Link-Happy Post

by Kimberly | Jul 6, 2010 | Uncategorized

Since I’ve been gone for about 10 days – I had 713 google reads to sift through.  When I have that many, I quickly scan and star.  Then go back.  I wanted to let you in on the good ones of the week: whether food, Bible, life, etc – here you go:

1.  I have plenty of cast iron in my kitchen.  Almost like it as much as my stainless steel – depends on what I’m cooking.  Here is why you need cast iron!

2.  Ever wonder how or why to study the Bible?  The rising 10th graders at my church were studying this recently…this would have been a help to them – and maybe to you.  Hand it to Tim Challies – uber blogger to pen this.

3.  Carolyn McCulley writes a brilliant piece on Learning to Be Married. 

4.  Who says practical can’t be beautiful?  Birthday is less than 6 months away (or just an anytime gift would be good!) 

5.  Keeping with my Johnny Cash theme – thought you might like this short video.  How can you not like Johnny’s bass voice?

6.  Feminists strike again.  Dr. Denny Burk, new father, and Dean of Boyce College, makes us aware of their latest.

7.  My friend Courtney writes here about the trend for women (of child-bearing age) to opt out of it (maybe in search of seomthing “more”).

8.  Ephesians 4.29 is usually stuck in my head somewhere.  I wish I obeyed it more often.  But, especially in light of social media – how do you find yourself living obediently of this verse?  Kevin Deyoung helps us out.

9.  Becoming a better writer doesn’t just happen.  I remember getting low Cs and even a D in high school (I really think it was just because the teacher didn’t like me) and then made As on writing assignments in both college and seminary.  But, here are some tips.

10.  And speaking of Kevin DeYoung and writing – here are more tips.

11.  Many Christian women ask this: can I work outside the home once I’m married.  I do not believe there is a biblical mandate – just wisdom and Scriptures on priorities and submission.  John Piper talks about it here.

12.  Billy Joel.  Genesis 11.  How in the world is there a connection?  Stephen Altrogge makes one.  Its a good one.  John 3.30.

13.  Yummy summer treats.  I still want to make these soon. 

Ok – these should keep you busy for a while.

Foodies and Feminism

by Kimberly | Jun 23, 2010 | Uncategorized

Two of my favorite topics.  Food – I love to cook, buy, bake, talk about, read about all things food.  And yes, that includes eating out at all sorts of local dining establishments.  It isn’t always fun to cook for one (since I’m single), and I can use the time eating out to eat with friends and broaden my food perspective.  Like just the other day – tried a new sushi place with a friend and during dinner we discussed Paul David Tripp’s book War on Words. 

Feminism – no, I’m not a feminist – but I love to study it and the effect that culture has on women and the home and the way God has created women to be.   If you want two books to read about what I’m referring to: Mary Kassian’s Feminist Mistake and Carolyn McCulley’s Radical Womanhood.

How are the two brought together?  Read the following quotes from different articles I’ve been reading:

“How do we both scale the career heights and bake our own bread?” – Jennifer Jeffrey

“We watch cooking shows on TV but we cook very little.  We’re seduced by convenience.  Who knew liberation would be found in a kitchen cupboard full of produce, not purses.  Sure, women have been unfairly stuck with the brunt of domestic labor for a long time in a culture that has deemed it lower status than say, working in an office.  Stepping away from the hearth is a form of rebellion and liberation and a way to gain more cultural status.  This idea…that liberated women don’t prepare food…is part of the Sex and the City cultural hangover.  Carrie Bradshaw, of course, famously used her oven as a shoe cupboard far before Grace, as a kind of feminist triumph.  She likes sec and (therefore)doesn’t have to cook.  Men come across as evolved, sexy, and creative when they mix things up in the kitchen.  But women seem stuck in Leave it to Beaver land when they step in front of the stove: domestic suckers who aren’t paying enough attention to their ambition or their libidos.” – Vanessa Richmond

“Why do women cook in the domestic sphere but male chefs reign in restaurant land?” – Cooking with Ideas

“Besides drawing women into the work force, falling wages made fast food both cheap to produce and a welcome, if not indispensable, option for pinched and harried families.” – Michael Pollan

“In a challenge to second-wave feminists who urged women to get out of the kitchen, Flammang suggests that by denigrating foodwork, everything involved in putting meals on the family table – we have unthinkingly wrecked one of the nurseries of democracy: the family meal.  Pollan doesn’t question the notion that feminists are to blame for urging women to leave the kitchen, when one might imagine that those who left the aprons behind were thinking beings who made their own choice to leave, regardless of the persuasions of feminists and family alike.” – Anna Clark

What does all this matter?

In the rise of a foodie nation – which we are (food channels,  competitions, magazines, restaurants, stores) – I also want to draw your attention to what it looks like for families and feminism.

Personal Testimony: I grew up in a non-traditional family.  Both of my parents were (and still are) married.  But, my mother wasn’t always able to do the “normal” mother things, so my brother and I would go grocery shopping, cook, prepare our breakfasts, and eat school lunches.  I went to Publix with a check and a grocery list in 3rd grade.  My Dad cooked.  My Mom would sometimes cook.  We would eat out before school basketball games.  I learned how to cook early on.  Now, I love to cook – but I would still rather cook for people than just myself.  I want people to appreciate my cooking.  So, if it’s just me – I’m going to make a salad or eat hummus and raw vegetables, or maybe even a bowl of light ice cream for dinner. 

Now that I’ve gotten older, learned more, been around more people – I see food and cooking in a different light.  I don’t see preparing food in a kitchen at your home for your family as a demeaning task or one that should only be done by the wife.  Proverbs 31 does mention this: “She rises while it is yet night and provides food for her household.” (31.15)  But, I don’t believe that means that if the husband cooks, then the wife is falling down on her wifely/motherly duties. 

Here are two thoughts all these above-mentioned articles mentioned:

1.  What has fast food (whether eating out or pre-packaged) done for the feminism movement?  If you think back to when these TV dinners started really hitting the supermarket shelves (or fast food icons, etc) – it would be in the late 50s and on.  Which came first – the feminism movement of the 60s and 70s or the rise of food?  Is there a correlation – yes, but I don’t think its the driving correlation.  As I walk through Harris Teeter or Whole Foods now – look at all the “organic” specialized TV dinner and prepared foods.  So, not only do we have parents (both men and women) – but probably a majority of women – who are now trying to be the do-it-all-Mom (corporate exec, teacher, PTA superpower, and Mom, cook, cleaner, housewife extraordinaire) and they must have the convenience foods.  There is no way to have it all.  It can’t be done.  Something will take a back burner.  And maybe what is on the back burner – just foodie wise – is the health and nutrition of what you put in your mouth and on your child’s plate.  This leads to unhealthy families (but that is for another blog).

2.  Entitlement.  We live in a culture now where we can get local, organic, grass-fed, cage-free, no pesticides foods.  We have specialty shops like Whole Foods.  We have Fresh Market.  We eat non-processed foods or only plants.  Is all of this good – sure.  Is all of it a necessity?  No.  Women (yes, mostly women) think in terms of entitlement or status.  During a conversation I had this morning – we think it’s a status to walk into our kid’s classroom holding our Whole Foods recyclable bag.  How dare we bring in a plastic Food Lion or Aldi bag?  Would anyone eat the food we brought if it wasn’t organic?   And the question raised in one of the articles I read – does this “slow-food” culture (the return in politics and foodie circles to non-processed foods, grind your own wheat, bake your own breads, etc) really mean that women are giving up their careers and returning to the kitchen.  I don’t think the argument can be made.  I think it can be more made that as women/wives/mothers get more into culture and the world – they think they are entitled to more and better things (including their food).  So, they will spend more money on gratifying self in the way of the Whole Foods salad bar and bulk bins.  But, that doesn’t necessarily mean that their hearts are returning to a God-given love of the home and their children.

As Mary Kassian states in her book Girls Gone Wise, “Do you believe that treasuring Christ holds greater pleasure than sec, wealth, power, and prestige?  Are you willing to forego worldly gratification?”  Is shopping at Whole Foods and Fresh Market and local farms wrong – no, please don’t hear that.  But, what is the heart behind your actions?  Do you want to have it all?  Do you want to be a status symbol?  Do you want to be able to hang with the green, organic Moms who you think have it all together from the outside looking in?  Or do you want to reclaim your role as a wife and a mother who’s best interest is her love for Christ and that she “looks well to the ways of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness.” (Prov 31.27)

Striving for Excellence

by Kimberly | Jun 23, 2010 | Uncategorized

This is a late night post, straight out of my head – so who knows what might come out in this blog.  It is something I’ve thought about before now, so that should give you some comfort of mind!

If you want to be excellent at something – what must you do?  Thoughts…  Here are my two:

1.  Surround yourself with people who are better at you in what you want to be excellent.  If I want to be a good cook – hang out with better cooks (Phyllis, Granny (chicken and rice and fried chicken), Alan (grilling steaks – but that must mean I get a grill too), Lauren (Italian food because she is), Wilders (homemade pizzas)…I could go on.  If I want to be a good photographer – I hang out with people who are good and I look at their photos: Sherri, Aarica, Casey, Angie, Alan, Travis, David… I watch them as they take photos, look at their angles, ask them questions…and learn.  If I want to be a better writer…I write, read, learn, study.  If I want to be a better runner…I read running magazines, I hang out with people who will push me to run more.

But…I can watch and learn all I want…I eventually have to cook, take photos, write, and run.  If these are the four things that I want to excel at in life – than I need to be around people who are better than me and actually do the things I want to be better at.

2.  There’s the last one…I must practice.  That means I look through recipes and make things that may or may not turn out because I want to practice on that one thing.  Like fried goat cheese.  Bruschetta – that’s this weekend.  Cookies – the more I make them the better they will be.  Photog: that means I actually have to make outings just about taking photos.  That means I carry my camera with me everywhere I go.  That means I see the world differently because I want to see it through a lens of my Canon Rebel.  That means I actually must write.  Whether that is through this blog, writing letters, or writing what I actually do for a living – I have to do it.  I have to be prepared to get my work cut to shreds by people because that will only make me better.  It means I must divorce myself from my writing and not take criticism personally.  That means I must buy more pens and more paper and always have something with me on which to write.  It means I must think more.  That means I sign up for races and go run.  That means I get up at the crack of dawn or go run in the heat/humidity.  That means I sacrifice.  That means I use the saying no pain no gain in running a 1/2 marathon. 

One thing I want to be good at: being a wife.  That means…if I ever get the chance…I want to be the best darn wife God will have created me to be.  That means…for now…I hang out with great wives, I learn from them.  That means…I read books on biblical femininity and the roles of a wife and a mother.  That means…I talk about where I struggle.  That means I learn how to be real with people (oh, don’t I just love that).  One pastor’s wife said to me, “Kim, you may be an open book but that doesn’t mean you are vulnerable.”  I didn’t believe her at the time.  But, I think being around people who are about me and want to love me for who I am and not what I can do or how I succeed has taught me that it is ok.  Also, being surrounded by grace has gone a long way.  But, I still can’t settle.  And that brings me to my last point of this post…

I want to excel at loving Jesus.  That means…I come to him and bring all my requests to him in boldness (Eph 3.12, 20).  That means I repent of the same sins that I do over and over (Until sin be bitter, Christ will not be sweet).  That means I cling so tightly to the cross of Christ that that is all I talk about because without it I wouldn’t be alive (Gal 6.14).  That means I saturate myself in the Word and know that anything I say, do, think, or read will be colored by the Truth that I find in that book.  That means I live in grace.  That means I live in grace.  That means I live in grace. 

For what are you striving for excellence?  What steps are you taking to get there?