On Subversion and Shame: I Like the Color Pink

I like the color pink.

This has, interestingly, caused not a few people to feel perplexed by me.

The reason for this is that pink is a feminine color. So if you're a man who likes pink this is considered to be strange and deviant.

A part of my fondness for pink has to do with growing up in the 80s where there was a phase of preppy-based chic with khaki pants and pastel colored shirts--yellow, blue, green and pink. More, the pastel colors of Don Johnson in Miami Vice made pink both masculine and cool. In fact, for a senior prom I once went in a white tux from the Miami Vice collection complete with pink tie and cummerbund. Quite a look.

The point is, I grew up liking pink.

But here's the problem. Apparently, pink is really only allowed for men if it's a pink shirt (or a tie). And even that's a statement, particularly here in West Texas. But pink outside of that boundary is considered weird.

For example, given that my hair is long I like to wear bandanas to keep my bangs out of my eyes. I use bandanas sometimes as men aren't allowed to wear headbands. That's what Jana told me when I floated the idea of wearing one. Instead, I use a fake headband called "reading glasses." I use the glasses to pull my hair back as seen in my Streaming video and in the videos with Rachel Held Evans. Side benefit: this is a "headband" that makes me look intellectual.

Anyway, I wear bandanas to keep my hair out of my face (as seen here). And my favorite go-to color for the bandana is pink.

This always makes people do a double-take. Good God, a man with a pink bandana! For example, last fall I was at a High School football game and I was wearing the pink bandana. On Monday one of Jana's colleagues asked, "Did I see Richard wearing a pink bandana at the game on Friday?" Jana responded, "Yeah. Richard likes pink. Why do you ask?" "No reason," she said, "I've just never seen anything like that before."

Few have. At least where I live.

This came to a funny head a few weeks ago. I was given as a gift an Otter Box (a protective case) for my iPhone. I had to order it from our college bookstore. The Box I had before was all black and I found that boring. So the young lady who was helping me was walking me through all the accent colors: navy blue, yellow and, you guessed it, pink.

"I like the pink one," I said.

"The pink one?"

"Yes. I like pink on black. Don't you?"

"Uh, yes. But this is for you, right?"

"Yes. Is that odd?"

"Well, you don't see a lot of guys get pink iPhones."

"It's not totally pink. It's mainly black."

"That's true. But it's still pink."

Yes, I know. But I like pink. Social convention be damned.

Anyway, my iPhone is now a constant source of conversation.

Now why am I telling you all this? Well, the other day I was thinking about the power of social stigma and shaming. Most people wouldn't ever cross a social boundary like this (e.g., getting a black and pink iPhone), even at the expense of their own preferences. The shame, the "sticking out" it just too heavy a burden to bear.

But I wonder. If Christians are supposed to be a "peculiar people" we might need to learn to inoculate ourselves against social shaming. We might need to practice, on a regular basis, small acts of social non-conformity. We need to get used to not caring what people think. We need to become immune to shame.

This reminds me of the shame-attacking exercises of the psychologist Albert Ellis. When working with clients who were totally paralyzed by social shame Ellis would have them do something in public that was both very noticeable and very ridiculous. The most famous example is pulling a banana around on a string in a public place like a mall. Here's a video example of this.

Now most people, those who are terrorized by the opinions of others, would say to Ellis, "I could never do that! It would be too embarrassing." But why live life being bullied by embarrassment? Who cares if people look at you? Who cares if they laugh?

Exactly. The world isn't going to end if people think you're a bit off your rocker. Just look at me.

So learn to embrace your own version of the pink iPhone. Engage in small acts of subversion. Vaccinate yourself against shame. Buck the system.

It might be one of the most important spiritual exercises you practice.

Forget Your False Teachers

I got a Kindle for Christmas this year. I like it, but I still prefer regular books. Probably always will.

The reason I got the Kindle is because you can get all of George MacDonald's works for free or practically free. My plan for the Kindle was to get back into the novels of MacDonald. It's been years since I'd read one. But which one to read first?

I picked Donal Grant as he was the character that stuck with me the most all these years. Perhaps because he was a scholar/tutor. So, a quote for your weekend, from the novel Donal Grant:

Those who seek God with their faces not even turned towards him, who, instead of beholding the Father in the Son, take the stupidest opinions concerning him and his ways from other men--what should they do but go wandering on dark mountains, spending their strength in avoiding precipices and getting out of bogs, mourning and sighing over their sins instead of leaving them behind and fleeing to the Father, whom to know is eternal life. Did they but set themselves to find out what Christ knew and meant and commanded, and then to do it, they would soon forget their false teachers. But alas! they go on bowing before long-faced, big-worded authority--the more fatally when it is embodied in a good man who, himself a victim to faith in men, sees the Son of God only through the theories of others, and not with the sight of his own spiritual eyes.

This quote captures one the greatest lessons I've taken from MacDonald. Following Jesus--obedience to the Master as MacDonald would put it--is the truest path to good theology, orthodoxy, truth, doctrine, and understanding. Behold the Father in the Son and leave the stupid opinions behind. Set yourself to find out what Christ knew, meant and commanded, and then do it, and forget your false teachers.

Insights that changed my life in college.

Meditations on the Little Way: Part 3, "My Vocation is Love"

As mentioned in my last post, Manuscript B of Story of a Soul is considered to be the mystical heart of Thérèse's Little Way. It was written to her sister who asked her to describe her "little doctrine."

The first part of the manuscript is addressed to Marie; the second, longer half is addressed directly to Jesus.

In her opening to Marie Thérèse talks about learning from Jesus "the science of LOVE." (Note: Again, all italics and capitalizations are Thérèse's.) Thérèse describes to her sister the primacy of love and how it relates to her Little Way:

The science of Love, ah, yes, this word resounds sweetly in the ear of my soul, and I desire only this science...I understand so well that it is only love that makes us acceptable to God, that this love is the only good I ambition...

Jesus does not demand great actions from us but simply surrender and gratitude.

After the introductory remarks to her sister Thérèse turns to address Jesus for the rest of the manuscript.

She begins by recounting a vision of Anne, the deceased Founder of the Carmelites in France. In the vision Thérèse asks Anne if God is pleased with her. Does God approve of her Little Way?

Mother, tell me further if God is not asking something more of me than my poor little actions and desires. Is He content with me? ...

She said to me: "God asks no other thing from you. He is content, very content!"

However, this assurance for the Little Way was not enough. Thérèse still struggled with the seeming insignificance of both herself and her spiritual efforts. She wanted her vocation in the church to be heroic:

I feel within me other vocations. I feel the vocation of the WARRIOR, THE PRIEST, THE APOSTLE, THE DOCTOR, THE MARTYR. Finally, I feel the need and the desire of carrying out the most heroic deeds for You.

She wants, "in spite of my littleness," to "enlighten souls as did the Prophets and the Doctors." To, like the apostles, "travel the whole earth to preach Your name," to "preach the Gospel on all the five continents simultaneously and even to the remote isles." She says, "I will be a missionary, not for a few years only, but from the beginning of creation until the consummation of the ages." She wants to be a martyr, to give everything to Jesus: "I would shed my blood for You even to the very last drop." She dreams of being like her fellow countrywoman Joan of Arc.

And yet, there she was, a twenty-three year-old cloistered nun, and by her own account someone of limited talents and abilities. And though that might have been and likely was excessive humility, I think many of us can resonate with Thérèse's struggle. How many of us have wanted to head off to the dangerous mission field? To sell it all and walk off like St. Francis of Assisi? To speak to huge crowds like Billy Graham? To do something radical?

We have heroic dreams for our spiritual lives.

And yet, most of us live quiet lives among friends, family and co-workers. And the smallness of our spiritual lives can make us wonder, like Thérèse wondered, is "God not asking something more of me than my poor little action and desires. Is He content with me?"

Here we find the great appeal of Thérèse's Little Way. It is a heroic path toward sainthood--the "democratization of holiness" as Thomas Merton called it--that everyone can travel. No matter how humble your talents or situation. There is a radicalness that can infuse the workaday.

So Thérèse struggled with her vocation. She wanted to be Joan of Arc, but it wasn't happening. So she began to despair again:

O my Jesus! what is your answer to all my follies? Is there a soul more little, more powerless than mine?

Her answer came in a mystical breakthrough while reading 1 Corinthians 12-13:

I read there, in the first of these chapters, that all cannot be apostles, prophets, doctors, etc., that the Church is composed of different members, and that the eye cannot be the hand at one and the same time. The answer was clear, but it did not fulfill my desires and gave me no peace.

Why? Because she still didn't know what her vocation was. Was she an eye, a hand, an ear, a foot? What part of the body was she?

She read on into Chapter 13...

Without becoming discouraged, I continued my reading, and this sentence consoled me: "Yet strive after THE BETTER GIFTS, and I point out to you a yet more excellent way." And the Apostle explains how all the most PERFECT gifts are nothing without LOVE. That Charity is the EXCELLENT WAY that leads most surely to God.

At last, she had found her vocation. The key to the Little Way. What part of the body would she be?

She would be the heart.

I finally had rest...Charity gave me the key to my vocation. I understood that if the Church had a body composed of different members, the most necessary and most noble of all could not be lacking to it, and so I understood that the Church had a Heart and that this Heart is BURNING WITH LOVE. I understood that it was Love alone that made the Church's members act, that if Love ever became extinct, apostles would not preach the gospel and martyrs would not shed their blood. I understood that LOVE COMPRISED ALL VOCATIONS, THAT LOVE WAS EVERYTHING, THAT IT EMBRACED ALL TIMES AND PLACES....IN A WORD, THAT IT WAS ETERNAL!

Then, in the excess of my delirious joy, I cried out: O Jesus, my Love...my vocation, at last I have found it....MY VOCATION IS LOVE!

Yes, I found my place in the Church...I shall be Love. Thus I shall be everything...

This is the mystical core of the Little Way. To follow the Little Way is to commit to being the heart of the church. The Little Way is to become love incarnate in your day to day existence with others. No grand overseas adventures. No speaking to massive crowds. No riding off like Joan of Arc. Simply becoming love. Right here. Right now.

Thérèse is called "The Little Flower." One reason for this is a metaphor she goes on to use to describe what being love--the heart of the church--is like. She compares the Little Way to strewing flowers around the throne of God. Each small act of love we do is a flower strew in the Courts of Heaven.

But how will she [Thérèse is speaking in the third person] prove her love since love is proved by works? Well, the little child will strew flowers, she will perfume the royal throne with their sweet scents...

I have no other means of proving my love for you other than that of strewing flowers, that is, not allowing one little sacrifice to escape, not one look, one word, profiting by all the smallest things and doing them through love..

Strewing flowers might seem a bit girlish and feminine. I doubt someone, say, like Mark Driscoll sees himself strewing flowers around the throne of God (though I've spent a good minute here smiling as I imagined that). But sentimentality aside, there is steel here. Requiring a hard, Navy SEAL-like discipline. The discipline of the Little Way is to make every act of sacrifice during the day, every look, and every word flow from love. Yes, these are little things, each act a small "flower," but I bet you are beginning to appreciate the heroic audacity of the spirituality of the Little Way. The Little Way isn't, when put into practice, very little at all. It's pretty damn hard to do and you'd be heroic for even trying it. That's why Thérèse is a saint without the riding off to grand adventures like Joan of Arc. Some adventures are standing right in front of you.

Yes, each little flower--each loving word, act, or look you give today--is a little thing. But cumulatively? It's the love of God incarnate. In you. For the world.

Our vocation is love.