You kind of have to hand it to Americans. We can turn anything into a reason for consumption. The journey from a day honoring early Christian martyrs to the World’s Largest Inflatable Heart is by no means direct. But whatever. Chocolate is yummy. Anyway, I wanted to take this Valentine’s Day to remind you of the problem of child slavery on cocoa plantations. It’s real. It’s bad. But encouraging signs are appearing… Hershey’s recently released an announcement that by the... Read more
Whenever I write a post–whether for this blog or another–I always have an inkling of what kind of response it is going to get. Posts on poverty, hunger, AIDS or something Bible-related that has nothing to do with gender roles will get minimal responses. Posts on Victoria’s Secret, eating disorders, or sex, on the other hand, well, you know. It’s kind of a joke among my fellow writers. The more sensational, the more pageviews and comments–a virtual law of the... Read more
For your weekend reading plaisir, I present (HT Al Hsu!) Pamela Druckerman’s WSJ piece on “Why French Parents are Superior”— “the French have managed to be involved with their families without becoming obsessive. They assume that even good parents aren’t at the constant service of their children, and that there is no need to feel guilty about this. “For me, the evenings are for the parents,” one Parisian mother told me. “My daughter can be with us if she wants,... Read more
I had a question from a reader last week that I wanted to share with you: “How you have trained your children to appreciate the table and to see food as more than just physical sustenance?” And here is my response– I think the most important thing with my kids has been more “show, don’t tell.” It’s important to me that we say grace over a meal, thanking God for it, that we set the table decently even if we’re... Read more
This week we’ve been considering this question: Is it better simply not to know about the suffering that takes place due to poverty and hunger a world away? As we saw in the stories from history–the Russian famine of 1921, the epidemic of cholera in Naples in 1911–knowing has a certain power. Concealment, coverups–orchestrated ignorance–never helps. But while knowledge is a necessary first step, it is not a final step. Consider: Herbert Hoover read about the Russian famine and then... Read more
{Part Two} So yesterday I asked whether it is better not to know about the suffering that is in this world that we might not know about or encounter in our day-to-day lives. After all, most of us have obligations and cares that rightfully consume most of our time and energy. Why read news stories, blogs, or books that tell us about terrible suffering? For me, history is often instructive and comforting. And I think that history proves the proverb... Read more
Have you wondered if maybe it’s better not to know about great suffering? After all, does knowing help? Maybe it’s happened to you: you read an eyewitness account of famine, perhaps visit a developing country and see firsthand what extreme poverty looks like, and, turning back to your own life, you’re not sure how to go on as you have been. You have a fridge. And it’s big. And full. And not only do you have shoes, but you have... Read more
This week I really enjoyed Brittany Tuttle’s piece at the Christianity Today blog for women, about how blogs, Facebook, et. al, DO NOT equal the whole picture. Does this sound familiar: “Countless times I’ve logged onto Facebook, Twitter, or my favorite blogs only to see vintage-filtered vignettes of other people’s seemingly perfect lives. There are my friends, on tropical vacation (again). There are my favorite bloggers, wearing artsy duds, sitting in their homes that look like exact replications of the... Read more
How I terribly misconstrued and made poor use of a talented actress’s work. {An edited re-post of what has, strangely enough, become one of this blog’s most popular posts. So in case you missed it…} From about age 15 or so, Audrey Hepburn was my idol. I worshiped the iconic film star, watching her movies again and again, poring over books about her life, and searching for images of her online. I could have done worse. Hepburn was, by most... Read more
Rachel Marie Stone
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With A Scholarly Ribbon In My Hair…
…or, why we’re hearing so much about “masculine” Christianity. I have a post up at Christianity Today’s blog for women, her.meneutics, responding to John Piper’s comments of last week (or so) that “God has given Christianity a masculine feel.” Here is some of what I said: “…masculinity and femininity are not fixed and eternal sets of attributes, but are by and large culturally defined, and always changing. For example, blue was once more closely associated with “feminine” while pink was... Read more