone. But a dear and generous friend found a whole set of it (which is hard because it’s been discontinued), cream soups and everything, and sent it along. Here is my mother finally discovering it:

Six

Among the plentiful heartbreaks, many of which were deaths this past year was the loss of an aunt to cancer–very suddenly and unexpectedly–and my own grandmother. In this way, I have learned in a new and fresh way that, you know, stuff does matter. What people wear and use, they leave behind them when they go away. And all the people who are left have to sift and sort and figure out what to do with it all. So I found myself wearing some things yesterday that belonged to these two people, as was my mother, who explained to my children that she was “wearing the clothes of the dead.”

There are so many reasons that I’m a Christian. Mostly that I cannot really be anything else. But also because the question of death is only solved in a satisfying and believable way by Jesus. For the body–what you eat and what you wear–all these things we have to think about, he says, and it is such an anxious and consuming worry. But you shouldn’t be too anxious about them, for you are only like the grass that grows up quickly and then dies away. Your body and soul are eventually wrenched apart, and the mourners going about the street, and everyone has to put their lives back together, including sifting through drawers and cupboards and handling so many things that were so intimate and personal.

The details about Jesus’ clothes at the crucifixion are so moving, as I go about in the clothes of the dead, hoping heartily in the resurrection of the body and the life of the world to come.

Seven

And finally, we painted our kitchen, which has a ceiling and a floor–SO Thrilling to have both a ceiling and a floor–red. I’ve been waiting to do this for several years. I know that life is but a breath, but for several of them, I’m going to be super happy about this room.

Have a great weekend!