Why Rape Culture Is The Worst

Last night, I was walking from a meeting to the bart station.  I walked past two men who were standing outside a fast food restaurant.  One of them said, “hello.” I looked up, gave a half smile (because I value looking at people who address me, affirming their humanity,) and kept walking.  He said, “what? you can’t even say hi?”  I said, “hello” and kept walking.  He said, “you lookin’ cute today.” I said “thank you” without looking and kept walking.  A handful of minutes later, a block from the train station, we met at the same street corner.  The same man said, “ohhh you again!” and kept walking with his friend toward the train station. I crossed the road, went a block, did a lap around a convenience store, and then went out and back toward the train.

The strongest sense of fear overcame me in those moments.  Every terrifying ‘what if’ scenario played through my head and was enclosed within my body.  I felt like I did not have a choice to but to say hi back to a man who made me uncomfortable and I feared what would happen if I did not respond to his “compliment.”

The feminist in me is so angry, so awake.  It knows that no man, no person, is entitled to my body, to talk to me that way without my consent as I pass by.  I do not owe him, or anyone, a response about my appearance.

And yet I feel myself wanting to say, “I was just wearing jeans and a sweater.” To defend myself. To prove that I wasn’t ‘asking for it.’  I do not believe that the victims of the male gaze need to defend themselves this way.  It doesn’t matter what a person is wearing; no person, no woman, deserves to be regarded this way.

The fear I felt was so overwhelming. My eyes filled with tears the entire train ride home, not escaping my eyes until my bestfriend recognized and said, “you have cry eyes.” I was back in my own city and still crossed the street when I saw other people coming down the block- for fear that they were like the man who commented to me.. who recognized me at a busy intersection.

Rape culture is real. This will happen to me again. This, and so much worse happens to women every.single.day. It has got to stop.

My Cup Overflows

In 4th grade, I picked up an oboe for the first time and didn't put it down for 9 years.  The echo of the last chord ringing through an auditorium fills my heart with extreme gladness.  I joined various choirs and to this day you will hear me trying so hard to nail every harmony in an Ingrid Michaelson song.  Over the course of 3 years in highschool, I made a dozen mix tapes for the boy I had a crush on saturated with secret messages of teen angst and unrequited romance.  

When I hear a choir singing a beautiful hymn, I am carried to a place of such deep spirituality.  When that same hymn is contemporized, the comfort swells inside me and I am reminded of expansive ways God is manifest in the world.  A Taizé chant softens my heart to God, to transformation, to the movement of the Holy Spirit.  Because of the solace I take in music, I am able to move through the world authentically without fear because a solid chord progression or key change can bring me right back to center instantly.

I get music. Music gets me.

When I was a senior in high school, my best friend told me that she had made a playlist of songs to listen to while making out.  Having never kissed anyone, I made a face kind of like this:

Freaks and Geeks (1999-2000)

I couldn't understand why that was even a thing. Do you stop kissing someone and say, "oh. hold on. I have a playlist for this"?  What happens when the playlist is done? Do people even kiss that long?  I just didn't get it.. at all.. why did she need to have both of these things at once?

And then I kissed someone.  It felt remarkable, not just physically, but in my spirit.  Because of kissing, I began to understand the world around me so much better because, at last.. finally, I could understand this body in which my spirit dwells.  It tapped into my belief that I can only exist because others exist. I finally knew, tangibly, that someone else existed.

Kissing and music are two elements of what makes my spirit come alive, what makes my heart rejoice and glorify God.  They are part of a myriad of experiences that add up to the way I bear witness to the revealed God in the world.  I can see, now, why my best friend made that playlist.  When you find things that make your spirit come alive, imagine the good it may do to experience both of those things at the same time.

And She Kissed Me Like She Meant It

On Ash Wednesday, many folk in the Christian tradition walk around with an ashen crosses on our foreheads.  We are reminded that humankind, in the narrative form, comes from dusty earth and it is there we will return.  One of the stories goes that God saw that the earth needed a lover, ones who will care for it and cultivate it, so God scooped up some dust and breathed into it.

God kissed us into existence. God's breath mixed with that which would be our own. God recognized that our breath was caught in our throats because we could feel God so close to us and we longed for it.  God released us from that tangled and mangled state into fullness.  A kiss is what brought humankind into its most authentic and original state.  God had breath to share and had to teach us how to gasp it in.  Dust cannot just be formed into the shape of persons and expected to live.  God had to teach us, God had to show us.

On Ash Wednesday, Christians acknowledge that moment of intimacy as part of our narrative.  We remember that God kissed our bodies into being, God shared His breath with us and our spirits grew from that longing.  If it is to dust we shall return when our days on this earth have finished, I pray that God will kiss me again.  I pray that the life I am leading as I walk this ground, the breath that I share so closely with lovers, will help me recognize God when She kisses me again, welcoming my body into the safety of dust.