Ruth's Gleanings: Blogging from Moab

Sorry for the wait, folks.  I’ve been working at the restaurant and fighting off being sick (which means sleeping a lot, rather than staying up late and writing). Thanks for your patience. Without further ado, here is the second half of the essay.

How Christians Can Get Better at Sex (Or, at Least, at Handling It)

When they’re out in the dating world, Christians would do well to remember Jesus’ advice to his disciples, which was in the last post, but here as a reminder:

“I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves.  Be on your guard against men.” (Matt. 10:16-17)

When it comes to sex, too many Christian young adults are “doves” who completely lack the “shrewd” predatory knowledge of the “snakes” of this world. Knowing too little about sin, sex, and evil, as well as the tendency to create well-intentioned-but –impossible rules to safeguard against sin, can trip up a genuinely God-chasing Christian in some potentially devastating ways.

Innocents Mired in Ignorance: How the Doves Get Bitten by Serpents

The first danger, of course, comes about from lack of knowledge about sex in general—a gap of ignorance that usually plagues the sheltered, homeschooled Christian. When the world intrudes on the happy-puppy bubble of the sheltered Christian, that Christian suddenly faces a sexual situation for which he or she had no preparation or defense.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to define common sexual terms to an over-sheltered Christian gal-pal of mine who stood in the middle of a conversation and blindly (deafly?) didn’t even realize what she was laughing about while she tried to fit in.  If she’d been solicited for a “blowjob” in high school, I think she might have thought someone wanted her to inflate a balloon animal.

Funny?  Yes. Tragic and dangerous as Hell?  Ohmybunnies, yes.  This girl needed to learn the ways of the serpents and fast—and that meant she needed to study some Parseltongue (yes, that is a Harry Potter reference; it refers to the language of snakes).

Herpetologists-turned-Ophidiophobes: Hiding From the World and from Sexuality

On the other end of the scale, we have those Christians who have seen and heard enough of our sex-saturated culture to decide that they would like to find ways to shut themselves out of it completely–and away from all the serpents hidden in the grass.  These are our paranoid law-makers in the purity movement, those like Leslie Ludy , who, after being scarred in the battlefield of the early high school dating game, pulled herself out of public school in order to keep her virginity intact. She now counsels girls not to even kiss a man until they’re at the altar.1    Others, like Joshua Harris, counsel against close contact, being alone with one’s love interest, and even hand-holding.

Holding hands is really evil. See these sea otters? Totally going to Hell for their lusty thoughts as they float along.

A good idea? You decide.  All I’ll say is, it’s not exactly biblical.  The bride in the Song of Solomon sure mentions kissing prior to the wedding, even complaining that she’s upset that they can’t respectably steal kisses in public until they’re married (Ch. 8, v. 1).  Apparently, it’s natural for lovers on the edge of commitment to have that kind of longing; there is no judgment against it from a “God-voice” in the text.

Again, I have to wonder what all of this phobic treatment of sexuality does for their future intimate relationships.  I will say that it certainly doesn’t help Christians to have a great influence in the modern dating world, since many of these Christians retreat from that as well, preferring small Christian circles of “courtship” where these rules are adhered to and accepted.

Modest vs. Maddeningly Frumpy

Another side-effect of this movement involves a big emphasis on modesty. Now, I am a fan of modesty on principle, just because I know how visual men are.  I don’t do miniskirts and I try to keep my pitiful cleavage hidden, just so I don’t tempt some poor soul into some really dirty thinking. Also, I don’t want to look like a whore.  Just sayin’.

However, take a good concept like modesty, give it over to the paranoid-Christians, and it becomes a kind of law-enforced frumpery.  In an attempt to deter the sexual instinct, Christian women (and men) begin looking less like pretty, innocent doves and more like drab pigeons.  Or like Puritans.  (Heck, not even like Puritans–those men wore really tight pants back in the day, and the women actually defined the shape of their waists with stays and aprons.)

Some of you might think this is a silly point to bring up, since a shapeless wardrobe and a lack of cosmetic sense isn’t spiritually dangerous.  But I think this kind of hyper-modesty is a symptom of a nasty trend of scripture-twisting that is as risky as it is ugly.

A lot of Christians justify their drapery (sorry, I won’t call that stuff clothing) and their rules against makeup based on 1 Timothy 2, in which Paul tells little Timmy about his hopes that their little communities of the followers of the Way (early Christianity) would “live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness” (v. 3).  One of the suggestions/desires Paul lists to this end is one about modesty:

“I also want the women to dress modestly, with decency and propriety, adorning themselves, not with elaborate hairstyles or gold or pearls or expensive clothes, but with good deeds, appropriate for women who profess to worship God.” (v. 9-10, NIV)

Paranoid Christians take this to mean that we shouldn’t wear clothing that shows the shapes of our bodies (it’s too sinful, even if skin is covered), and that makeup, ear piercings, or anything that would alter our so-called “natural” appearance should never be worn, since it can be distracting to the opposite sex.

But 1 Peter 3:3 clarifies what’s really meant here:

“Your adornment must not be MERELY external–braiding the hair, and wearing gold jewelry, or putting on dresses …” (emph. added)

In other words, it’s not the adornment that is the issue; it’s the lack of internal beauty to back it up that the apostles wanted to warn us against.

Makeup is evil. Here is Ruth, dragging herself, and maybe some men, down to Hell because she cannot resist eyeliner and lipgloss.

Adornment is never explicitly frowned upon in scripture, and is often given to the most important women in the Good Book, including the beautiful Sarah (Abraham’s wife), Rebekah (wife of Isaac, see Gen. 24),  Esther, Abigail (David’s first wife, whose beauty kept him from killing a man in a fit of fury), the Shulamite bride in Song of Solomon, Israel’s female incarnation in the famous metaphor (Isaiah 16), and even the bride of Christ described in the Book of Revelation.   As for cosmetics, we know that Esther underwent months of beauty treatment in the Persian palaces and used cosmetics in her bid to win the heart of the king and save her people.  Heck, even Moses and Joseph would have worn guyliner in Egypt, both as a symbol of their status and as cosmetic enhancements. God appreciates and celebrates beauty, and doesn’t condemn those who do the same.

Moreover, God designed both men and women to be visually stimulated, men especially so.  When godly single women decide to dress themselves hyper-modestly, it often sends men the message that they are sexually unavailable, and often makes them look unattractive as well.   These mistaken impressions make it hard for these women to compete in the current dating market—and they get unfairly passed over.  Men who underemphasize the importance of a well-maintained appearance and gentlemanly wardrobe likewise get passed over by women seeking an attractive mate.  This issue, created by an over-emphasis on modest dressing and anti-sexuality, has even been covered in an article by Boundless Webzine’s Candace Watters, entitled “Not Enough Beauty.”  In this piece, Watters admits, “knowing that men have to fight their sin nature … is not justification for women to neglect their outward appearance.”2  I’ve talked to a lot of Christian women who use this excuse as a reason not to lose weight, wear more tailored garments, or put on makeup, and I’ve also heard it from some men who claim they want a woman to “love them for who they are,” rather than for their biceps.  As a result, I now have a sneaking suspicion that many Christians are really just using the whole modesty issue as justification to get away with not trying very hard, and that’s bad stewardship of our bodies.

So you see, ugliness really is a problem in Christian churches—it’s not just my pet peeve.  Worse, in their attempt to shut down those naughty sexual instincts by dressing themselves in the modern tailor’s equivalent of flour sacks, paranoid Christians not only fly in the face of biology, stewardship, and even God’s taste, they condemn the sacred connection between the sensual and the aesthetic.

Their attempts at severing of that connection is a great poverty, and not what God intended for us.  Not to mention, unsexy to the detriment of relationship potential. eHarmony is full of nice Christian guys who are not sexy at aaallll. And it frustrates the heck out of a girl like me who is saving sex for marriage and would like to have it with a Christian man who turns me on. Too much to ask?  Apparently, yes. If I don’t stop being matched to twenty-something-aged men already gone soft in the gut who wear elastic waisted pants with pleating on the trouser-leg, I’m going to get desperate and ask God to strike me blind so I can get married off to the first Christian man on my match list who has a nice voice.

And . . . that’s enough for my rant on ignorance and prudery.   I want to close this discussion with some considerations that are more elementally vital to the topic of Christian sexual ethics.

First, I think we can all agree that the act of sex is intended to be sacred.  But does that necessarily mean that it is something to be feared, or something to be respected and revered?  I would contend that Christians who treat sexuality as something that is dirty or frightening or wrong in-and-of itself are going against the way God would have us treat his gift for us.  Sex, with all its emotion-altering, pleasure-giving, and generative power, should not be treated lightly, but neither should it be treated like Satan’s dark secret.  For Heaven’s sake (literally) educate your kids and yourselves on the subject; don’t avoid it like the plague.

Second, concerning our flesh, we as Christians need to decide whether our bodies are inherently evil as a result of the Fall, or if our bodies still hold good instincts and beautiful desires that have been merely flawed, turned awry, or “bent” as C.S. Lewis calls it in his novel, Out of the Silent Planet.  Reread the first few chapters in Genesis for yourself tonight, and see what you make of it.

Finally, I’d like to close with a scripture that is often overlooked, but may help us to better understand how God views our struggles with the flesh:

 “As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him; for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust.” (Ps. 103:13-14)

This is a reminder that we shouldn’t judge ourselves more harshly than God does.  The occasional lust is just a sign that we are still dust, and hormone-ridden little dust bunnies at that.  Take those urges and pursue marriage–which is a God-honoring use of those feelings.  And if you’re married, go have fun messing around with your spouse. That’s God-honoring, too.  Hooray for sex!

References:

1. Ludy, Leslie. Authentic Beauty. Sisters, OR: Multnomah, 2003.  45-62.
2. Watters, Candace. “Boundless Answers: Not Enough Beauty.” Boundless Webzine. <http://www.boundless.org/2005/answers/a0001400.cfm&gt;.

Notes:

In 1997’s extremely popular Christian pop-culture-forming book, I Kissed Dating Goodbye, author Joshua Harris argues that Christians

“have to understand purity as a pursuit of righteousness. When we view it merely as a line, what keeps us from going as close as we can to the edge?  If sex is the line, what’s the difference between holding someone’s hand and making out with that person?  If kissing is the line, what’s the difference between a goodnight peck and fifteen minutes of passionate lip-lock?”

He concludes that the only way to keep ourselves pure is to “flee as far and as fast as [we] can from sin and compromise” (91).   This leads him to give all kinds of advice on how couples should behave—extending laws of nearly no-contact—in his follow-up book, Say Hello to Courtship.  Harris steps into legalism here and begins to ignore important things like intention in one’s behavior in a relationship. Is it sinful to express affection and longing to your fiancée?  I argue that it isn’t—that it’s a natural and necessary stoking of the fire that will be lit in a passionate marriage; Josh argues that it is  simply because such behavior can tease one’s beloved with the prospect of sex that can’t be righteously be fulfilled yet.  Please note, dear readers, that even Harris admits to having trouble keeping his eyes from lusting after his fiancée.  I giggled when he admitted it with a terrible sense of shame, like it was something Satanic.   I think God might have chuckled a bit and wished he’d included a verse in the Bible that told over-anxious gits who desire to foreswear all natural desires to just get over themselves.  I’m sure God wouldn’t tell them to follow the other alternatives: to join the Gnostics or the Buddhists, who view flesh as either entirely evil or as an illusion, respectively.

*Warning: This will be a two-part rant. Please comment and argue as you see fit!*

Christians are bad at sex.

I’m not referring to technique. I’m talking about how Christians are handling the issue.

Let me pull a pastor’s trick and tell you a story to illustrate what I mean.

I once danced with a nice, shy, college-aged Christian-homeschooled young man.  The dance called for close contact because it was a tango.  But he, with much stuttering over a rigid explanation, opened his “frame” and held me out and away from  his body in something closer to a waltz pose.  You could have fit far more than a Bible between us—heck, you could have fit the last two Harry Potter novels in there.

As a result, it was difficult for me, as a female “follow” partner, to dance with him. The communication between our bodies was essentially severed but for his hands—trained strictly on my shoulder blades and upper arms. The center of gravity that was supposed to be created by the mutual lean-in of both partners had shifted outward into something almost centripetal as we went into a loose orbit. When we stepped our way precariously around the room, I felt like I was in constant danger of tripping him, falling backward and looking silly, or worse, actually getting injured.

And while I’d done my homework and had read all the sexual purity literature that he had—and therefore knew directly where he was coming from theologically—I wanted to shake him for the way he was acting: Like I had the plague of sin all over me.  Like he didn’t trust himself enough to control himself.  Like there was something unholy in the slight buzz of curiosity that you always get when you dance with a stranger. Like Jesus himself was going to throw a fit on the floor if we danced the tango like our teacher instructed us to.

So I did something rather awful, and I’ll confess it to you now (and offer him a belated apology, if he reads this).  I teasingly told him that, even if we danced chest-to-chest, he still wouldn’t be actually touching me. I might have mentioned that I was wearing a padded bra as a kind of barrier.  He turned a brilliant shade of red, and I tried not to laugh at his show of innocence.  It was like I was talking to a giggling tweenager, not a twenty-something man.  It made me feel like a wordly Jezebel, a Herodias, and a conniving, dangerous little Delilah all at the same time.  But when I laughed, I felt God laughing with me, and I knew I wasn’t being evil, even if I was being a bit of a snit. I was on the verge of making an important point (which I’ll get to in the next section).

Ruth performed a live tango with her college ballroom partner last fall. They were too focused on not screwing up the choreography to even think about screwing . . . um, around.

In spite of my attempts at humor, he still refused to dance closer. We fumbled about awkwardly until the song ended and I was free at last to find a male “lead” who would dance with me without giving into any dance-inappropriate hang-ups.  I felt instantly relieved when I slid into close-embrace with a man who wasn’t scared stiff (bad pun, I know, but I’m keeping it) by my sinful girly parts.  As I relaxed in the arms of my new male lead –practically melted in them, really—and allowed myself to work over the steps with confidence, I realized that my mind was letting go of a surprising amount of angry tension.

I danced awhile in deep thought. Why was I angry?  I knew I wasn’t upset with the young man.  I quite liked him, really.  It wasn’t him, no, I just hated how he’d seemed so shaken, how it made me feel, how it made him seem . . .

Yes, I was mad at his fear.

To be specific, I was mad at the spirit of fear that I’d felt erupting from his pores.  I was angry that someone had taught him that risking sensuality was worse than risking putting someone in danger of personal injury.  I was even more upset that this boy—no, man—and a man of an age when he should be pursuing marriage—was so scared of my sexuality that he could hardly hold a discussion with me.  I was angry that the weight of his own church-conditioned anxiety was such that he was rendered inconsiderate as a dance partner (without meaning to), incapable of leading the moves (as a result of the distance between us), and insubordinate to the dance instructor’s directions (because a tango involves some tangling of limb from time to time as a rule).  Far from being a good example or making a statement about purity, he was simply, conspicuously, hard to dance with.  I danced with him anyway, though, because I understood him.

I wanted to understand better, though. I tried to imagine how young Christians raised to this degree of sexual paranoia by their parents ever manage to lower their guard and achieve real intimacy with a future spouse.  I wondered if their innocence goes hand-in-hand with the kind of ignorance that led a super-Christian girl I know to get herself pregnant on her honeymoon just because she didn’t know how to properly use the Pill and didn’t openly communicate with her mother or husband on this blush-worthy topic.  It was sheer stupidity, coupled with naiveté, on her part, and I blame the situation entirely on the cloistered lifestyle she’d been brought up in that reinforced the idea that sexuality—and especially its aspects of contraceptives and family planning—was too sinful a topic to broach.

I think that’s why we need to be wary of the flip side of pursuing sexual purity, especially if we go at it (bad pun again) like a Pharisee.  One can feel so much pride in one’s attempts at innocence that that pride overcomes one’s intelligence and thwarts God’s biological design for humankind.    When that happens, I can’t imagine Jesus applauding us.  I think he does a massive face-palm maneuver and shakes his head at us.

The Law vs. the Lawgiver’s Intentions

Let’s talk about the Pharisees and their pride in following all the rules.

I’m going to ask for a show of hands, here. How many of you remember the story about Jesus out in the grain (possibly corn) field, hand-picking from the crop with his hungry disciples on a (gasp!) Sabbath day (in Luke 6, Matthew 12, and Mark 2)?  Do you remember how snippy the Pharisees got with him?  Anyone?

I’ll relate the incident as it appears in Mark 2: 23-28, just to refresh your memory:

One Sabbath Jesus was going through the grainfields, and as his disciples walked along, they began to pick some heads of grain. The Pharisees said to him, “Look, why are they doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?” He answered, “Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need? In the days of Abiathar the high priest, he entered the house of God and ate the consecrated bread, which is lawful only for priests to eat. And he also gave some to his companions.” Then he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.” (NIV)

Matthew Henry’s Concise Commentary can give us a few reasons why Jesus retained his righteousness in this instance (hint: it wasn’t because he was God and could therefore bend his law if he chose [which God wouldn’t], it was because he was also a man):

Mt. 2:23-28–The Sabbath is a sacred and Divine institution; a privilege and benefit, not a task and drudgery. God never designed it to be a burden to us, therefore we must not make it so to ourselves. The sabbath was instituted for the good of mankind, as living in society, having many wants and troubles, preparing for a state of happiness or misery. Man was not made for the sabbath, as if his keeping it could be of service to God, nor was he commanded to keep its outward observances to his real hurt. Every observance respecting it is to be interpreted by the rule of mercy.

In the case of sexual purity, I have a strange feeling that God’s rules about guarding our eyes and not lusting after our non-spouses aren’t meant to be a burden to us, either.   Those rules, like the Sabbath, are God-instituted in order to keep our marriages sacred, our families intact, our society at peace, and our relationship to God unsullied by illicit affairs that become gods to us and entangle us in devastating sin (King David learned this lesson with Bathsheba, an affair that just went from bad to worse to worser still).

One glance at our biology will tell you that man not only wasn’t made for the Sabbath, he also wasn’t made for rules about sexual purity (although some might argue based on the bond-creating “cuddle” hormones released during sex that we are made for the monogamous sexual pairing of marriage).  But God made these rules for us in order to help protect us from the spiritual danger of our own, often indiscriminate, sexual hunger.

That being said, I think we need to look very closely at what sort of thing actually constitutes sexual sin, rather than following a set of well-intentioned but rather heavy and dangerously impossible rules for dating and relationships, like those delineated in popular sexual purity literature.

But how, exactly, do we figure out what is God’s definition of sexual sin, and what is simply just breaking a human set of rules?

The best place to start is , well, with God’s starting place for judging all of mankind: the heart (1 Samuel 16:1-13, Psalm 139:23-24).

Christ reasserts that the heart is the starting point for defining sexual sin when he says, “You have heard that it was said, ‘Do not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matt. 5:27-28, NIV).

Intention, intention, intention—that’s what paves the road to Hell.  Bad intent was why Joseph ran from Potiphar’s wife: because she was clearly trying to seduce him, and Joseph knew it (Gen. 39-40).

But what about our good intentions? Is the old (non-scriptural) proverb true regarding those? Do they also pave the road to Hell?

I highly doubt it. I was not trying to seduce my partner, just trying to dance!  And he, of course, was too concerned about his future wife’s feelings to be seduced by me, in any case.  If we went on intention alone to judge both sides, tangoing properly in close-embrace position wasn’t going to send us to Hell or ruin our future sex lives with our spouses.  If we’d stopped to consider it, we’d both have realized that the paranoid distance between really was unnecessary for holiness, just like the Pharisees would have realized that picking a few handfuls of grain to fill an empty belly (or thirteen bellies) on the Sabbath wasn’t an act committed to dishonor God.  The Pharisees, caught up in the power of their rule making and ruled by spiritual paranoia, could only see evil behind some innocent snacking.

Knowledge, Wisdom, and Power

I bordered on redundancy in the last paragraph with my use of two forms of the word “paranoid,” but that’s becasue I think “paranoid” is a good word to describe a lot of young Christians who have joined the Joshua Harris/Elisabeth Elliot/Eric-and-Leslie Ludy purity party these days.  And while there’s nothing ever wrong with being careful, some of the extremes taken in the current purity movement to keep people from any form of intimacy before marriage goes beyond the the call of innocence and leaves some of its followers in a perilous realm of ignorance about sexuality, its charms, its God-given uses, and its worldly abuses.

I can see some hackles going up over this one. Some of you may be thinking what I hope you’re not thinking.  But let me churn out some scripture that will point you to where I’m actually going with this.

In Matthew chapter ten, when Jesus sent out the Twelve, he told them:

“I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves.  Be on your guard against men. . .” (vv. 16-17, NIV)

He then goes on to tell them all of the dangers they will face as proclaimers of the gospel, including all of the evil things that can be done, will be done, and might be done against them.

“Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child . . .”  (v. 21 ff).

The list of awful warnings that follows is very long, but you get the idea. Jesus educated his followers about what people can and might do so that they weren’t caught off guard.  They could be as “shrewd” (cunning, in some translations) as the predatory serpents of the world without actually engaging in their vices, like doves flying above the earthly masses.

Jesus wanted them to know what was out there. But sometimes, God’s people don’t know what’s going on, and they get caught in snares of ignorance.  The prophet Hosea called out the priests of his day who encouraged ignorance of God, his laws, and his blessings, in his day, proclaiming with the voice of God in Hosea chapter four:

“My people are destroyed from lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I also reject you as my priests;  because you have ignored the law of your God, I also will ignore your children.” (v. 6, NIV)

Hosea goes on to explain that this lack of knowledge of God’s law led to the Jews to seek other gods for answers, and to give themselves over to sins they didn’t even know were sinful (4:10-14).  Here, ignorance of sin leads to spiritual danger.

The reverse extreme can also happen, though.  I can’t tell you how many times an exasperated Jesus would say something along the lines of “Don’t you know the scripture . . . ?”  to a Pharisee who was so caught up in making his own oppressive laws against sinning that he became ignorant of the real intent behind God’s law.  You remember how this went in the incident with the grain-picking on the Sabbath.  Jesus wasn’t about to be lectured to.  I can just imagine the eye-roll he barely managed to hide from those tassel-wearing nitpickers.

What makes Christians “bad” in the area of sex is the combination of both kinds of dangerous ignorance—of knowing too little of sin and evil, and of creating well-intentioned-but-impossible rules that defy God’s objective–a combination which, sadly, stands as common practice in today’s purity-ring wearing Christian subculture.

* * *To be continued!* * *

Well, folks, prophesy fulfills itself, especially when you post it in a blog that you’ve invited God and everybody to read (Seriously. God gets tagged as a category on these posts!).

In a post from earlier this summer, I wrote about my lack-of-a-job situation and about the time a waitressing position (almost) fell in my lap.  Then I got all English-major-y and quoted from Jane Eyre. I think I selected some passages about Jane’s humility in accepting a “pud” job, reasoned that I shouldn’t be too proud to take such a position, and mused, in a self-comforting way, that my career-focused skills “will keep” until a later, more economically fruitful time.

Well, I now have a job. ::Gasp!:: And, as chance would have it, it’s in no way related to my English major, my publishing experience, or my little forays into journalism.

Instead, it’s drawing on the experiences I’ve had that I thought were worthless.  In three days  at my new gig (two spent training, one spent working), I’ve drawn on my multi-colored backgrounds in stagecraft, group psychology, ballroom dancing, opera, improvisational comedy, Spanish (language), Chinese (language and culture), coquetry, Google-searching, touch-screen technology, child care, advertising consultation, and even my short story writing to learn the ropes of this job, to navigate those ropes without getting too tangled up, and  to endear myself to my fellow restaurant staff members.

That’s right, readers. I am a waitress (PC term: server) in the entertainment dining industry.  I’m at a restaurant not three miles from my home, working for a family of dreamers that I adore, and having an exhausting, hilarious time.

God, himself a fan of family-run businesses, is matchless in his irony.  He really surprised me on this one, but then again, his ways are higher than my ways and his thoughts are much, much higher than my thoughts.

Some of you may be wondering why I call this a God-given thing. Allow me to explain.

Those familiar with my personal theories on theology know that I believe that the best, highest, and most artfully-arranged comedy to be found can only come from God.   Seriously. Read the gospels and look for Jesus’s wit.  He’s hella funny, but his kind of humor is extremely sophisticated and layered.  Many times, his witticisms go way over the heads of us modern readers who don’t understand how first-century Jews would have understood and responded to his jokes. But there are some jokes that Jesus uttered that we can understand better at the second millenium than the first-centurians could.  One of my favorite ones of those comes from the last chapter of the Gospel of John, when the resurrected Jesus gets peppered with questions about when he’ll be back for the final reckoning.  The disciples all hope they’ll live to see it, but Peter, being a consummate pragmatist, looks at the youngest disciple, John, and asks Jesus if Johnny-the-Kid will live to see the Second Coming.  I can picture Jesus smiling to himself when he responds,

“If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you?” (Jn 21:22).

John, of course, grew to become the visionary prophet who eventually got to write the entire book of Revelation concerning Christ’s return.  Jesus kept John alive, though aged, weak, and in exile on an island, so that Johnny could get a good glimpse of the upcoming epic spiritual party before he shuffled off his mortal coil to await the actual show with the rest of us.

Funny?  Yup.  Jesus is a real crack-up who knows an inside joke when he foresees one.

But Satan, like any beautiful and self-absorbed bimbo, remains in the narrow but omni-present realm of low-brow comedy, also known as the gutter.  His jokes are simple, flat, tasteless, and usually found on Comedy Central.

The comedy–heck, the divine irony–of my particular job search is too complex for a punchline and avoids reference to sexuality or any scatological themes.  Hence, it’s too high a form of wit to be anything but God-granted-and-delivered.

Here’s the story, laid out for laughability:

I’d just gotten a lump of disappointment stuck in my throat in the form of the fourth turn-down/brush off from the publishing company I’d been pining after for a job all year. I’d flunked the editing test (not surprising since, let’s face it, a slight acquaintance in college with, and a six-hour study session of, the Chicago Manual of Style doesn’t compete with the several years of experience that the other candidates had under their belts).  They told me to try back again in six months and keep a lookout for other positions at the company that weren’t involved in the copy-editing process.  I thanked them and went out for a strawberry daiquiri with my mother at the local Mexican restaurant. Not to drown in my woes, mind you.  Just to get my feet under me and a sense of hopeful, glass-half-full (literally) optimism.

As we got out of the car, I noticed that the new Asian steakhouse/sushi joint was open for business. It had been under construction for the past several weeks. I wondered if they were hiring.  I decided, on some wild impulse, to inquire within and see.  Turns out, yes, they were, and would I like an application?  Sure thing.

After a quick interview the next morning in which I outlined my very skimpy serving qualifications (“Do you have any experience working in a restaurant?” “No, but I’m experienced with customer service because of this one job I had filling work orders for property maintenance.  Oh, and I’m comfortable around people.  Children included.  I was a substitute teacher and a nanny, see?  I’m also used to public speaking and acting chipper even when I don’t feel like it. And I had a lemonade stand, once, too.”), I was asked if I could report for training on Saturday. I reflected on my interview interaction with the manager, who I’ll call Mr. X, and I decided that I liked Mr. X’s personality and felt like he was a warm and hardworking person; his wife, who had fluttered around during the interview session and occasionally added her two cents, had a maternal presence and no fear of her husband, just a lot of respect that went beyond the usual Asian norm for the marital relationship.   With these thoughts in my mind, I committed myself to the job and, with that,  to the young couple that is attempting to build a life for themselves around their baby restaurant.

And just like that, after three months of looking, someone took a chance on me and hired me.  And all because I was willing to take a chance on them.  That it happened to be a waitressing position made good on the change of heart that I had when I met Donna (see July 16 post).  And, of course, it’s as far away from anything English as it could possibly be.  Not the language; not even the food.  However, it was right under my nose:  just three miles away from my house, and right next to the place where I was going to sip the blended nectar of my woes.

God sure is a laugh-riot.

It’s been three days, and nearly twenty-three hours of work and training on my tired feet, and I’m not sorry for it yet.   I think it’s because I finally have a kind of calling.

I’ve come to like my employers as people, and I’ve even met their super-supportive family, whose members flew across the country and the world to help staff and finance the business.  Mr. X himself works two jobs: full-time restaurant manager/chef, and schoolbus driver.  Our head waiter, Ricky, told me that Mr. X sleeps maybe three hours a night.  Mrs. X does all the accounting and hostessing and will even cover tables as needed. She’s the fast-fluttering, uncatchable butterfly of the restaurant, and just as beautiful, as only women from Asia can be in their delicate way.  Mr. and Mrs. X have two children, who are often at the restaurant after school and in the mornings, as their age dictates, but they are quiet, shy, and often serious, even in their silliness. Mr. X’s brother, a cheerful Hongkongesian named Felix, just flew back to the Pacific Northwest after working full-time as the head chef at the hibachi from opening night onward.  Mr. X’s mother, who I’ll call Grandma X, is still helping out when and where she can, even though her tiny vocabulary of English limits her.

Inside all of this mountain of effort to keep the restaurant running are its miners, the cooks and servers.

Our sushi chef is an artist, and works full-time, with no nights off. The under-chef is learning from Mr. X  how to take Felix’s place in the front as head chef someday. In the meantime, our under-chef and the assistant cook help us servers do the dishes and get orders out to us as fast as they can.  The majority of them are Mexican and appreciate it when I clarify a complicated order by peppering it with details in Spanish.  My fellow servers include head-waiter Ricky, his wife Hillary, and a third girl named Kayla who only comes in on weekends (I think).  Ricky trained me, and is an unstoppable force when he’s got several tables to see to.  Charismatic, physically strong, and underserved by life, Ricky is barely twenty, if that, but is already a father.  But he and Hillary are trying to offset the upset of their late-teenage pregnancy by balancing their work schedules so that someone is home for their little girl. They both work like crazy–and do it with a kind of pride.  They know it’s what’s keeping them both from falling out of the bottom of the middle class, and they’re holding onto their respectability like it’s sacred.  I admire them for trying to make a good life for themselves and their daughter.

I think you can tell that I like them all immensely.

And wonder of wonders, they’re starting to like me back.  Ricky, of course, liked me after the first time I astutely anticipated his orders and bussed a slew of tables without complaint.  The cooks decided that they liked me as soon as they found out that I spoke Spanish well enough to compliment their work.  The X’s children decided that they liked me the minute they caught me dancing in the kitchen before the restaurant opened for dinner and I teased them for spying.  Mrs. X decided she liked me when she saw how often I smiled at customers, how carefully I took Ricky’s orders, and how hard I tried just in general. (“You have a great work attitude! Good job!” she told me Saturday.)  Mr. X was won over mostly by his wife–I think–in my favor, but he told me just yesterday that he was observing Ricky and me from his spot at the grill and noticed that I “move like the girl from that movie Enchanted. What’s her name? Amy Adams.  You have a little dancing walk!”  Mrs. X chimed in, “And cute [read: expressive, Caucasian] eyes!”  Even Grandma X smiled at me yesterday when I thanked her for her assistance with bussing a table in her native Cantonese, then followed that up with a question in Mandarin, which is more comfortable for me, and easy enough for her to understand.  She told me she’ll teach me more Cantonese, which I think means that she wants to keep me.

So I’m where I feel like I’m supposed to be, or at least where I belong, right now.

Only trouble is, these people all keep bringing me food. Again, God is the ultimate comedian:  by making sure that my fears about going hungry are laid to rest, he sends me to a place where all the people want to do is stuff my face.

Addendum (added after the original post in a slap-happy moment):

Here’s more proof that God wants me to be happy.  Hugh Jackman (my fav actor and all-around performer, who is an amazing family man and just generally awesomely talented to boot) will be in a movie next year with Robert Pattinson (my fav eye candy and a constant source of comic relief.  Seriously, the stuff that man says!).   The movie will be called “Unbound Captives” and also stars Rachel Weisz, a wonderful, darling, adorable actress in her own right.  In addition to this wonderful news . . .

Oh hai! How you been? Still goooorgeous, I see.

Oh, the hugging is difficult. The Man-Love is too handsome to look at.

This delightful moment of starry-eyed reunion and recognition, in which both HughJax and RPattz seemed to both be thinking– Oh, hai, you! We’re going to be in a movie together, and I remember you from that karaoke bar in Japan where we sang together, and the plane ride back to LA, and then the Oscars!–was captured at the Teen Choice Awards this weekend and reported on some online newsreels frequented by girls who care about the Twilight franchise. It seriously made me very happy, just because they both look so darn cute and excited to see each other.   I think a few of my readers will enjoy this, too.  Let me know–leave a comment!

My clever and adventurous friend, Thiana, has just created a blog here on WordPress called ArgenThiana (argenthiana.wordpress.com).  Go for a visit if you like travel, short people, stories about the strange things  that foreigners and foreign wanderers do, etc.  She’s off around Christmas for the grand adventure, so that means that now is her time for preparing financially, physically, and linguistically for the challenges ahead. 

Take a peek and wish her Godspeed!

I went with two old friends to the pool today,

where we talked about getting older still,

and about when

we might marry

and if

we’d have children

and how

to find work and independence.

We worried collectively about the future

and expressed the wish for a cool dip—

a chance to sip and swallow

a mouthful, just a mouthful,

from the well of happiness at last.

This drought’s gone on so long

that even tears have run dry.

Lord, you once asked

a ragged, risqué woman

for a drink from a well,

in Samaria, if you recall.

You offered her everything.

Please take care of us.

Oh, eHarmony.  Oh, blind dates. Oh, meddlesome girlfriends with guy friends they know would be perfect for you. How do I love/hate thee?  Let me count the ways.

Actually, let me not.  I’d rather have this post be about the trouble that comes to call when a girl decides to date in the postmodern world.  And when I say trouble, I mean more than just frustrations and little annoyances.  Read and see . . .

Times of Trouble

As a young lady on the lookout for love these days, you essentially have three options:

1. You can use the internet matchmakers and browse pictures and profiles (for a price, and with another substantial cost in patience).
2. You can rely on your friends to set you up.
3. Or, you can go out and hope for chance meetings.

Actually, all three of these options, fail or fly, rely on chance.

It’s all risky.

When you actually manage to make a connection, there’s a buffet of ways available to help you begin to organize your further communication.  Numbers are exchanged, Facebook friendships are formed (added, whatever),  AIM screen names may be traded.  Then he (if he isn’t a wuss) calls you/texts you/messages you to set up the date.  One never knows which way he’ll attempt to ask you out , or even if he’ll get up the guts to do it, and you can’t ever be certain when you answer him as to how your answer will be received and read for tone and tenor through an electronic medium.

This entire process is tricky.

Then the date happens. You do something fun and awkward together. You sit and talk in a variety of settings, usually over food. This part hasn’t changed since the ‘50s, and it’s no big deal.

Other things happen then that haven’t changed since the beginning of time. You notice little things about how he smells (you firmly believe in good hygiene), how his body is angled towards you (you firmly believe in body language as a reliable signaling system for those with a healthy social IQ), how he looks to you (because, let’s face it, you care as much as he does about chemistry), and how he looks at you (you firmly believe in just enough eye contact as signs of proper feeling, respect, and interest).

Then comes the part that I can’t stand: If any of these primitive assessments render disappointing results, or worse, mind-bogglingly inconclusive results, you still have to figure out how to respond to the guy, and you have to do it quickly: typically, before the date draws to a close and he inevitably begins to shuffle his feet and unsubtly cast about for feedback.

Since he’s paid for dinner and tried to show you his best side all night, you’re really on the spot now. You struggle to be sweet but honest and grateful without giving him too much hope that you’re dying to be with him in every way, forever.  You hem and haw, you offer a few compliments, you assure him you had a good time, and then you try to nicely back off without crushing him or cutting him off completely, depending on the case.  This task takes an enormous amount of emotional analysis and intellectual perspicacity.  It also requires you to think faster than your heart actually beats. To make matters worse, you also have to consider what little you do and don’t know about the guy, and then whether or not he’s exaggerated any information he has offered to you during the course of the evening.  Your boundaries of trust extend and retract, and your head feels like it might just explode while he stands there waiting with puppy-dog eyes for your answer.

Ugh. Ugh. Ugh.

Given this situation, nobody can really come away from a date feeling totally confident or satisfied. For men and women both, the postmodern dating game frankly . . . sucks.

Denying Biology

Part of the reason why dating today bites is that both sexes have gotten into the quick-results mindset fed to us by a world ruled by computerized assessments. We sit down, we take some questions and answer some questions, we input some measurements and fill out a ratings scale, and then we foolishly expect results to flash instantaneously onto our mental screens in the form of a decided opinion, a firm yes or no.

While this process may be effective for men, who naturally dwell in the realm of –ahem—erective  absolutes in terms of attraction (up or down, yes or no, turned on or off,  a “woohoo!” or “woof!”), women just don’t work that way and never will (sorry, second-wave feminists).

We women dwell in the exotic realm of maybe.  And we live there for an awfully long time before we decide to walk outside of it, and outside of ourselves, in order to make a definitive decision in the mating game.   As it is for men, our decision-making process is largely determined by our sexual makeup.

Without getting too crude, I’ll just outline some basics.  Sexually, women can be partially aroused and hardly aware of it until later–just like we sometimes don’t realize our attraction to a man until we get a chance to pause for reflection.   And even if our interest is immediately peaked, women, unlike men, don’t feel the urge to do something about our feelings right away, because we don’t have to (we don’t experience pain if we don’t, and nothing on our body decides to, er, change to, um, an unhealthy color).  In fact, the female body—and our mind—counsels us to wait: to wait for our feeling of interest to rise, for the situation to get better, for more information about this man, for greater emotional intimacy with this man, for a better man to walk in the door, for God to give us some leading concerning which man to choose, etc.

So we wait. We ladies literally sit on our eggs.  We do this because we feel, intensely, the fullness of our responsibility to provide the world with the next generation of life.  We know that, as women, we’ve got to carry that responsibility (literally), and that we have to choose our mates exceedingly well so that we aren’t left alone to shoulder the burden (because, let’s face it, the village scatters once you raise a child). We also know we want our kids to have a good chance of being smart, good-looking, and well cared-for.  So if we’re even of average intelligence, awareness, and sobriety, we gals think really, really hard before we make any moves towards a physical relationship and a major commitment (because for most girls, those two go hand-in-hand).  We women know that we essentially must put all our eggs in one basket, so to speak, and so we need to spend a decisive amount of time  basket-shopping.

In today’s warp-speed dating game, the girls are at a definite disadvantage.  But so are the guys, simply because we women frequently get ticked off at the poor fellas for pushing their advantage and making us feel rushed, vulnerable, or even threatened.  In the end, both would-be lovers walk away with frayed nerves crackling with irritation, frustration, and confusion.

What can we do?

Short of throwing on a period costume and attending geekified Renaissance/Reproduction Fairs, what's an old-fashioned girl like Ruth to do?

If We Could Turn Back Time

In light of all the problems attendant upon today’s dating game, I really miss certain things about the old-fashioned rites of courtship.  I miss, for example, the fact that courtship was done with a community emphasis, where the men and women involved were expected to know each other by reputation at the very least before any “calls” were made.  Family got involved on both sides of the relationship and interacted with the would-be wooer and the would-be wooed. The couple could then see each other in a variety of communal settings where the romantic pressure was minimal and the realities of their personalities—not an impressive show put on over dinner and a movie—had a better chance of coming out. For instance, the girl would get to see how Mr. Maybe played with his dog, talked to his little sister, treated his great-aunt, and hob-nobbed with friends and neighbors.  Mr. Maybe would get to see his Miss Perhaps as she existed in her native environment, too,  which was usually her in home.  After that, he could really make a decision about his feelings for the lady based on some firmer knowledge of her than, say, just her cup size and an online profile that lists her trivial pursuits.  He got to see her for what she really was, and vice-versa.

Now comes the best part:  after the young man got around to thinking about what he ‘d learned about the girl in question, he would then declare his intentions for an official courtship — in writing, not in a face-to-face confrontation—and the lady would have the time to sleep on the man’s feelings and figure out her heart.  It was expected in those days that the woman would take time and privacy to make this kind of decision, and that if her decision fell ultimately against the man, the lack of attempted romance between the man and his lady prior to this decision would make the sting a little less sharp for him.

In our modern-day world, where independence is everything, and community, family, and even neighborhoods are so loosely knit as to render themselves useless as resources, this sort of courtship can’t really happen.  (Sorry to burst your bubbles, Joshua Harris and Elisabeth Elliot.*)

But I’ll tell you some principles that I think can, and should still apply:  Men could adapt a more non-restrictive form of dating and remember to give their girl of interest at least a lunar cycle to figure out her feelings before they decide to corner her for a decision.   Women, conversely, could adapt to the male-catering nature of today’s dating by being more honest about their developing feelings once they reach some recognizable shape.  This requires more self-analysis and self-awareness than many women can bear; it also means a lady has to tell her date some hard truths, which is also very difficult for women raised in our non-offensive era.  (I know I’m often guilty of playing nice when I should be truthful.)

Although these alterations to current dating practice might take some practice, the rewards could well be worth it. At the end of the day, courtship’s principles hold some real wisdom for everyone, simply by counseling  both sexes to be thoughtful of, and responsible to, ourselves and each other.

The reward of these adjustments—a relationship that has time to unfold fully—is not only more satisfying than the alternative, but it might just be the answer to so many relational problems men and women experience today.  After all, nothing lasting can be rushed, and nothing true can be built on kindly-meant dishonesty.

Now that I’ve had my long-little rant, I’ve got some work to do in my own messy love life.  Meantime, I’d like to hear any and all of your feedback on this argument!

Notes on the allusions:

*Elisabeth Elliot, author of the Christian-homeschooler’s staple works on sexuality, Passion and Purity (1984), Let Me Be a Woman (1999), and many other works.  She’s got a lot of old-fashioned wisdom, but it’s often hard to apply it to a modern setting. Elliot is incredibly intelligent and thoughtful, however, and her writing reflects this.

*Joshua Harris,  author of the semi-revolutionary I Kissed Dating Goodbye (1997) and the companion work, Boy Meets Girl: Say Hello to Courtship (2000). Harris, along with other contemporary Christian authors like Eric and Leslie Ludy, is a leader among the countercultural movement of young Christians seeking to reclaim sexual purity like the Crusaders tried to retake the Holy Land.  In the interest of securing the souls of all sexually-driven teenagers, Harris and Co. champion rules like no kissing and no body-to-body hugging before the wedding day in their books.  They also advise that you be rarely left alone with your person of interest while you’re dating/courting. This might be a good idea for high schoolers without even a modicum of self-control and with a driving need for the structure of concrete rules, but it’s obviously impractical, impossible, and inappropriately legalistic for adults with a well-developed moral center.  My recommendation is that all these authors re-read the Song of Solomon and underline every verse that talks about the kissing going on before Solomon and the Shulamite get married–especially the sneaky kisses the Shulamite wishes she could deliver in public without risking chastisement. It’s clearly all natural, healthy fun.  I also advise these writers to stop scaring kids about sex and public schools.  It’s not really helping the vast population of turtle-Christians to come out of their shells and interact with the real world.  It’s also killing God-given sensuality.  More on that in another post, I think (current working title: “Christians Are Bad at Sex”).

Some fabulous resources:

1. Wing to Wing, Oar to Oar: Readings on Courting and Marrying. Eds. Leon and Amy Kass. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2000.  >>> A super-fabulous collection of thoughtful essays, bits of old literature, pieces of new criticism, and a lot of intelligent, soulful discussion on the meaning of love, sex, mating, and marriage.  Kass and Kass chronicle the historical journey of courtship and dating from the front porch to the back seat, and they discuss the merits, downfalls, folly, and wisdom of each step.  RUTH HIGHLY RECOMMENDS!

2. Graglia, F. Carolyn.  Domestic Tranquility:  a Brief against Feminism. Dallas: Spence, 1998. >>> A sassy, sexy, and beautiful tour-de-force written by a lawyer-feminist-turned-housewife on the true nature of female sexuality and the ways in which postmodern feminism oppresses it in our culture.   Graglia doesn’t shy away from a gritty discussion of womankind’s deeply-seated sexual instincts revealed in the psychology and literature of women across the world. Ruth is almost through with this 400-pager, and she recommends it for those who don’t easily blush.  Actually, the blushers need to read it, too, especially those turtle-Christians.

3. Crittenden, Danielle. What Our Mothers Didn’t Tell Us: Why Happiness Eludes the Modern Woman. NY: Simon and Schuster, 1999.>>> Crittenden writes a kick-ass skinny-yet-heavy treatise on how feminism has screwed up relationships between men and women, and why the sexual revolution didn’t help matters much, either.  She offers some interesting solutions and some sharp insight.  Ruth thinks that if you don’t have the patience to read Graglia’s big brief, this is a nice, small, but less artful, substitute.

In the wake of making a few brain-fart-style mistakes on an editing assessment that had me in self-frustrated tears on the drive home from really great publishing company, I had an epiphany.  Well, Mom had a strange comment, and it forced my epiphany while I sniffled and stir-fried the fajitas for supper. 

“I am so sick of hearing about genetics!” she exclaimed. 

“What?” I said. 

“I’m tired of people saying that, because of my genes, I’m doomed to this or that.” 

Well, I thought, the makeup of our bodies do rule certain things about us.  Take, for example, today, when low blood sugar combined with an anxiolytic in my blood stream combined with the draining effects of mensus (TMI?  Too bad. I’m fertile. Deal with it; I have to!). I just wasn’t on the top of my game.  I’m hoping against hope that I still managed to at least score high enough on the assessment to get a callback, but I noticed during the exam that feeling queasy and anemic wasn’t helping my concentration at all. 

 Was I doomed just by the confluence of being hungry and being a girl at the mercy of the lunar cycle—the disappointing sum of biology plus genetics plus astrology?  What about the sheer force of my will? You know, mind over matter?  Shouldn’t that trump circumstance?  What about all those prayers people have been saying for me and those that I’ve spoken into the night?  Is God in this, outside of this, or all over this? 

It all led me to thinking, what guides fate?  

Personally, I think God works in mysterious ways. He pulls from circumstance, like body stasis, from temperament, from our own natures, and yes, even our genes and physical features to place us in the right state at the right time to (he hopes) make the right choice.  

I could type about determinism vs. voluntarism until my wrists fall apart and you decide to go check your Facebook rather than read this post.   Instead, I’ve decided to avoid discussing Calvinism and boring you all to death (because Calvinism bores me to death by recycling the same scripture verses as “proof” that God determines our eternal fates, all while ignoring the many other verses that discuss God’s wish that man will make good choices concerning his own eternal destiny. Bleh.).  If you all’re game, I’d like to play with a weird theory that has been running around in my head like a mouse on the loose in a grain silo.  (And, as always, I also want to hear your theories about what elements contribute to our “fate,” or our path—or our lack thereof!) 

Maybe I’m too much of a Victorian, and therefore put too much irrational stock in physiognomy and even, to some extent, phrenology.  But I’m honestly fascinated by how physical features sometimes reflect what goes on behind someone’s face.  I often wonder if our looks reflect our personalities, our outlooks, and maybe even–like a talent or a predilection–point us to some kind of future interest or destiny. 

In a curious, information-collecting mood, I discovered that I have what are known to the Japanese as “sanpaku” eyes (san-bai-ku: three-white-eye, by my Chinese rendering).  I ran across the word in a physiognomy treatise, Googled it, and came up with some articles on Wikipedia and the crack-pot of fun called Educate-Yourself.org that explain the concept this way:  

“Sanpaku references the belief held by some that the visibility of the white of the eye between the iris and the lower eyelid is a sign of physical and spiritual imbalance. Some societies consider Sanpaku (San Pacu) eyes to denote physical and mental superiority, also beauty. By all accounts it is a very rare and significant physical characteristic, envied and admired by some, but misunderstood, resented, and feared by others. Some representations of certain gods and heroes are shown with this characteristic.”1 

Sanpaku eyes are strange because they’re apparently out of our natural alignment. 

“When a baby is born, the iris, or colored part of the eye, is usually beautifully balanced between the upper and lower eye lids. It touches the upper and lower lids, so that no white, or sclera, shows above or below. The sclera is visible only to the left and right of the iris. This indicates a balanced and healthy nervous system. . . . When a person dies, the iris rises so that it partially disappears under the upper eyelid. The white sclera shows below. In Oriental Medicine, we call such an appearance sanpaku, which means “three whites” showing. Three whites, or sanpaku, is common among those who are ill or exhausted. It is most severe among those who are gravely ill and approaching death.”2 

Raw Mahdiyah, author of the Educate-Yourself.org article, argues that there are two kinds of sanpaku eyes:  yin and yang, appropriately.  Yin is the most common.  In the yin sanpaku eye, the iris rests above the natural center line of the eye and reveals the “third white” in a sliver of sclera below the iris, even when the person is looking straight ahead.  Yang sanpaku has the opposite effect on a person’s gaze: the iris floats towards the bottom of the eye, revealing more of the white above the iris.  

According to Mahdiyah, each type of sanpaku comes with a distinct set of problems.  Yin sanpakus apparently draw in danger “from outside. A person with yin sanpaku eyes will place himself or herself in dangerous or threatening situations unwittingly—and may not survive.”  Mahdiyah adds that yin sanpaku can be caused by an excess of “yin substances, such as sugar, refined grains, alcohol, and medical drugs.”  Yin, of course, is also associated in Chinese medicine with strong feminine energy.  No wonder it’s linked to an excess of carbs and sweet stuff like chocolate. 

Mahdiyah goes on to explain that yang sanpakus, rather than drawing danger to themselves from the outside, are flippin’ dangerous to others. Charles Manson  (pictured below right) apparently had a startling yang sanpaku gaze.  A yang sanpaku’s menace manifests itself in impulsive violence, and his diet, according to Eastern Medicine tradition, is excessive in meat, hard cheeses, and salt.  Yang is the masculine force of the Dao in Chinese tradition.  Apparently, this kind of gaze reflects an over-machismo’d inside. 

Charles Manson, showing some major "yang" above his irises. Scary.

Sounds kinda silly, doesn’t it?  Like a fortune cookie for the face.  Still, I had time on my hands, so I got curious and looked up the famous sanpakus that the Wikipedia article mentioned, including JFK and Abe Lincoln (both pictured on the Wiki), Princess Di,  Marilyn Monroe, and Robert Pattinson (I’ve thrown in picspam of the last, because he practically makes his living off of his exotic-looking eyes). 

Rob Pattinson's obvious yin sanpaku shows up on the red carpet, not just in "Twilight."

 These folks all were, or are, intelligent, magnetic, and slightly unstable yin sanpakus. Most of them were considered beautiful—even sex symbols—innovative, daring, unique, or in many ways simply other-worldly.  Many of them have been given roles of leadership, whether in a film or in the Oval Office.  Most of them have met an untimely death, often by drugs or violence or bizarre accident. 

Robert Pattinson, showing off his trademark yin sanpaku eyes in profile this time, as well as showing off a lot of other pretty parts of his face.

As a fellow yin sanpaku, I should, perhaps, be a little more worried. I think that the coincidence is uncanny, but the theory behind it smells strongly of superstitious speculation—the result of Asians that have become far too fascinated with the diversity of the large-eyed Caucasian gaze, the size of which naturally opens up the possibility for more visible sanpaku traits than an Asiatic eye. 

Young actor Ronald Reagan displays an extreme yin sanpaku.

I kept swallowing grains of salt while I read along and smiled to myself.  But I confess I still felt intrigued. I wracked my brain to think of some other sanpakus, just to see if they matched the personality types, too.  I came up with Johnny Depp—a yin sanpaku most prominently on his right eye—and the strongly-yin Ronald Reagan (pictured here as a young man in one of the rare pictures where he’s not smiling). Personality-wise, they’re both magnetic. Both actors, at least at one time in Reagan’s career, anyway, and both clearly creative individuals. In terms of expressing any yin-type danger, I had to dig a little deeper.  Depp is, of course, in good (heck, super-fine) health, but he’s revealed a near-suicide attempt in the past (weird story involving Tim Burton’s intervention), and Reagan was almost assassinated while he was in office.  Hmmm. 

 

Johnny Depp's devastating black-eyed, one-sided, yin-sanpaku stare.

I dug a little further and found that some folks on obscure discussion boards have suggested that Obama and Martin Luther King Jr. also share yin sanpaku features.  A sign of future danger for the president?  Maybe.  

Creepy?  Just a little bit. 

Anyway, I’m now reconsidering the old adage, “the eyes are the windows to the soul.” Is there wisdom in it? 

And if so, am I running to the end of a short expiration date?  If I am, I’m hoping I at least get a chance to leave a mark with the loved ones I leave behind . . .  And, I suppose, even if I’m not going to die young and leave a pretty corpse, I will at least continue to try to leave a positive impact on the world.  So here I go, tossing out some strange, deep thoughts to get you all thinking about God and your faces, your insides and your outsides. 

I hope you all have fun staring at yourselves in the mirror and trying to figure out if you have sanpaku eyes. 

Marilyn Monroe, with another telling yin sanpaku stare.

Sources (salt not included): 

1. “Sanpaku.” Wikipedia.  <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanpaku>
2. Mahdiyah, Raw. “Sanpaku Eyes.” < http://educate-yourself.org/ww/sanpakueyes16feb06.shtml>.

 Images: Google.  I got lazy. 

Interesting side note: 

Macrobiotic diet guru George Ohsawa wrote a book entitled, You Are All Sanpaku (1963) and dedicated it to JFK and Lincoln, warning JFK specifically that he had “too much sanpaku” and was in danger.  The book was given to Kennedy just a few months before he was assassinated.