Uplifting vs. Clean

I stumbled upon this article on the Deseret News this morning. It reminded me of this article that was recommended to me by a friend a few months ago, which also reminded me of some discussions I've had with parents and students in the past about media/literature which meant I had to write about it.

Both of the above linked articles mention a very similar principle: lack of questionable content is not necessarily the best indication that a work is worth your time, though it is often marketed that way. Just because a film/book/song is void of bad language or illicit sexual relationships or otherwise immoral behavior does not mean that it will teach you anything valuable about life or be anything but Wonder Bread style entertainment: not bad for you, but not exactly nutritious either. (The example used in the second article is "The Waltons". Think 50s style entertainment where conflicts are easily overcome and challenges are silly or not really challenges.) There is media that is (what I would consider, at least) perfectly clean and more like whole grain bread, but it seems to be in the minority.

On the other hand, media that does contain bad language/immoral behavior isn't necessarily evil or bad for you, though lots of it is. It doesn't take long to look through the programs on TV, browse through Netflix, visit a bookstore or listen to the radio before you realize that much of what is presented now is complete, wasted garbage. Immoral people being praised or excused in their immorality, destructive lifestyles being laughed over, fantasy escapist worlds that distract from reality - it's all there. But there are many examples of books/movies/shows, etc. that contain uncomfortable material that are still highly moral and contain valuable lessons. But they are also in the minority.

So what's a consumer of media to do? Many (at least in this area of the world, it seems) try to hide from media altogether. As though escaping it is the answer to the problem and if you avoid it well enough it will, eventually, go away. This is a little ridiculous in my opinion. Media isn't going to go anywhere, and not learning how to use it for good is irresponsible.

On the flip side, I have a number of friends who - out of rebellion for those who are afraid of media, I think - will watch and read anything they wish just to prove a point. I don't think that's quite the solution either.

Douglas Callister's speech "Your Refined Heavenly Home" argues that if we are to be refined, then we need to be aware of creations that have stood the test of time and been long respected by educated, refined individuals. Orson Scott Card's article (see above) claims that everyone approaches a work differently and that some will find spiritual upliftment while others will find the opposite - all from the same work.

Does this mean that one person is more righteous than the other one? Can a book/movie etc. be in and of itself either evil or good and if a person interprets that incorrectly the fault is in them? Particularly if one person would consider something evil and another finds spiritual enlightenment from it - has the one receiving the good had the wool pulled over their eyes, or can the spirit actually teach one person through ratifying the media and another through the condemnation of it?

What do you think?

Be Ye Therefore Perfect

I was up this morning listening to the news when one particular story caught my ear. Today is the first official back to school day for most people across the state, so they had a brief news story on not overbooking your student. Fair enough. There are lots of opportunities in schools and it's a good idea for a student to balance themselves so that they have time to take care of all their responsibilities. I get that.

But then the person they were interviewing said one thing that made me a bit chagrined. She said that it is a myth that every student is exceptionally talented. "Exceptionally talented students are the exception," she said. Instead of trying to expect or encourage exceptional things, we should expose students to a wide variety of activities, she says.

Huh.

First of all - isn't exposing people to a wide variety of activities what often leads to overbooking?

Second: I hate that many parents will listen to this and use it as an excuse for not having their students commit to the tasks they agree to do. I've seen this at every school I've taught at in the last three years - parents model a kind of behavior in their students that encourages partial commitment to any task and end up using church activities as an excuse for that partial commitment.

Third: If said woman belongs to the same church that I do, then a phrase that says "Be ye therefore perfect, even as I (and your Father and Heaven - depending on the location of the quote) am perfect." I'm fairly certain that the idea of perfection could more or less be acquainted with the idea of excellence. In fact, I think they're probably pretty good friends. I seem to remember LDS Prophet Gordon B. Hinckley saying, "Mediocrity will never do, I am capable of something better." But this woman seems to be encouraging parents to expect their son or daughter to be only normal.

Well, that's a load of junk.

I'm not a parent, but I am a teacher. I agree that "exceptionally talented" students are rare, but "exceptionally capable" students are not. So often people use lack of talent as an excuse for mediocrity. But this is not good enough. The LDS church teaches that we are, through following Christ, capable of becoming like God. This life is not a time for us to accept our own mediocrity but for us to learn how "to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield" ("Ulysses", Tennyson.) So why are we encouraging this in our youth? Why are we satisfied with letting them - or ourselves - be given symbolic trophies for little or no real accomplishment? Gold stars and stickers are all well and good - but if we are to become truly great, then we need to seek for a better world - and that takes focus, hard work, and determination.

I am. . .

. . . a teacher.

And I am not ashamed of this. Nor do I regret it. In fact, I think I have the greatest job in the world, because I get to work with the greatest people in the world.

When I tell people I'm a teacher I get very mixed reactions, usually leaning on the "oooh. . . well, that sucks. . . " side. I get the "you're so young to teach high school!" and the "Oh, I'm sorry - I'd never be able to teach teenagers, they're so awful," and the "Well, SOMEONE has to do it." Every time I wish I could let these naysayers see what I see.

I remember being a teenager. I got sick to death of hearing people saying that I would understand when I was in the "real" world. (What about my life wasn' t "real"?) That I was part of a selfish/entitled generation. (I had a job, turned in assignments on time, and helped make sure my house stayed clean, among other things.) That teenagers were rowdy, rebellious and underdressed. (I was none of these things.) I didn't like the stigma of irresponsibility, and nothing got up my gander more than people ignoring my opinions or patronizing me. I see the way people look at teenagers this way still.

But it isn't what I see. It never was.

I see a group of people who are full of possibilities. Who don't need to be pitied or pandered to or appeased - but a group of people who, even in their most disillusioned and jaded attitudes, don't want to be in a class that is boring. I see a group of people who want to learn and take on real-world problems. I see a group of people who are fun and smart and capable of so much more than people think. They come with limitations and baggage and inexperience, but when they come - and their time is not wasted - most of the time they will grow and excel beyond what any awful bureaucratic system would be able to measure with a scantron sheet.

Today I greeted a variety of students and parents at back to school night. Some of them I knew from past classes. Many I did not know. Several people from both groups - the known and the unknown - have come to this school because of the class that I team teach. People who are coming from as far as 30 minutes away, every day, because they believe in this class. It is humbling, a huge honor, and further proof to me that I have picked the right career. I love it. I love being a force for good. I love the reassurance I get from students and parents that what I do is valuable. It is an absolute honor to have been blessed with the chance to work with so many who believe so much of me, instead of so little (as seems to be common in schools any more.)

So, new school year? I'm ready for you. Not with all the materials I need and units prepared, perhaps - but with enthusiasm and determination to do great things.

Grasshoppers and Ants

Embarrassing personal disclosure time:

My mother gave me an excellent book of essays by Louise Plummer recently called Thoughts of a Grasshopper. She thought I would enjoy it since, I, she says, am a grasshopper.

The title refers to the old Aesop tale of ants who spend all summer working (ha!) and then, when the cold winter comes, they are prepared. The grasshopper, on the other hand, spends all his time singing and dancing and playing on his violin and when the winter comes is hungry and left out in the cold by the selfish ants (Aesop), or welcomed in after a lecture by the ants (Disney.)

Given my work situation this summer, I wasn't quite sure how to take this. But I continued reading the article and found that, although I am not wholly grasshopper - I'm far too responsible and afraid of trouble for that - there were some definite comparisons. On my study abroad to England I preferred to hike alone in the back of the group - I revelled in the hours of free time I had to spend day dreaming and letting my thoughts imagine whatever they felt like. When I was a kid I took great pleasure in being the last one at home so that I could put on whatever movie I wanted and, for a little while, pretend to be Anne Shirley or Jo March or Maria Von Trapp or whatever other character I was obsessed with at the moment. I preferred books to recess and writing to socialization. In general, my favorite things involve little human interaction.

Which, perhaps, explains some of the difficulty I have in relationships, romantic or otherwise. I lose interest quickly and move on when the effort doesn't seem worth it any more. Friends move away and I lose touch almost before they leave. I am not unkind to people I don't find interesting, but I don't exactly seek out their company either. I'm not a social recluse, but I'm not a social butterfly either. I'm happiest with a small but close group of friends.

I only say this because it was after I thought about this part of myself that I realized that I do have some grasshopper in me after all. I may be a more prepared responsible grasshopper, but when it comes to relationships, I'm maybe a little too independent for my own good.

This isn't to say that I don't like people. I do. I just - perhaps unfortunately? - seem to approach relationships in the same way that I do books and movies and plays. A friend of mine put it this way, "You just don't want to be the smartest one in the room." This was almost a completely true statement for me. When I'm with my peers, my favorite mode of conversation is intellectual banter. I'm a talker. (Those of you who know me well will be shocked by this, I'm sure. . . ). If good conversation were a "love language", it would be mine, hands down. I'm not as interested by acts of service (and certainly not touch) as I am in a good long conversation. If I perceive that a person can't keep up with me or doesn't want to, then I get bored and move on, or at least don't seek out opportunities to foster a lasting friendship. If a person does enjoy that kind of conversation, that friendship will last a lifetime.

Probably not the most Christlike thing about me, in retrospect.

But is there room in this world for socially reclusive but still talkative and confident intellectual grasshopper types? And - here's a better question - where are all the rest of them? Am I just too much of a snob to find them, or are they really that hard to find? (Could we perhaps focus on the talkative and confident intelligent single male variety grasshoppers?) Then I could have a socially reclusive chatty grasshopper party and make my parents (and myself, for that matter) feel better about my social prospects. . .

Cohesion vs. Anarchy

I've been getting materials put together to teach Treasure Island this next school year the last several months. It's a great book that can be enjoyed on several levels. Most people teach it as an adventure novel, but teaching it alongside the Revolutionary War, I'm focusing most of the discussion on the two political organizations presented in the book. It's had me thinking all week.

In Treasure Island the hero Jim is presented with two potential groups to follow - the English Captain and his crew or the charismatic Long John Silver and his mutineers. The English are organized, uniform, and predictable. They follow orders, get the job done, and are always aware of what their roles are. They're also boring. The pirates have absolutely no order whatsoever, and little control over their own minds thanks to large quantities of rum - but they live in an environment where people can do what they are excited about. Because they have no clear government telling them what to do, they can pursue what they're interested in. The result of Jim's adventure is unclear - you're never really sure which world he chooses, if he chooses either of them.

Thinking about this in context of a blog post I read recently on The Mormon Child Bride, I've been thinking about how, like Jim, we are faced with many opportunities to decide which "world" we are going to pick. Are we going to actively choose the comfort, security, predictability world or the world that is more lawless but full of creativity? How do you take the strengths of both groups and insert them into the world of religion, education and politics? Is it even possible to have a world that is organized to promote creativity, or is creativity by its very nature best served outside of the world of organization?

I don't believe so. I still believe quite firmly that creativity can thrive in an environment that is organized. In fact, I think an organized society is best for a creative environment because of the stability that comes from organization. Aristotle would, I think, call an organized world the business that needs to come before leisure can be truly obtained. Hugh Nibley would call it honest recognition of goods of first and second intent. There are very good examples of businesses (like Pixar or Apple or Google) who do a particularly good job of organizing creativity. But the balance is precarious.

In education, for example, it becomes quite tricky to encourage a student to discover what they are best at when the state (and now the nation) dictates how and when a student should achieve certain skills. The state also dictates which classes a student must take in each subject with only one or two periods a day available for "electives". The organization is set up to squash out creativity and individualization.

The culture of the church occasionally has the same problem. A mother who works is a sinner. A father without a traditional job is frowned upon. Come to church dressed differently and you risk being a social outcast. Decorate your house wrong or watch rated R movies or have a strange hobby and people wonder about you. I wonder sometimes if people imagine Zion as a place like the community in Lois Lowry's The Giver - everyone has the same house, the same number of children, the same allotment of food each week.

I don't know the answer to this. Robert Louis Stevenson doesn't give any answers. But I do think that we have a responsibility as people to fight against systems that squash opportunities for creativity and individuality to grow. I also think that we need to resist the temptation to become an anything goes lawless society. I think the immediate application means following the advice of church leaders in avoiding judgment of the lives of others.

Shameless Self Promotion

Several of you have asked me lately about what I've been keeping myself busy with all summer. I've spent a decent amount of time this summer mourning the loss of the arts in my life and alluding to the fact that I'm busy working on other important things, but have not actually expanded on what that means. For those of you who are interested: Here's the break down.

Teaching:

I am still teaching. I will be teaching live classes next year at a new school which I am very excited about. (New school to me, not to the world.) I will be teaching Shakespeare and Literature and Film for fun, but will also be taking the seminar program as well. The seminar is a class I started teaching with a friend of mine (Greg Duffin) last year. It is a combined English/History class with emphasis on developing culture and personal responsibility for education. It's a wonderful class that is an absolute honor to teach. Our emphasis this year is on Modern US History and the theme "Who Are You?". All of our literature this year will focus on developing your individuality and then making a difference to the community. (Books like The Scarlet Pimpernel, Anthem and Warriors Don't Cry, plays like The Glass Menagerie and Pygmalion.)

Online Classes:

Greg and I also own a company called Vigilance Media. We produce the online equivalent of our live class for homeschool families. Our model is something of a mix between an exercise video, Sesame Street and Facebook: Our classes are meant to be accessible to the entire family (there are separate classes for elementary, junior high and high school - but all cover the same basic material just at different levels so that families can learn together). The upper classes (that we actually teach), are based on short lessons and communication between students - we don't want anything push button or lazy - we want students engaged with the world around them. Last year we produced a class focusing on the Ancient World (Egypt-Greece) and applying ancient values to a modern world. This year we're doing Early American History (through the Civil War) and the Hero's Journey. It involves lots of short instructional videos, discussion boards, and interaction between student and teacher. You can find out more about those classes here.

Website:

One of the last projects I've been working on this summer is a website to house information about all the things I've been working on. Vigilance Media, then, is also a website with suggestions (primarily for teenagers, but for everyone as well), on articles, movies, books and other things that people should see if they want to build a culture of refinement around themselves. This website is still a work in progress but will be updated approximately once a week with new suggestions.

So there you go. That's what's been cooking up in the bat-cave all summer. It's been a lot of work. I'm excited to see real live people again when school starts. But I am also very much excited about these projects. Hope to see you around the website - we'd love suggestions on things to showcase that have influenced you.

Review: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows 7.2

This is a review of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows 7.2. (Duh.) It contains spoilers for the film. If you haven't seen it, go.

I have long been a fan of the Harry Potter films and the books. This, for some people, seems contradictory. I've heard people fight adamantly on both sides. Most commonly, you hear people who say that they liked the movie well enough but they'll never stack up to the way they felt about the books. I suppose all of these are fair responses, but as an avid student of adaptation theory, I've liked some of the films, and loved others of them in similar and different ways to the books, and I'm ok with that.

For example, one thing I really loved about the sixth film (Half-Blood Prince) was the way the film was able to parallell the journey of Draco and the journey of Harry. The books, by necessity couldn't tell Draco's story as he fought to find a way to complete the task given to him by Voldemort. The books are narrated from Harry's perspective, and, barring a few chapters at the beginning of the last few books, if Harry isn't there, the audience can't see it. But films are different, and the sixth film allows us to see the parallel journeys of Harry and Draco. That particular telling of the story gave me a different perspective on a story I already knew.

This means that when I go into a film adapted from a book I've read, part of my brain is turned on to comparison (what is different from the book, and why did they make the change), but most of my brain is dedicated to following the story that the movie is telling. That long-winded introduction in mind, this is what I thought of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, parts one and two. I already wrote my review of the first film (albiet, hastily.) This review will be more conclusive about the impact that they have as a pair.

I realized a long time ago that the Harry Potter films were going to select which stories to tell based almost entirely on the impact that storyline had first on Harry, and then on the friendship of Harry, Ron and Hermione. You can see this in the way that (almost all) of the movies end with the three of them looking off into the distance. This meant that other storylines that were important in the books were scrapped in the films. Dumbledore's background. Many of the Voldemort memories in the sixth film. Hermione's political activism with SPEW and Rita Skeeter. Ron's Quidditch experiences.

This made, I think, for more angry fans in the earlier movies who saw some of their favorite book plots scrapped. It did, however, make it slightly easier for them to adapt Deathly Hallows. I remember thinking that Jo wrote a pretty daring final novel. While so many people would have been tempted to make the last novel an adventure tale a pure detective novel with one explosion after another, Deathly Hallows is, for the most part, a remarkably quiet book. In fact, the destruction of the horcruxes - which everyone thought would be the focus - was almost entirely an afterthought. Harry doesn't witness the destruction of one of them. One horcrux gets destroyed by accident. He is only personally responsible for the destruction of one of them. Deathly Hallows is a book first and foremost about the power of friendship and fighting for those that you love.

I was a little afraid, I think, that the films would forget this. Hollywood, being Hollywood, would be tempted to make a bigger deal out of the action than they might have needed to. We saw this in Goblet of Fire, for example, with the fight Harry has with the dragon. I was a little nervous that the intellectual focus required for the first half of the film would be sacrificed with long intense fights. I was worried that the second film would be one big long explosion.

Instead, I was relieved to find that the writers and director David Yates were daring enough to make the movie that ought to have been made. A sincere and dedicated duo of films on the power and challenges of friendship and relationships of all kinds, healthy or not.

One thing that the movie brought out that I hadn't ever quite connected after reading the books was something a friend of mine noticed that we had a really great conversation about afterward. We talked about the symbolism of each horcrux and the individual most related to each object and the lessons learned from each object. Each horcrux and it's purpose/destruction/relation to an important person in Harry's life became a pretty great symbol that I suppose I could have picked up on through the reading of the book, but the visual element of the film brought it out even more.

The diary and its connection to Ginny brings up the element of where you put your trust and who you put it in. The ring and Dumbledore remind both Dumbledore and Harry not to dwell in the past. The locket and Ron remind us again about trust, but more specifically the trust of those things you hold most dear and being more open about what you feel. The trophy is Hermione's, and Harry's, possible temptation into the world of recognition and accolades and fighting against the threat of pride. The diadem is, I think, one of the more interesting connections because it is not really finalized - it's connected with Draco and the shared position Harry and Draco have as only sons and privileged children with many opportunities. Its accidental destruction showcases the relationship between Harry and Draco that won't ever be settled or more than cordial. Neville's destroying of the snake Nagini is a nice symbol of the way he stepped up to fill Harry's place in his absence - he destroys Voldemort's right hand, so to speak. Most important, of course, is Harry's destruction of himself - his symbolic conquering of his own weaknesses and foibles to protect the ones he loves. Wonderful. It was a fantastic conversation, and I have the films to thank for it. (This friend hasn't finished reading the books. Yet.)

There were a few things changed from the books that I missed, but the substitutions in the film were good. I appreciated the moment where Harry said good bye to Ron and Hermione. I thought the presentation of Snape's memory was a masterpiece (HUGE shout out to Alan Rickman, who was brilliant.) I even thought the final battle between Harry and Voldemort was good - it was a good visual representation of the mental battle they have in the book.

Ultimately, though, the real test for me on this film was that it left me feeling almost exactly as I had when I finished the book - utterly bewildered about what to do with myself. I felt as though I had just been through war. I felt as though I, too, had accomplished something great. And now the world expected me to do something as simple as closing a book or leaving a theater and . . . what. . . sleep? Eat? It didn't seem big enough. I didn't want to say good bye. I wanted to honor a story that had meant something to me - both through written word and through a final film pair that was everything it could have been and more. I can't wait to see it again.

The "Opening" Night

As has been made abundantly clear in just about every post I've written this summer: I'm not doing theater. I wish I was. I almost did. Nothing's worked out. It was part conscious decision not to put myself in that world, and part result of a myriad of shows in the area that I don't want to audition for anyway. Rotten, terrible, no good combination.

But I've come to terms with it. (Mostly.) Funnily enough it was Harry Potter 7.2 and a biography of J.K. Rowling that did it. I was reminded that what I have been doing all summer instead is something I am passionate about, that I believe in, and that takes full attention and energy. There will be shows again, but the time I've had to dedicate to this project may never come back in such a way again, and I've needed to devote myself entirely to it.

And that's ok. It's more than ok, actually. But even the best of things come with a price, and the price for me this summer involves putting off travel and stage until another time.

It's still left me a little morose, though, and yesterday could have been the most difficult of those days. It was opening night for a good portion of my friends in a show that I didn't audition for by choice but ached for anyway - if only because I missed the rush of theater for the sake of itself. I kept watching the clock.

5:00. (I should be going to the theater now to get my hair done and mic on and props set.) 5:30. (I should be finishing my hair and stretching right now. Eat a banana and a granola bar.)

6:00. (I should be running through scenes and dance steps. I should be standing on the stage, staring out at the empty seats, taking a breath, and being grateful for what's coming.)

6:30. (I should be getting makeup done.)

7:00. (Last minute check of everything. Brush teeth. Director notes.)

7:15. (Dressing room prayer, followed by listening to music and pacing the dressing room alone, personal prayer.)

7:30. (Curtain. Heart starts rushing a bit. Pacing continues and I think again about how lucky I am to be where I am again. How glad I am for the talents I've been given. The joy they bring.)

7:45. (iPod away. Grab book. Go backstage right. Wait for end of song. Take a breath - showtime.)

I had to do something. Something to honor the opening night I wasn't having. I got together with a friend, and watched scenes from a show we were in. I was a little nervous about this - I don't like watching myself on stage under the best of circumstances, but this particular show had been very important to me, and it was the only thing I could think of to do.

And you know what? I was good. I don't say this to brag - I say this out of genuine surprise. I watched this show and remembered the hard work and hundreds of hours I had spent preparing for this role, and was proud of the result. It was a relief. I actually enjoyed it. And it was healing. It reminded me that when all of this is over, my talents and gifts in the arts will still be there and can still be used for good in the world.

So today it was back to the bat-cave to continue work on this project for the last few weeks before school starts. Only today I came feeling again that rush of knowing that I am a capable, talented person. And my life, for all its frustrations right now, is still wonderful.

Dear Mr. Potter,

The following is an admittedly sentimental tribute, but one that I felt needed to be written anyway.

I always hated how long it took for books to come when I ordered them from a book order. Now when I order books as a teacher, they come in less than a month. The benefit of online orders, I suppose. But when I was in school, a teacher had to wait for all orders to be turned in, mail the order, and wait for the books.

I don't think any wait was quite so long as the wait for you.

Maybe that's just because now that I know what I was really waiting for, the wait seemed extended. Maybe it was actually longer. (I did, after all, turn my book orders in as soon as I could. I'm a bit anal that way.) Either way, real or projected memory, the wait seemed interminable.

I have to be honest, though. I ordered you because of your cover. There wasn't much in the book order that time that looked interesting, but as an early teen without a job and only a small allowance, buying my own books was something of a luxury. I have another confession: I didn't read the first story first. All three were, I think, available in the book order - but it was less expensive to buy the second and third books in a set than it was to order them individually, and I couldn't afford them both. So I missed out on that story until a bit later. Luckily, it didn't make any difference.

By the time I discovered your story, I was too old to believe that Hogwarts was real. I didn't, like I had as a child that knocked on the back of wardrobes, start writing furious letters to Professors Dumbledore and McGonagall demanding to know why I hadn't been admitted to your school - but for all the time I spent in your world, I may as well have been.

Because that's the thing - whether it was real or happening in my head, that world made a difference to me.

For one thing, it made me see that answering lots of questions and getting homework in on time and loving to study were not bad things. I loved school dearly and always had, but knew that I was often the butt of jokes about being a teacher's pet or being too smart for my own good, or being a nerd. But I wasn't trying to be a teacher's pet - I genuinely loved and admired those who opened my eyes. I didn't think I was too smart for my own good - I thought I had so much to learn that there wasn't time to waste not asking questions. As for being a nerd, well, that was probably true. And while you weren't really like that - Hermione was. From her I learned that a girl can be both smart and kind, passionate and vulnerable, independent and reliant. I'm still learning from her.

For another thing, I learned how to look at life for the meaning it held. When things were hard, I was able to step back and see myself as the hero of my own story to try and figure out what to do next. I remembered the wise words of advice from Professor Dumbledore when he said that our choices matter more than our abilities, and that who we are born doesn't matter as much as who we grow to be. As a person often insecure in her own strengths and even more afraid of her own weaknesses, I gained perspective that allowed me to not be so hard on myself. To allow myself room to improve.

But, to be fair, I learned these lessons from other stories as well. I did learn them, perhaps, more potently from you, but I did find them in other places. There is, though, one lesson that I think can be directly linked to the years I spent waiting for your stories to come, and it was probably the most important lesson of all. Your books linked me to my family and to my friends. They gave me memories. See, I can be a pretty solitary person. I like people, but I don't often get attached to them. When life changes and people move on, I let them. I don't hold on to something that doesn't exist any more, or that I've grown out of. This is, perhaps, a virtue and a vice. But your books are connected to some of my most precious and treasured memories. For example:

-The first time I went to a midnight showing of your movie with a group of friends who, after a rocky few years of being very lonely, liked me for who I was.

-Waiting for your stories to come and spending hours discussing what we thought might happen to you or what things might be important with another group of friends. We eventually branched out into doing this not just about you, but about everything. It taught me how to think.

-Waiting up all night for the release of the fifth story, reading in the living room of my friend, and getting up early the next morning for a matinee performance of a play I was in. She got to read backstage and I didn't - I was horribly jealous.

-Perhaps most treasured of all - going to get the last book with my younger brother. It was one of the first times we really, honestly spent time together as adults, and I wouldn't have wanted to share that night with anyone else but him. Later that day our entire house was silent - everyone was reading. We had four different copies of the book at once, so that everyone could read. In a technology happy house like mine - that silence was one of a kind, and really special.

Your books didn't make a reader out of me - I'd loved to read since before I really knew how. But your books did make a scholar, a friend, an adventurer, and a more determined person out of me. I may not have attended your school or been there in reality - but I felt like I was - which means your story changed me.

Tonight I'll gather with friends and dress up and eat pumpkin pasties and drink butterbeer and, for the last time, trek to the theater to watch a midnight showing of a movie about you. It's hard to believe it's nearly over. I'm going to miss it terribly. Our journey started more than ten years ago. And I think it's left us both better off. Now all that's left, I suppose, is for both of us to take the lessons learned and do something about them. Make the world better.

So thank you, Mr. Potter - and you, Jo - for the honor and pleasure of your company. It's been an incredible ride. Thank you for including me on a journey that included millions, but felt so very personal.

-Me

Or there's always damnation. . .

I would not necessarily consider myself a feminist. Not in the traditional/stereotypical sense, at least. I don't think that women need to take on all male jobs to be worthwhile, I don't think all men are chauvinists, I'd love to have a family some day and a little girly part of my soul likes it when couples get together in books and movies. I also, erm, would rather wear all my clothing (seen or unseen) than not.

But every so often, there's a part of my soul that rears its feminist head that cannot be stopped.

A good friend of mine posted something on Facebook as a status that looked something like this:

"I want to become something or do something great. I don't know what it is yet, but I'm looking!"

There followed a handful of responses that all looked something like this (including spelling errors):

"Ur the mother of a great baby! You can't do better than that!"

Or

"But your a mother and a wife and a really great friend. Your already great."

(That low rumbling that sounds like thunder? That would be my feminist monster head waking up from a nap before its had enough sleep.)

Now, you might look at me and say, "Hold the phone. Those are nice responses. It is after all, good to be a wife and a mother. What's wrong with being great already?"

My response?

This friend of mine is already certifiably great. I won't argue that even a little. She's been gifted in many different areas of her life and I've always admired her for her grace, generosity, and charity. She's legitimately great already. These responders aren't wrong.

Those responses may have been meant to comfort my friend into acceptance of her life as it is, but it didn't look to me like she was looking for comfort. It looked to me like she was looking for progress. Like she was looking for something beyond what she already had. Wanting to find a way to influence more of the world for good. Being a mother and a wife are wonderful, but the process of buying a ring and producing children and earning the titles "wife" and "mother" do not give women a "get out of progression free" pass. These responses may have been intended for comfort, but the culture around such attitudes reeks strongly of: "Don't worry about getting better, God loves you just as you are right now and you don't need to work or try to be like Him." (Which, last I checked my Bible Dictionary, shimmies rather close to the definition of "damnation." Lack of progression? Check.)

What is it about our culture that wants to treat the act of getting married and becoming a mother as the peak of achievement a woman can make? That once those things are done, we cannot possibly do anything else with our lives that would influence the world for good? Why do we, as women and as a culture, feel the need to patronize ourselves into boxes so that we can justify who we are?

Next you might say, "Well, this is all fine and great. But 'no success can compensate for failure in the home.' Right?"

I'm not arguing. What I would like to suggest, though, is that our definitions of "failure" and "home" might be a little different. It is, I suppose, a certain kind of success for a family to be well fed and decently fond of each other at the end of the day. But the real triumph of a family is when they are then able to, as individuals and groups, go into the world and make a difference. If they were fond of each other at home forever and never went into the world, that wouldn't be a very successful situation. That seems obvious. But shouldn't that apply to every member of the family, not just the children and the father? For the mother/wife to be fully successful in the home, doesn't she need to be the greatest person she can be outside of it as well?

(The petty part of me would also like to suggest that the above quote was not directed only to women, but to men as well, and I don't remember anyone telling men recently not to enhance their talents and abilities. In fact, I remember a specific instance where they were commanded to expect more and do more. But I digress.)

I think that monster is starting to feel slightly better about the world. Maybe it's just a touchy subject for me and I'm overreacting a bit. I am, after all, a successful, happy single adult woman in a culture that sometimes sees those traits as incongruent. But I took no shame whatsoever in posting my own response to my friend in which I said something to the effect of: "______ - I think it's wonderful that you want to learn new things and be great. Go for it!"

Patriotism

(Photo courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons)

It was a Sunday afternoon in mid June, 2007. I had been traveling through England for the last two months, living a dream. Two months of hiking and sheep and cadbury and trips to the West End had stopped a few days before and I was missing my friends terribly, wishing to be back in London instead of in France, which was crowded and not nearly as pretty as I wanted it to be. All the same, I wasn't ready to go home. A few more days and I would be back in America, biding my time until school started again in the fall, working at a temp job at my dad's company doing data base entry. After a summer spent hiking approximately 25 miles a week, sitting at a desk and staring at a computer screen doing mindless work sounded like torture. I was not looking forward to going home.

The weather mirrored my mood. It was sticky and raining like mad, limiting my ability to explore the beach. I stayed instead next to the seemingly unlimited rows of grave markers honoring those who had died on June 6th, 1944, ready to cover my head with my jacket and run for cover if (and when) the rain started up again.

Sure enough, I had only enough time to take some pictures before the downpour started again. The closest escape from the rain was a monument honoring American soldiers. I dashed toward it and stood underneath part of the monument where a map was displayed, depicting the battle. There were about twenty people there total - all American and (mercifully) speaking English. It was a strange kind of relief to have the luxury of eavesdropping again.

I looked at the map and back out at the rows of gravestones and wished that I felt something. I understood logically the reverence of a place like Normandy, but my England loving heart had never really understood the diehard patriotism of being an American. It wasn't that I didn't enjoy my country and I was certainly grateful for the freedoms I enjoyed, but I longed for the history and museums and culture of Europe, something very much lacking from my midwestern upbringing.

The clock chimed. When it had finished, the speakers around the monument started playing "The Star Spangled Banner". Almost in unison, every person standing around the monument, escaping the now drizzle of rain, turned and placed their hand over their heart to listen. All conversation stopped. I looked around at the group and then up at the monument, out at the graves, and back to the group, suddenly very honored and proud to belong to the country that I did. It was the first time that I ever remember feeling truly, honestly patriotic.

I don't think that my country is any more perfect than others around the world; and we do suffer from a severe lack of decent chocolate (though with Magnum Bars on sale now, maybe times are changing) - but I do honor and respect the freedoms that we have been given here. There is something truly wonderful about belonging to a country that was built with that purpose in mind. Though a large chunk of my heart will always belong in England, I can still say that I am proud to belong to this country.

Happy Fourth.

O, thus be it ever when freemen shall stand, Between their loved home and the war's desolation! Blest with victory and peace, may the heav'n-rescued land Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation! Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just, And this be our motto: "In God is our trust" And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave, O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

Mule Child

I'm good friends with a three year old who has been waiting for approximately his entire life to see Cars 2. He owns everything related to Lightning McQueen and knows the name of every car and occasionally says "I eat losers for breakfast!" It's pretty great.

But, to be honest, that's about as far as my Cars enthusiasm ever went. I love me some Pixar, but the story of learning to find peace in slowing down and reminiscing didn't ever really hit home for me the way it did other people. My favorite bits of nostalgia hit about ten years prior to the "Radiator Springs" era and generally reside on the other side of the world. (Re: 40s. London.)

When I heard that Pixar was doing a sequel to Cars I was a little disappointed, but prepared to jump on the bandwagon because ultimately what made the first Cars watchable (if not re-watchable) for me was the strength of the story. I didn't relate to it personally, but I could at least respect the way the story was told. It had heart, a good center, and interesting characters and tractor tipping. I could buy it. So I bought my ticket to see Cars 2 expecting not to fall in love, but at least to be entertained. It is, after all, a Pixar film.

To be perfectly blunt, it's a mercy the funny short "Hawaiian Vacation" came before the film because people should see that, but I sort of wish that it had come at the end of the film instead so that I could have left on a note of relief instead of a note of: "Pixar - you are worth so much more than this!"

Instead the film was a bit of a mess. It couldn't decide what it wanted to be - an action spy farce, a story about friendship, a mystery, a quirky comedy, a story about travel. . . there were so many possibilities rolling around. Individually, they all could have worked. Instead the story lacked focus and direction. It meandered all over the place and got nowhere.

I think the biggest problem with Cars 2 ultimately was the need for a reminder about the lesson I try to teach my writing students each year: character development. When you're writing a personal essay or a short story, it is extremely hard to pull off a story where your main character is static. I'd say very close to impossible, but I've read a handful of stories where it has worked. But those stories are extremely rare and hardly ever for children. The center of Cars 2 wasn't Lightning McQueen, it was Mater. The problem with this isn't that Mater isn't a nice sort of character (though I do find him utterly obnoxious in large doses), it's that Mater is alright with who he is. He is the definition of blissful ignorance. It's what makes him the perfect sidekick.

But this film attempted to force a storyline on Mater that would make him not alright with who he is. Through a series of mistakes that he makes, (and the helpful reminder of a montage of those same scenes, just in case you missed it) Mater gets a brief and small awareness that he's not "normal". But there's no real attempt on his part to try and grow out of that. He doesn't try, for example, to mimic the accents of the British cars. Or adopt their vocabulary. He notices his difference and is a little sad by it, but doesn't really do anything about it. In the end he realizes that who he is is just fine, but it's a small won prize and a bit of a letdown in the end. He's too static a hero to be a hero.

The real story - Lightning McQueen learning to be alright with who Mater is - would have been awesome. Accepting friends as they are and not as you would like them to be is a fantastic lesson. Unfortunately, it was cut short. Shame.

(And is it maybe a bit sad that during the London section of the race, all I could think was: "that's not how you get there!"?)

In brighter news, the film for next year, Brave, looks awesome. I still love you, Pixar. Let's just put the mule child film back where it belongs and forget this ever happened and go back to what you do best: tell a real story with characters people care about.

Literary Elitists: Updated

Recently I had a friend ask me to write an article about "reading and writing". This hugely vague and broad topic in mind, I scoured past blog posts for something I might be able to revise into something worth reading. I came across a post I wrote in April of 2009 and sent it off, thinking that if the bare bones of what I wrote two years ago was worth reading then I'd take the time to update it.

Apparently it was really well worth my time as about a day and a half later I had an email from Orson Scott Card in my inbox asking if he could reference my post in a few places. Being the slightly obsessive person I am, I said yes - and then desperately wished that my revised version was available, because it's better, not written out of frustration, and includes two more years' experience.

So I am including that version here. You will also be able to find this version on author Kristen Randle's Website.

A few years ago as an undergrad I took a literature class that very nearly sucked all the life out of me. The class included a plethora of post-modern literature. It meant a semester with authors like Cormac McCarthy and Toni Morrison - authors that other people (re: not me) found genius because of their innovative writing techniques and mystical storytelling. It also included spending a huge amount of time with a professor who, while certainly very qualified in her field, drove me absolutely batty with her elitist views on literature. The books that I was even tempted to enjoy were so destroyed by class discussion that I started a countdown to the end of class.

Now, for you to appreciate any of this, you must understand that my favorite thing in the entire world to do is to talk about what I’m reading. As a student I was an overactive participant in every class discussion (including this professor’s.) As a teacher in my own class, my primary method of inspiring life-long reading in my students revolves around discussion. I still believe that talking about books is a fun and productive way for people to enter into the world conversation. For a teacher to out-discuss a book to me takes a huge amount of work. Somehow, by her focusing more on commentaries on the book rather than the book itself, I managed to leave her class every day with the mad desire to never touch another book again.

But then, at the end of the semester, we were assigned the book Mr. Pip by Lloyd Jones. It was one of those “kindred spirit” reads that so resonated with me that I simply could not bring myself to write what I had been writing all term to please my professor. Before, I had played the game and written exactly what I knew she would like. It was the kind of high brow writing I could do well, but didn’t enjoy. This time, this one last time, I wanted to write for myself just as I had read for myself. So I presented a plan to my professor. I reminded her that I had done spectacularly on all her other assignments and suggested that perhaps I could try a different style this time? Specifically a personal essay instead? My professor nodded, said that would be a fine idea, and I tripped off home to write.

I wrote about how the story of Mr. Pip had resonated so closely with my dearest reading experiences. Those times when you read a book that takes you away to the point where, upon returning “home”, you feel as though you’ve left it and aren’t quite sure what to do with yourself. I wrote particularly of my time with Anne of Green Gables, the dearest and most personal of my reading experiences. I wrote about how, like the main character in Pip who had grown obsessed with Great Expectations, I felt closer to Anne than nearly any “real” person. The resulting essay was a fairly sentimental tribute, perhaps, but I meant it. Throughout my college experience I had enjoyed analyzing the symbolic and historical significance of great works of fiction very much, but this time I wanted to honor it.

Knowing that my professor was often rather forgetful and was likely to need some reminding that she had, in fact, approved my experiment, I included a cover page to my essay. I thanked her for assigning the book and let her know how much I enjoyed it. Then, feeling more than a little cheeky and daring and fed-up after a long semester, I included the following quote:

The elitists are such boneheads they think literature exists to be admired. Wrong. Literature exists to create memories so true and important that we allow them to become part of ourselves, shaping our future actions because we remember that once someone we admired did this, and someone we hated and feared did that.

Literature matters only to the degree that it shapes and changes human behavior by making the audience wish to be better because they read it.

It becomes importantly bad only to the degree that it entices the audience to revel in actions and memories that debase the culture that embraces it.

Next to that, questions of how one literary work influences other literary works, or how the manner of writing measures up to the tastes of some elite group are so trivial that you marvel that someone who went to college could ever think they mattered more.

(Orson Scott Card, July 29, 2007, “Uncle Orson Reviews Everything”)

This was, admittedly, a very foolish and risky thing to do. My professor, after all, was a bonehead literary elitist. But given the subject matter of Mr. Pip I figured that, in spite of the jab, she had to be fair enough to see that the quote was actually supporting the lesson taught by the book she’d assigned me to read. If she had a soul at all - she had to see reason, right?

Wrong.

On the last day of class when my portfolio was returned, I pulled out my essay to see that it didn’t appear to even have been touched. There was no crease by the staple, at least. Only the cover page had any response to it. Next to the quote by Orson Scott Card was written, “Not true. This is a very silly remark. See if you can figure out why?”

I left class that day absolutely fuming. Even now, two years later and well out of this woman’s grasp, I still get frustrated thinking about it. I hated her for being such an elitist that she’d forgotten why people should read to begin with.

If you ask people why they read, I would imagine that very few people would tell you that they enjoy reading because they enjoy high faluting literary commentaries. That may be part of the reason. This essay, after all, is a commentary on literature. I don’t think literary analysis is bad at all - I think it’s what helps to keep a book alive and relevant. But if you talk to most readers about their favorite books, the analysis will only matter to them if they have connected to the book individually as well. If that book, as Card says, “shapes and changes human behavior by making the audience wish to be better because they read it.”

I’ve realized this even more now that I’m on the other side as a teacher myself. For the past two years I have been the one to present students with books they will be forced to read and then graded on. I’ve fought to make sure that I find books and plays that I love and have tried to pass that on to my students. Because I teach a combined English and History class, I also try to find books that will make particular connections that can link to their immediate reality. Studying To Kill a Mockingbird and Asian philosophy together, for example, provides a nice discussion on how to live your life in a way that is at peace with difficult decisions. It is rewarding to have class discussions where students do what the state educational system wants them to do - demonstrate understanding of important themes and symbols in literature. But the greatest compliment I receive as a teacher is something that could never be measured - it’s when I hear a student say they love a book I’ve assigned them to read. To hear a class refer to Atticus Finch (To Kill a Mockingbird), Reuven Malter (The Chosen), Jonas (The Giver) or Napoleon (Animal Farm) as examples of people they do or don’t want to be like. And these are all people (and a pig) who never technically walked the earth.

I remember being in second grade and coming to class every day with a pile of books as tall as I could carry. I would read one chapter from the book on the top of the pile and then put that book on the bottom and take the next one down and so on to maximize the number of books I could read at a time. I remember falling asleep with my mother’s copy of Anne of Green Gables when I was young, flipping through the pages long before I could read the words on them, aching to be old enough to read it. I remember getting my drivers license and going to the library for my first drive alone. I remember staying up until way past my bedtime reading books by flashlight. I remember the first time I read Jane Eyre. I remember finishing Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and immediately starting the book again because I wasn’t ready to say good-bye yet. The first piece of furniture I ever bought for myself was - what else? - a bookshelf. I remember packing my emergency kit when I was young and agonizing over which book I loved most to save if I had no time to save them all.

That is why we read, isn’t it? Because we want to fall in love. Because stories matter. They take us away, they bring us back, they touch our souls and enlighten our minds. At their best, stories inspire us to be better than we could have been on our own steam.

I look across my bedroom and see Mr. Pip on one of my bookshelves now, situated in alphabetical order between The Turn of the Screw and Ella Enchanted, two completely different works of fiction. One I read to work out my brain and for the pleasure of words perfectly formed, one I read for the pleasure of a simple story well told. I wonder where Mr. Pip sits on the shelves of the office of this old professor of mine. I wonder - hope, really - that she has a book that she reads every year just because she wouldn’t feel complete if she didn’t. I hope, too, that she read a book this year not as a teacher preparing for students but as a human being that needs to be connected to other human beings - even if they are fictional.

The Paradox of Self Reliance

I taught a lesson in church last week on the principles of self reliance. It was a lesson I spent the better part of the week preparing for because I was slightly afraid that I'd get on too big a soap box and offend everyone in the room. See, self reliance is one of my pet topics. And my ward, being where it is, consists primarily of people still living with their mommies. In fact, I think I'm one of the great minority in that I am 100% financially independent from my parents, a college grad, and have a career instead of a "job". I was afraid that, being me, I'd go off on a tangent that would throw off the spiritual groove. So I prepped extra.

And I found some things about self reliance this week that I hadn't quite put into words before that I think are pretty glorious. Let me share:

One of the biggest reasons people say self reliance is important in lessons like that one is that when you are self reliant you have more time to develop spiritually because you are not so worried about temporal things. There is some definite validity to this. When you're hungry on a regular basis or stressed about finding a job, or not sure where you're going to sleep for the night, there's not much time (I'm assuming - I've never been in a position like that before), for studying gospel principles. Or at least not much time. And that's fine. President McKay and President Grant have both spoken on that idea more than once. It's why the LDS church has a welfare program structured the way that it is.

But this idea doesn't quite account for the great Christlike demonstrations of charity you hear about from those who live in third world countries or in poverty. Study of the gospel by sitting down with the bible in your hands is not the only way to learn to follow Christ, after all. What I found so interesting as I studied the reasons why self reliance is so important is because of its relationship to agency.

When a fully capable individual decides not to take care of himself or herself temporally or spiritually, they are handing their agency over to someone or something else. They are choosing not to choose - which is a passive slap in the face to the principles of agency that Latter Day Saints believe were bought with a huge price. When a person chooses to act for themselves, however, they grow in more than one way. They grow in confidence and ability, but they also gain more appreciation for how much they really do rely on the Lord in all things. The more self reliant you are, the more you realize how reliant you are - and the less self reliant you are the more you attach yourself to sources that will crush your freedom rather than preserve it.

The Problem with Ariel

My grandparents have a rock outside their house that is slightly slanted. When I was about two feet tall it seemed enormous and exactly perfect for playing Ariel on. You know the part. The end of the "Part of Your World" reprise with the water splashing up at just the right time for dramatic emphasis. I'd crawl up there and pretend that I was by the ocean and not the road and getting sprayed in the face with water and not occasional gas fumes.

As I grew older and the rock grew smaller, my love of Ariel waned a bit. She seemed selfish instead of admirable (and it was easy to get distracted by her gravity defying 80s hair.) Her catch phrase of "I WANT MORE!" made me want to smack her upside the head. "You have gadgets and gizmos and whosits and whatsits and thingamabobs and you want more?!" What kind of role model is that for a girl?

But I've started to re-examine Ariel recently. You can certainly look at her story as being somewhat selfish and obnoxiously teenaged where a father doesn't stand up to his daughter and instead indulges her whims, but this year I've gained new appreciation for what happens when parents actually hold their children back from progressing and achieving and becoming the best version of themselves that they can.

For instance, I've worked with students who have been pulled out of normal classes because their parents are afraid they are spending too much time out of home. I've had students pulled out of classes because they are too stressed. I've had students who are very talented in certain areas express frustration when their parents don't understand the talent they possess, and, as a result, criticize their hard work.

Now, I'm not a parent. I'm very well aware of this. I also recognize that I am not an insider to either families of my students and am not the best qualified to make decisions for them. So I'm going to go back to Ariel. If you look at Ariel another way, she's not wanting more for the sake of wanting more - what she wants is experience. She wants the chance to try something new. Her father's insistence on keeping her where she is and holding her back in her case only magnifies the problem and forces her into the rebellion he was hoping to prevent. She goes to drastic measures (re: selling her voice to Ursula) to get what she wants and nearly ruins herself as a result. Fortunately, it turns out well for her in the end, but the real application of this story is that parents who shelter their children run the risk of creating exactly what they try to avoid: rebellion.

One thing Ken Robinson discusses in his book Out of Our Minds is that one of the quickest ways to stifle creativity and progress out of people is to force them or encourage them to avoid something they are passionate about. He argues that if a person is interested in something, they are much more likely to do a better job with what they are given, even if it is hard. This is all fine and great on electronic or physical paper. Yay for people pursuing their dreams! But what if said person's dream is to become the world's greatest mass murderer? What do you do then? Obviously that's a bit of an extreme example - so what about something smaller and less destructive: what if this person's dream is to travel the world as a nomad selling homemade trinkets to pay the way and to get to know the cultures of the world by experience instead of by book? What is a parent to do then?

Well. . . I'm not a parent. I don't know. But I do know that God values agency so much that He was willing to let us fail and take chances and make fools of ourselves. I also remember a conversation I had with my mother once about a family friend whose child had struggled for many years but had recently pulled her life back together. Our family friend had a conversation once when her daughter was young where a well meaning person had told her that she would struggle with her daughter because she was so stubborn. Our very wise family friend responded correctly that she couldn't control her daughter's agency and wouldn't try. What she would do is teach correct principles and know that, because the principles are true, they would win out in the end. And she was right.

Moral of the story?: We should have a little more faith in our children and in our faith. Also, Ariel was on to something.

Today. . .

I want to be here:

Or here:

Or here. . .

(Last two photos from Wikimedia Commons)

Or with this beautiful girl. . .

(Who turns twelve today, by the way.)

But instead I am here. . .

(The "Bat Cave")

Up to my ears in . . .

So that I can do this. . .

(Last three photos from Wikimedia Commons)

In the fall.

It's a really good thing I love my job.

"Mindless" Entertainment

Being the theater lover that I am, I look forward to the Tonys every year. I love the opportunity to watch snippets of shows that I rarely get to see and enjoy the chance to scope out new musicals and audition songs.

This year, though, I didn't tune in. Partly because there weren't any shows that I was in any way interested in, and partly because - liberal in the arts as I can be - I didn't really have much of a desire to watch The Book of Mormon musical writers crow over what they've done. It felt like a little much. I have a hard time stomaching theater of any kind that, as was put so well by John Mark Reynolds of the Post, debases or mocks an already debased or mocked group. Artistically it's just a cheap laugh; religiously it makes me sick.

The reaction to this musical has interested me on both sides. Predictably, people outside of my faith call the musical funny or use this as an opportunity to bring up more reasons why my church is hard to understand. Inside the faith there are generally two responses: scripture quoting about the last days and a symbolic "turn up the nose", or excuse the musical as "mindless" entertainment and move on with life.

For many people, either response is good enough. The leaders of the church have asked us not to engage in debates but to kindly abstain from patronizing the musical and to move on with life. Recently, in fact, the church has launched a kind of advertising blitz on the city of New York with their "I'm a Mormon" campaign - commercials designed to introduce you to the everyday Mormon involved in many different things. It's a nice, user friendly way of getting rid of some stereotypes.

When I start getting a bit frustrated, though, is when those who patronize the arts or produce it (or claim to) in our church do nothing but bash the corruption in Broadway/Hollywood/Literature or turn away from it but do nothing to fill the void. It's all fine and great to say that Hollywood is a mess of political, sexual, provocative trash, but the fact of the matter is: they have better writers and better producers than we do, so we can't complain. Same with Broadway. Same with literature. Until members of the church can fill the void with something worth seeing/reading/listening to, we can't sit back and whine about the trash and expect it to suddenly go away. From where I stand, right now we are mostly combating one form of "mindless" entertainment with another form of "mindless" entertainment.

Think about it: what do members of the church really have that speaks to those outside of the group? More specifically, out of the Utah Valley group. Single's Ward is, perhaps, the best known LDS comedy and likely isn't nearly as entertaining to those outside of the culture of a Utah Valley Single's Ward. The best known drama may be The Other Side of Heaven, which wasn't even produced/primarily acted in by members of the church - it was Disney. And if Saturday's Warrior is the best musical we have to offer . . . well. . . Even the music of the church - while the Tabernacle Choir is certainly a notable exception to this rule, LDS pop music is generally quite sentimental. (I should add that I would definitely also make Orson Scott Card an exceptions to this rule - Ender's Game, for example, is both broad in audience and smart, unlike Stephanie Meyer who manages one for two - and not the better one of the two.)

Maybe I'm just a snob. But where are the LDS artists capable of writing something as powerful as The King's Speech? Or writing books as powerful as To Kill a Mockingbird? Or music as moving as The Rite of Spring? We complain about the bad culture of the world - but the most beautiful, revered, and touching forms of art that reach people are ALSO produced outside of the church. Does it have to be this way?

My point is this: there is no such thing as "mindless entertainment". Whether we are watching and interacting with the arts actively or not, they are changing the make up of who we are by influencing the culture to which we relate. If we as members of the church intend to help promote goodness in the arts, we have some re-examination to do. We must build and refine our culture beyond the trite, vinyl lettered world we love. We need to look into expanding and refining our own culture so that we are capable of influencing others better. (I have many ideas on this, most of which probably should not be written about until I've got them organized. For now, though, read Douglas Callister's "Your Refined Heavenly Home", a speech given at BYU in 2006. It's completely genius.)

I'll end with two thoughts. The first is this: I wish that members of the church could find a way to write about our faith the way Chaim Potok writes about Judaism. His books are deeply religious while still being very universal.

My second is this: it is not enough for us to stand by and watch the arts of the world be corrupted. Music, dance, theater and literature are and always have been powerful tools in touching the lives of people. If we are to make a difference instead of just making a fuss, we need to remember the words of Handel who stated after the first performance of the Messiah, "My lord, I should be sorry if I only entertained them; I wish to make them better." Them, in this case, I believe - can apply to the individual, and to the art form itself.

Wait. . . I thought you were a cooking show . . .

I listen to the news when I get ready in the morning. I like having at least a general idea of what's going on in the world and like to get different views on the world that sometimes the Deseret News doesn't quite provide in the middle of its Osmond obsessed super right-wing conservatism. This means a daily dose of the Today Show, which is wonderful for the most part - or, at the very least, something to listen to.

During the school year I never hear more than the first half hour before I'm off to work, but now that I'm working more in the afternoon than the morning I occasionally hear some of the more petty or strange lifestyle reports. Today, for example, boasted a vest with a lining like a fishing vest in which your father could store his iPad, a thing of Tic Tacs (people still eat those?) and other assorted oddities.

It wasn't until after the news that things got particularly disturbing.

I've never watched Rachel Ray before and I've never really had much of a desire to. I know she is primarily meant to be a cooking show, but I've never seen her actually cooking on her show - every time I flip past it she's got some kind of talk show going, which is odd, but what do I know? I don't watch talk/cooking shows.

Until this morning when I was in the middle of doing my hair and didn't take the time to change the channel. Her show featured a section today on sexual compatibility. From what I heard, the show had taken two people who had been dating for two months but had not yet had sex and gave them a sexual compatibility quiz to determine whether or not they were sexually compatible. Fortunately (?) the maker/distributor of this quiz determined that they were and, yay for standardized testing, they were encouraged to continue their relationship.

Now, to the credit of the young woman in this couple, she said more than once that she did not intend to sleep with her boyfriend until they were 100% sure they were "ready". They also said they were glad they took the quiz because it helped them see how much they really did need to talk with each other about sex first, which is also good. But Rachel and her fellow commentator (I believe the person who gave the quiz?) seemed to think that the waiting thing was a bit insane, suggesting that the most important aspect of a relationship is sexual compatibility and promoting the idea that all this can be determined by a quiz.

I am fully supportive of the idea of couples talking openly about their physical relationship, particularly when their relationship is more serious. A physical relationship is an important part of a full relationship and, lest either party wonder about whether or not the other person is happy, important to be open about.

What I do take umbrage with is the idea that a couple should base the future of their entire relationship off of sexual compatibility, whether it's determined by a quiz or not. This, I think, is a symptom of what Ken Robinson (and holistic medicine) calls in his book Out of Our Minds the "septic focus". A "septic focus" is when a problem is examined in isolation from its context. My suspicion is that many couples who are frustrated (sexually or otherwise) in a relationship are happy to find a scape-goat for the real problems at hand. My other suspicion is that couples who complain of not being "sexually compatible" with one another are almost always thinking of themselves before their partners - not just physically, but in other ways as well.

Now, this is not to say that I'm coming at this problem with a world of personal experience (obviously.) This is also not to say that physical attraction isn't important (because it totally is.) What it is trying to say is that standardized tests are crap at predicting job aptitude or emotional aptitude or sexual compatibility, and that there are no shortcuts to any place worth going, and that people really should just TALK MORE.

Changing Education Paradigms

Over the summer, as mentioned before, I am mad at work taking over the world. Part of this plan involves working on how to better encourage students to get out of the box. The world is changing at a rate that it never has before - the last ten years have been particularly fast paced, and many of the systems that worked for many years are now either irrelevant or on their way there. Education in particular is caught in this trap.

The modern system of education is primarily designed on the factory model created at the turn of the 20th Century. With so many children in cities like New York in need of education, it was a practical choice for the time. Now, though, the system of factory-like education becomes a crippling force for creativity because everything is taught to standardized tests and imposed state (soon to be national) standards of what it means to be "educated". The system does not encourage students to think outside the box and there is rarely a mechanism for them to do so, and teachers who think outside the box have little motivation or reward. (And don't even get me started on the teachers union.)

This in mind, I've recently picked up the book Out of Our Minds by Ken Robinson. I'm sure there will be many essays in the making as I read more of the book, but for now, feast your eyes on this RSA Animate called "Changing Education Paradigms" that gives you a small piece of the informational pie Robinson has to offer. I find his points very interesting and thought provoking.

NOTE: The first clip has lots of cool animation and is nice and short but mostly discusses the problems without posing solutions. You can find the solutions he suggests in the book, or by watching the full version of the original speech.