Light

If I can be difficult one final time this year, let me say that I am highly skeptical of the Light the World machines.

I know a lot of people love them and are really excited about them, but it seems to be creating that excitement via a gimmick for something we should already be doing.

Currently there is a machine at Washington Square. Through it, you can definitely make donations to Blanchet House: https://blanchethouse.org/

Blanchet House are always here.

Based on what I have seen, one of the other recipients is Heifer International: https://www.heifer.org/ 

They are always there. 

Some also appear to be for Salvation Army.

Their bell ringers are everywhere this time of year, though I don't give to them because of their well-known homophobia, meaning they often deny assistance to the most vulnerable. 

(There could be some other thoughts to have there about that being a good match for us, but I'm not getting into that now.) 

I am sure there are people who are inspired to give by the machines, but that inspiration should already be there.

I see a lot of people smiling by the machines, holding up their cards and posting on Facebook. 

That might seem a little bit like bragging, but no, they are just really excited about how cool it is and that they are participating.

It seems so sterile. 

Blanchet House is right downtown. They accept cash donations, but they also have volunteer opportunities.

With those opportunities, you are going to see the unhoused and smell them and be painfully aware of the economic stratification. 

You may find it easy to judge; assume that they were lazy or messed up in some way, but you may also get to know them, and find out that they are living in their car but holding down a job, or that they drink now but they didn't before.

It is harder to overlook their humanity when they are right in front of you.

It's not that the machines are too easy; making it easier has some definite benefits. 

I worry about how much less personal it is.

There are so many scriptures about how to give and why, but the one that keeps coming to mind is about something else entirely:

But verily I say unto you, that it is not needful for this whole company of mine elders to be moving swiftly upon the waters, whilst the inhabitants on either side are perishing in unbelief. -- D&C 61: 3

I am also thinking of 1 John 4:20

If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?

I am thinking about it not because of the hypocrisy of proclaiming love for God and feeling hate for people, but the potential loss of even seeing our brothers, knowing they are there and what they need. 

The thing I keep pounding on over and over again is how much we need to love each other, and how that love seems to be so sadly lacking, and how easy it could be to not even notice.

I doubt the ability of a vending machine to fix that.

The potential patriarchy of Christmas

In terms of scheduling, based on the most recent posts I was thinking I should do a kind of primer on dominator culture and related terms. Then I thought, it's Christmas Eve; just wish people a merry Christmas and give them a break.

Then material presented itself, as it does.

First of all, there was this TikTok clip that many people were responding to:

https://www.tiktok.com/@therobbieharvey/video/7306933113307942174 

The husband is filming on Christmas morning and notices an empty stocking, asking his wife if it is extra.

It's hers. 

He asks why it is empty and she says she guesses Santa didn't bring her anything.

It was posted as a reminder to husbands that you are responsible for your wife's stocking.

The worse response to it I saw was one woman saying she needs to ask for more money so her kids don't think she is bad, and it is her responsibility to ask for more money if she is not getting enough.

In the husband's defense, he does apparently get her gifts every year, but for ten years of marriage he never thought about the stocking.

This can go back to discussions on emotional labor. 

https://preparedspork.blogspot.com/2018/12/the-exhaustion-of-heavy-lifting.html

A lot of the remembering and extra effort is assumed to naturally devolve upon women, including shopping for herself so it looks like Santa thought she was good. 

I don't blame her for not bothering to fill her stocking with everything else she must have to do.

Her husband filling her stocking each year could be a kind and loving solution. Helping with other tasks would probably be even better. We don't know their family dynamic.

There can be lots of ways of making that work. In our family, stockings were generally just candy, so divvying up candy could easily have been done by our mother, whose stocking contents I never thought about. 

Giving a wife some extra just for her to put in what she wants could work. The real issue is not the stocking, but is it truly an equal partnership where even if only one has a paycheck it is understood that is not the only work.

Then this tweet showed up:

https://twitter.com/itskayreion/status/1737450275424891092

Is ok to not buy your kids gifts if they were "bad" all year?

Yes, we are getting here into reasons that I don't like the whole Santa thing, but I have documented that already.

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2013/12/faith-in-white-santa.html

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2012/12/as-grinchy-as-i-get.html 

I will say there are some really good responses, and the original poster kept saying she agreed with those, so maybe she was not looking to justify her upcoming child abuse.

Points that were made include that children may not even remember how they were bad, so if there is going to be correction it needs to happen in the moment, and why haven't you adjusted your parenting style, and so they are having a hard year and you are going to make it worse?

I get all of that, and at the same time am thinking about how giving too much is not good, and that this whole concept works against children in poor families. Again, I have written about all that.

I really only mention it because of the number of responders who were so eagerly committed to "Yes! Punish them!"

I feel like they would tell you to remember the reason for the season right as they miss it completely.

The stumbling block

Just in case anyone missed the point of last week's post, when we try to control what other's do, we are following Satan's plan. 

As Latter-Day Saints we believe that at the Council in Heaven, we chose that people would be able to choose -- which is necessary for our growth -- and that there would be sin but that we would have a Savior to pay for our sins, on condition of repentance.

Forcing everyone to be righteous makes it not even righteous, and we are here because we voted against that, which makes efforts here to impose our will upon others sadly misguided and ironic.

This plan, where the Atonement not only makes it possible for sinners to be forgiven but for those sinned against to be healed is beautiful, and worth celebrating all year. It is easy for our thoughts to turn to it at Christmas.

It is so easy to miss the point.

I believe this is because when there is this competition over control and glory, apparently that makes it natural to choose sides. 

Perhaps there is also a sense that if someone else is bad, that makes us good.

Therefore, sometimes the response to oppression is the desire to oppress.

Sometimes imperfect attempts to do the right thing are treated with more scorn than outright attempts to harm.

The failure of someone else to be Christ-like does not exempt us from our responsibility to be Christ-like.

Even if there is a seductive easiness to that answer, it would not be beautiful. Cruelty would only escalate.

No one would be sanctified.

This does not mean calling evil good, but it does mean offering grace and understanding how hard change can be.

It means supporting the least powerful, but understanding that you can have some privilege and still be vulnerable.

It means wanting good for everyone.

It is not easy, but we have a good example. 

I can give a lot of examples the other way, but then piling on becomes too easy. Yeah, look at them. I'm not like that.

What is most important is self-honesty.

What do I need to repent of?

Am I fair to people I disagree with?

Do I want to control others, or do I wish for them to make their own good choices for the good of themselves and others?

Am I motivated by love? 

Two plans

I could spend more time leading up to this; there are so many more examples.

People respond emotionally to the examples, but those are not necessarily convincing. Some people will continue to feel superior and judge, and some people will feel great judging the judgy. Then there are going to be people who feel very agonized, whichever way they end up voting.

There are ultimately two distinct approaches, and there is a clear division between them.

In one plan, everyone gets to choose. There will definitely be sin, but there is also a Savior. That not only allows for repentance to meet forgiveness, but it also allows for healing.

Then, in the other plan, you squash sin by squashing choice. This plan also takes away growth and sanctification. 

One plan chooses control, seeking power and demanding glory.

The other plan humbly chooses agency and enables that agency through sacrifice.

Christ did what no one else could do, but there was still the invitation to be like Him.

We let people choose. We support more information so they can make better choices. We know things won't always work out, but we do what we can to assist with healing. 

And we know judgement is not ours.

Okay, I will throw out one more example.

A Texas woman, Kate Cox, has sued for the right to abort her pregnancy. 

https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/07/us/texas-abortion-ruling/index.html

The child has Trisomy 18 and the mother is in danger of losing her uterus and her life. She wants to continue to parent her two living children, and she wants to be able to have other children in the future.

A judge granted her the abortion, and now Texas AG Ken Paxton is threatening to sue her and the doctors; she must continue to risk her life and health even though her child is going to die.

He is a remarkably corrupt person anyway, and not a doctor, but he wants to dominate and the life of that woman and her husband and current children and future potential children have no value against his prerogative to wield power.

I have friends who had a child with Trisomy 18. They did continue with the pregnancy, and the mother lived and was able to have other children. 

I am sure there were other differences. Kate's pregnancy has already sent her to the emergency room three times in the last month, which may be a good reason to not wait. 

The point is, my friends made a choice. It was a choice that I am sure involved prayer and talking and listening, but they did what they could accept, and they had spiritual experiences and growth from that.

What if they had not had the right to choose?

I've done wrong things and foolish things, but I can feel ownership over it. I am a better person for the choices I have made and the growth I have had.

That is God's plan.

ETA: Just in case there are any questions about whether the proclaimed Texan value of life is sincere, when it was about letting a prison guard in labor get to the hospital in a timely fashion to save her child, they dispute the right to life.

https://www.texastribune.org/2023/08/11/texas-prison-lawsuit-fetal-rights/

Truly being pro-life

One thing that should have been clear from last week's post is that stronger restrictions on abortions not only result in deaths, but in other non-lethal forms of oppression.

That was brought home this week as another woman who miscarried at home (after two visits to the hospital; she was not avoiding medical care) is being prosecuted for abuse of a corpse. 

https://www.wkbn.com/news/local-news/warren-news/woman-charged-with-abuse-of-corpse-in-baby-death-police/

This has started at least one thread of other women who have miscarried into toilets, and how traumatic it was, and the horror and cruelty of having criminal charges added to that.

Some people learn compassion from their experiences, some miraculously avoid it, but it is hard not to notice that the primary pushers of these laws are white men and that it is not just women but primarily women of color who get prosecuted.

We have examples of the horror and cruelty of ever more vicious prosecution and control of women, but can we have a vision of what would be better, even superior to before Roe v. Wade was overturned?

One of the most inspiring things I have ever heard was a talk on reproductive justice by Imani Gandy. 

The three primary principles of reproductive justice are...

1. The right not to have a child.
2. The right to have a child.
3. The right to parent children in safe and healthy environments.

In reading about the environment, I have read terrible stories of birth defects that most often were not viable. The toxic pollution was most often dumped near reservations, but we can find stories of testing and storage on islands with brown populations as well. 

We know there is more likely to be air pollution -- and asthma -- near primarily Black neighborhoods, and that the boundaries of those neighborhoods have been enforced by restrictive covenants and unfair banking practices.

We know that women of color have been subject to forced sterilization until at least the 1970s.

If we were to truly care about the well-being of all people, of all colors and all genders, therefore caring about those lives for longer than the human gestational period, then it would include freedom to have children as well as not to have children. 

More people would feel safe having children.

For those who style themselves both pro-choice and pro-life, when they look at preventing abortions they will talk about things like better sex education and availability of birth control, as well as improving the adoption process. 

Those aren't necessarily bad things, but they are thinking small.

Helping reduce teen pregnancy is a great idea, but if you want a world where women can feel safe having and raising children, then their access to health care and shelter and the necessities of life matter.

If you want a world where men are not trying to coerce women sexually, with or without reproduction, and a world where men are more likely to grasp that rape is wrong and that they shouldn't do it, then you need to work on misogyny, and the full equality of women.

I believe that world would have less abortion, and that it would be a good thing.

Abortions would probably still happen, and people would still likely fornicate too. There are people who find this unacceptable, and will do everything they can to prevent that, at least by other people.

I maintain that the world with this greater level of freedom and support is more Christ-like, and that will be the basis of the next post.