My review of Rosalie de Rosset's book, Unseduced and Unshaken

Reading Unseduced and Unshaken organized and articulated many ideas that have been knocking around in my brain for decades. Here is just one example: I find it hard to look at photos of exercise coaches in health magazines. First—These personal trainers show embarrassingly more skin than any normal woman would. Do they not realize the women they hope to motivate to exercise do not want to see their breasts, or any airbrushed, bronzed perfection, for that matter? Couldn’t the coaches show they are physically fit in more modest workout gear?

Second—These coaches claim to want to empower women to become stronger and healthier. Do they not know they allow themselves to be exploited by the media when they bare most of their body parts to millions of viewers? Do they really think their “Be strong, be free” message shouts more loudly than the “Sex sells” photos of them?

These questions about exercise coaches have bothered me for a long time. Don’t get me started on the décolletage of brilliant, articulate TV news anchors or on movie costumes that turn intelligent actresses in serious roles into soft-porn stars. And doesn’t it break your heart to see what teen girls wear to school and the mall these days? They wear less and less. They reveal more and more. Which brings me to this book: Unseduced and Unshaken: The Place of Dignity in a Young Woman’s Choices in which Rosalie de Rosset and three other contributors share rich reflections in ten chapters.

De Rosset begins by defining dignity as “a strong, chosen, deliberate way of life, the result of the totality of a person’s choices and worldview.” Further, the Christian woman must understand who she is before God. Examples draw strongly on the strong character of fictional heroine Jane Eyre, who showed “the need for women … to fulfill their gifts, to use their creativity, to stretch beyond prescribed activities and passivity to true humanity. Dignity requires the development of principle and the use of intelligence.”

Pam MacRae writes about finding one’s voice in order to know and be known. She says, “… by humbly offering our voice and graciously accepting the voice of another, we reflect God’s pattern of relating. To know God and be known by God helps us understand our capacity to be known to each other.”

Linda Haines discusses the person divided “between who I think I am and who I really am.” Women long for wholeness and want to believe the culture’s promising-sounding paths to self-confidence. The Apostle Paul’s wisdom rings truer: It is impossible for us to manage fleshly impulses and thus unite our divided self. The fact is, what the culture touts lures women further from God, where true fulfillment and wholeness are found.

In building a historical case for modest dress, Stacie Parlee-Johnson makes a stunning revelation: “The need for clothing is a confession of our need for Christ Himself.” God originally gave Adam and Eve clothing to cover their shame better than their fig leaves could. Parlee-Johnson follows with comforting words: “God designed us for union, and we crave it still. This is why we desire to be naked, because we desire intimacy.” Nakedness within marriage represents holy unity. Outside of marriage, sexy or immodest dress perverts God’s best intent for us.

These are brief summaries of four of the ten chapters. (Each chapter has Discussion Questions and Suggested Reading.) The other six chapters give reasoned treatment to dignity-related topics as well. Not surprisingly, the empty temptations of our culture pop up often in this book. This resonates with me; in fact, my novel, Beyond Betrayal, could be a fictionalized account of the points in Unseduced and Unshaken. The young female characters’ dignity (or lack thereof) corresponds to their responses to varying voices in modern culture. Their choice of dress, leisure pursuits, reading material, and money expenditures reveals who they are. Although my heroine still searches for her voice, her heroines are dignified literary heroines like Jane Eyre and Elizabeth Bennet who value moral tradition.

Unseduced and Unshaken challenged me. It’s clearly written, but it’s deep, and I often found myself saying, “Hmmm …” and then rereading a section to think it through. I liked the book’s frankness about sex. When I was a young girl, I tucked a newspaper clipping under the glass on my desktop (the old-fashioned wooden kind of desktop). The clip was a quote from journalist Sydney J. Harris: “Don’t let the good things in life rob you of the best.” My understanding of his wise aphorism has deepened over the decades, of course. Reading Unseduced and Unshaken gave me a new appreciation for God’s best. And now I better understand that every decision a woman makes matters. Her respectability depends on it.

Tony Blair: Inspiring Change

My husband and I had a rare opportunity yesterday. We got to hear former British Prime Minister Tony Blair speak about leadership in a Q and A format. Most audience questions focused on Blair’s experiences as a world leader, and his remarks were candid, witty, and wise. We laughed at his anecdotes about his first day on the job as PM, on his relationships with Presidents Clinton and Bush, and on why he never saw the movie The Queen, for example.

Stressing that an elected leader comes into office at his most popular and least capable and leaves office at his least popular, most competent moment, he revealed that what he longed to say to British citizens during his tenure was, “I’m still learning here.” (Alarmed at how the country might panic at their leader’s admitting this, his public relations people advised against his saying this while in office!) When Blair spoke last night of various world conflicts, he called leaders’ decisions extremely difficult and said as prime minister, he had to just do what he thought was right. It may or may not have been right, but it was what he thought was right after considering facts. What we saw was a very human side of a world leader.

Blair’s remarks both softened and sharpened my expectations of current world leaders. On one hand—hey, they’re only human. On the other hand, an honorable leader must act in the interests of all voters, not just his party base.

Regarding the current North Korean threat, Blair stated that to manage that situation to a place of stability, we need to be diplomatically smart and militarily strong. Also, we need to understand that extremist religions and rogue states present long drawn-out struggles that are not easily solved; and intervention and nonintervention both carry costs. He said very few countries are in a position to shape the world for the better.

Blair believes the key to narrowing the economic chasm is education—not just formal education, but open-mindedness and ability to adapt to change. He said that if business owners have passion, pride, and pleasure, they are more likely to have profit.

Although Tony Blair himself did not mention communitarianism last night, another speaker did attribute this philosophy to Blair. As I understand it, communitarianism is a middle ground between socialism, where the person is dehumanized and the state is personified, and individualism, where the autonomous self reigns. In this middle ground, individuals do not just pursue their own ends but they all contribute to the flourishing of a wider society. An individual’s role is for others; it is in service that one becomes his true self. I would like to further research the communitarianism philosophy, but so far, doesn’t it sound a lot like what God had in mind for us? It also sounds better than either socialism or capitalism.

Good food for thought last night. Thank you, Tony Blair.

Introverts are not just failed extroverts!

So worshiped in our society is the Extrovert Ideal, author Susan Cain capitalizes it in her book Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking. We tend to associate most successes with the Extrovert Ideal, but Cain presents research giving us reasons to rethink that assumption. A century of influences such as Dale Carnegie’s admirable salesmanship and society’s campaign to prevent children from developing insecurities Alfred Adler called inferiority complex are slowly being replaced by science-based appreciation for sensitivity, highly developed conscience, solitude necessary for invention and creativity, intentional practice, and other attributes of introverts.

Information I found fascinating and broadly applicable was Cain’s chapter on biological bases for temperament. Thanks to studies by scientist Jerome Kagan, we know careful, reflective people (introverts) are likely to be “high-reactive” and more relaxed, confident people (extroverts) “low-reactive.” Cain’s discussion of further research in this area and its implications is enlightening.

Cain best describes the beauty of this new research: “Once you understand introversion and extroversion as preferences for certain levels of stimulation, you can begin consciously trying to situate yourself in environments favorable to your own personality—neither overstimulating nor understimulating, neither boring nor anxiety-making. You can organize your life in terms of what personality psychologists call ‘optimal levels of arousal’ and what I call ‘sweet spots,’ and by doing so feel more energetic and alive than before.” [pages 124, 125]

Cain gives military, Wall Street investment, cross-cultural, work productivity, and marriage applications, driving advice, parenting counsel, career guidance, and public speaking tips. She also gives examples from history, such as Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt’s contributions viewed through an introvert/extrovert lens.

As a lifelong introvert, I found this book highly affirming. In addition, Susan Cain’s well-documented case for the strengths of introverts is a fascinating read in easily accessible story style. Quiet changed my understanding of my own feelings and relationships and filled in so many affirmation gaps I hadn’t even realized I had. Jumping when I hear a loud noise is not abnormal … I am having a good time even though I’m not laughing my head off … My sensitivity has benefits … I am not just a failed extrovert. Thank you, Susan Cain.

When the moon is blue, pull up a chair

The other night after the blizzard, I had a flashback. Looking out the back window, I noticed soft rabbit curves silhouetted by moonlight against mounds of newly fallen snow. I stood mesmerized by a sweet memory of when Charlie was alive. He had padded over to his water bowl in the middle of the night only to be confronted by a similar sight. His agitated barking woke me, and I padded over to quiet my bucking, barking dog. It did cross my mind that if Charlie’s enemy invader rabbit had been chomping tips of my blueberry bush branches, it would have become my enemy, too, and this scene might have played out differently. As it was, however, said rabbit nesting unfazed, calm in indigo moonlight so quieted me, I pulled a chair over to the window and nestled Charlie in my lap to watch. There we sat in dark, tranquil silence, wide awake.

What had civilized us—the chair? Yes, partly. It would be hard to attack anything but a tough steak from a seated position. Sympatico? Probably not. Though no longer barking his head off, Charlie’s animal instincts were on high alert; every flattening of the rabbit’s ear, every twitch of the rabbit’s nose was met with a twitch of Charlie’s ear. He never took his big brown eyes off his prey. I, on the other hand, simply basked unblinking in sparkling-diamond snow glow, in the moon’s sapphire illumination of an utterly still world.

So what besides the chair had deflected our chase? The spell of the moon? No. I think it was a sense of a privileged connection. Indulge me a dog-mom’s intuition as I surmise that Charlie knew if he wanted to stay up past his bedtime to watch the rabbit, he needed to be quiet. My contentment was giving this little silken creature I loved so much the privilege of prolonging a fleeting pleasure, and in so doing, receiving the privilege of bathing in blue moonlight with a bunny.

Moments like these cannot be repeated. They are not like the wonder of catching a snowflake on your tongue or watching a snowflake’s lacy edges melt into your mitten. Any snowfall makes this possible, at least for northerners. Southerners, I suppose, might be awed by a rare snow’s sensations. Besides my moonlit vigil with Charlie, my other privileged thrills—witnessing a loggerhead turtle laying her eggs, riding high in a tractor cab to plow a fertile farm field for soybeans, and floating in a hot air balloon above running deer, to name a few—would be ordinary events for a naturalist, farmer, or balloon pilot. But for me, those were rare gifts that quieted my soul.

So if timing and circumstance allow you to commune with nature; or if a beloved child rests his totally trusting head on your shoulder; when a spouse whispers “I love you” just before falling asleep with a smile on his face; when a parent puts her hand on your forearm and blesses you with “I’m proud of you;” if a friend hugs you, really hugs you; or when a pet curls up in your lap to watch a rabbit in blue moonlight—let the warmth wash over you. You can give these moments of pure pleasure in a loved one or a moment, but you can only treasure receiving them as rare gifts. Celebrate these gifts, but not by popping a champagne cork; that makes too much noise. No, pull up a chair. Sit still. Don’t blink. Breathe.

Cold Comfort Farm

Review: Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons

 

“What a hoot!” crowed Jane, knowing full well that no proper lady would use such crass language, especially in London, but she was on an insufferably indelicate farm in Sussex, and one sometimes has to throw down one’s lace gloves and simply declare that a story is a downright hoot.

Such is my opinion of Stella Gibbons’ hilarious tale of young, urbane Flora Poste’s foray into the sorry business and cursed characters of Cold Comfort Farm. What adventures she has as she meddles and sways and decides what’s best for distant dysfunctional relatives at the farm. Their dysfunction is extreme and reform is challenging, but unflappable Flora cleverly prevails.

In Cold Comfort Farm, Gibbons seems to be poking fun at idyllic pastoral novels and perhaps even literary romances of manners and morals. Lynne Truss’ introduction to the edition I read details specific literary references and parodies. Without knowing all Gibbons intended, I recognized her intelligent humor. I smiled throughout this book and even laughed out loud at some points. The names alone are funny, for example the cows Feckless, Graceless, Pointless, and Aimless and the bull, Big Business. The self-pitying family matriarch, whose thumb the family members were under, was named Aunt Ada Doom. Last name: Starkadder.

Here’s a scene in a small-town restaurant that shows the book’s droll tone:

By now Flora was really cross. Surely she had endured enough for one evening without having to listen to intelligent conversation? Here was an occasion, she thought, for indulging in that deliberate rudeness which only persons with habitually good manners have the right to commit; she sat down at a table with her back to the supposed Mr. Mybug, picked up a menu which had gnomes painted on it, and hoped for the best …

She was just beginning on her fourth biscuit when she became conscious of a presence approaching her from behind, and before she could collect her faculties the voice of Mr. Mybug said: “Hello, Flora Poste. Do you believe women have souls?” And there he was, standing above her and looking down at her with a bold yet whimsical smile.

Flora was not surprised at being asked this question. She knew that intellectuals, like Mr. Kipling’s Bi-coloured Python-Rock-Snake, always talked like this. So she replied pleasantly, but from her heart: “I am afraid I’m not very interested.”

The story is fast-paced and for the most part, lighthearted. Cold Comfort Farm is delightful.