Barbie: A Thousand Excellent Questions

I was able to watch the Barbie Movie with my wife this week and I must say I was deeply impressed. It isn't too many movies that ask so many good questions.

Being a student of anthropology and phenomenology I found the movie fascinating. It poses so many excellent questions about what it means to be human in such rapid succession that I would have to watch the movie in slow motion to catch them all. One of the lead characters (a mom who had played with Barbie dolls as a child) posed several pointed and excellent questions out loud, while most of the questions (equally valid) were masked under sarcastic and often dark humor.

This movie kicked my inner Mr. Curious into gear and below are a few of the questions it triggered me to ask:

• What does it mean to be human?
• What does it mean to be treated like an object?
• Who am I?
• What do genitals mean?
• What happens when genitals are not present or distinct?
• What is the patriarchy?
• What is masculinity?
• What is matriarchy?
• What is femininity?
• What does it mean to be a mother?
• Why is fatherhood absent or a joke?
• How do stereotypes harm us?
• What is the difference between a stereotype and an archetype?
• What do we do with the wounds of being objectified and/or oppressed?
• Why did pregnant Barbie get discontinued?
• Why is it not OK to want to be a mom?
• What happens when you realize you actually have distinct genitalia?
• Why didn't Barbie completely destroy the need for playing with baby dolls (despite the haunting implications of the opening scene)?
• What happens when the function of genitalia is removed from society completely (Barbie Land)?
• Why on earth would any human wear high heals?
• Is girl's night or boy's night helpful? What does it mean or point to?
• What are tears? Why do we have them?
• Is all pain bad? What is its function?
• What is the function of bad breath and other bad smells?
• What does it mean to have a real body?
• Just how important is embodiment?
• Does my body even matter?
• Is matriarchy better than patriarchy?
• Why is the definition of feminine beauty so convoluted?
• What is the true source of beauty?
• Is there a way for man and women to live in complementarity rather than struggling to dominate one another?

The truly profound thing about this movie is I didn't sense it trying to force any easy answers to any of these questions. That is a rare gift in our world today in my humble opinion.

The very next night Margie and I watched Oppenheimer, the story of how the power of splitting the atom was harnessed for the mass destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II. It was a tedious and heart breaking movie to say the least. But it did add a couple more questions to the thousand excellent questions thrown at me the night before:

• What is worse: twisting the function of nuclear energy into a weapon or weaponizing human sexuality into a game of thrones and domination?
• What is the more powerful force: human sexual interaction or nuclear fission/fusion?

Hmmmmm....

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A Joyful Song for Lent

 Passing through the Eastern door of the Church allowed me to be exposed to so much beauty. I'm eternally grateful for it and treasure it in my heart often. The many songs of Lent and Easter still haunt my soul years after I've moved into the western fold.

In the Eastern (Byzantine) Church this particular hymn gets 'busted out' impromptu after many of the extra lenten services and people joyfully join in, belting it out with gusto. I can't explain how moving it is to be immersed in that kind of joy, it brings tears to my eyes just writing about it.

Anyway, I made a little slide show with an excellent female choir (Eikona) singing it. I hope it brings joy to you this lent and always.

______________

For our Blessed Mother on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, the Year of Our Lord 2021.

Woodcut style icons: Virginia Broderick

Final icon of Theotokus of the Inexhaustible Cup: Ariane Trifunovic Montemuro (www.arianeart.com)

All other icons from the web, please inform me of the artists if you know them and I'll give them credit here.

Music performed by Eikona on their album "Sacred Hymns of the Divine Liturgy"

Lyrics in English and Greek:

" O Pure Virgin" 

by St. Nectarios of Aegina 

Tone 5

(A, B, and C refer to the three distinct melodies within the hymn.)

(A) 

O pure and virgin Lady,

O spotless Theotokos: 

Rejoice, O unwedded Bride!

O Virgin Queen and Mother

O dewy fleece most sacred:

Rejoice, O unwedded Bride!

(B) 

O height transcending heaven above

O beam of light most radiant:

Rejoice, O unwedded Bride!

O joy of chaste and virgin maids

surpassing all the angels:

Rejoice, O unwedded Bride!

(C) 

O brilliant light of heaven above

most clear and most radiant:

Rejoice, O unwedded Bride!

Commanding chief of heaven above

O holiest of holies

Rejoice, O unwedded Bride!

(A) 

O ever-virgin Mary

O Mistress of creation:

Rejoice, O unwedded Bride!

O Bride all-pure and spotless

O Lady all-holy:

Rejoice, O unwedded Bride!

(B) 

O holy Mary, Bride and Queen

O cause of our rejoicing

Rejoice, O unwedded Bride!

O Maiden Queen most hon'rable

O Mother most holy

Rejoice, O unwedded Bride!

(C) 

More precious than the cherubim

more glorious than the seraphim:

Rejoice, O unwedded Bride!

Surpassing principalities

dominions, thrones and powers:

Rejoice, O unwedded Bride!

(A) 

Rejoice, song of the cherubim

Rejoice, hymn of the angels:

Rejoice, O unwedded Bride!

Rejoice, ode of the seraphim

and joy of the archangels:

Rejoice, O unwedded Bride!

(B) 

Rejoice, o peace; Rejoice, o joy

and haven of salvation: 

Rejoice, O unwedded Bride!

O bridal chamber of the Word

unfading, fragrant blossom:

Rejoice, O unwedded Bride!

(C) 

Rejoice, delight of paradise

Rejoice, life everlasting: 

Rejoice, O unwedded Bride!

Rejoice, o holy tree of life

and fount of immortality:

Rejoice, O unwedded Bride!

(A)

I supplicate thee, Lady,

I humbly call upon thee:

Rejoice, O unwedded Bride!

O queen of all, I beg thee

To grant me Thy favor:

Rejoice, O unwedded Bride!

(B)

O spotless and most honored Maid,

O Lady all holy:

Rejoice, O unwedded Bride!

I call upon thee fervently, 

Thou temple most holy:

Rejoice, O unwedded Bride!

(C) 

O thou my help, deliver me

From harm and all adversity:

Rejoice, O unwedded Bride!

And by thy prayers show me to be

An heir of immortality:

Rejoice, O unwedded Bride!

[Phonetic Greek]

Agní Parthéne

(A) 

Agní Parthéne Déspina, 

Áhrante Theotóke,

Hére Nímfi Anímfefte.

 

Parthéne Mítir Ánassa, 

Panéndrose te póke.

Hére Nímfi Anímfefte.

(B)  

Ipsilotéra Uranón, 

aktínon lamprotéra,

Hére Nímfi Anímfefte.

 

Hará parthenikón horón, 

angélon ipertéra,

Hére Nímfi Anímfefte.

(C)  

Eklamprotéra uranón 

fotós katharotéra,

Hére Nímfi Anímfefte.

 

Ton Uraníon stratión 

pasón agiotéra.

Hére Nímfi Anímfefte.

 

(A) 

María Aipárthene 

kósmu pantós Kiría,

Hére Nímfi Anímfefte.

 

Áhrante Nímfi Pánagne, 

Déspina Panagía

Hére Nímfi Anímfefte.

(B)   

María Nímfi Ánassa, 

harás imón etía,

Hére Nímfi Anímfefte.

 

Korí semní Vasílissa, 

Mítir iperagía,

Hére Nímfi Anímfefte.

(C) 

Timiotéra Heruvím, 

iperendoxotéra,

Hére Nímfi Anímfefte.

 

Ton asomáton Serafím, 

ton Thrónon ipertéra.

Hére Nímfi Anímfefte.

(A)  

Hére to ásma Heruvím, 

hére ímnos angélon,

Hére Nímfi Anímfefte.

 

Hére odí ton Serafím, 

hará tón Arhangélon,

Hére Nímfi Anímfefte.

(B)    

Hére iríni ke hará, 

limín tis sotirías,

Hére Nímfi Anímfefte.

 

Pastás tu Lógu ierá, 

ánthos tis aftharsías,

Hére Nímfi Anímfefte.

(C)  

Hére Parádise trifís, 

zoís te eonías,

Hére Nímfi Anímfefte.

 

Hére to xílon tis zoís, 

pigí athanasías.

Hére Nímfi Anímfefte.

(A)   

Se iketévo Déspina, 

Se, nin, epikalúme,

Hére Nímfi Anímfefte.

 

Se disopó Pantánassa, 

Sin hárin exetúme.

Hére Nímfi Anímfefte.

(B)   

Korí semní ke áspile, 

Déspina Panagía,

Hére Nímfi Anímfefte.

 

Thermós epikalúme Se, 

Naé igiasméne,

Hére Nímfi Anímfefte.

(C)  

Antilavú mu, ríse 

me apó tu polemíu,

Hére Nímfi Anímfefte.

 

Ke klironómon díxon 

me zoís tis eoníu.

Hére Nímfi Anímfefte.

Remember, all produce on the farm is freely given

and never for sale. All donations to the farm

are tax deductible as we are a registered 501(c)(3).

If you've been blessed by our produce and would

love to make sure others get blessed too,

use the 'Donate' button below to pay it forward. 

Fiscal Transparency / Produce Distributed

Alternately, you may send a check to: 

Photon Farms, Inc.

PO Box 36

Grandville, MI 49468-0036

***Phone Browsers***

Contact Farmer Fred by clicking the ‘View Web Version’ 

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Demolishing the Walls of Suspicion

I recently finished reading one of the most disarming treatments of Mary the Mother of Jesus I’ve ever encountered. Written in 2006, Scott McKnight has won my heart by modeling gentleness and compassion toward those who relate to the Mother of Our Lord differently than he does. In “The Real Mary: Why Evangelical Christians Can Embrace The Mother of Jesus”, Dr. McKnight simply refuses to look at his Catholic brothers and sisters with suspicion. Surely others have done the same, but I’m not sure they’ve done it quite so well.

As a recent convert to the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic folds, I’ve been questioned about my understanding of Jesus’ mother more than practically anything else. My Protestant brothers and sisters are often genuinely puzzled at certain Orthodox and Catholic practices and apparent beliefs. Perhaps from now on I’ll simply recommend they read this book if they’re open to it, rather than have me try to explain. 

The Real Mary was very easy to read and touched upon so many of the things we can agree upon about Jesus’ Momma. The book dove deeply into scripture to get a sense of where Mary was coming from as a young Jewish girl in the first century. From there it allowed us to imagine how strange Jesus’ approach to being the Messiah must have seemed to her and the other disciples. These are very important things to consider when examining what we know about her from the Gospel narratives.

What really struck me however was when Dr. McKnight turned to the many things about which various Christian communities have come to disagree regarding Mary. What genuine love and gentleness has shone through here! Going even further he couples that with a true desire to put those he disagrees with in the best possible light. In essence he has taken great strides toward tearing down the walls of suspicion that have been built during the past five centuries between Protestants and Orthodox/Catholics. What a gift you have been to us Dr. McKnight!

A mere twelve years after McKnight’s book hit the shelves, another excellent effort at reaching across the Protestant - Catholic divide was published by Dr. Brant Pitre. In his book “Jesus and The Jewish Roots of Mary: Unveiling the Mother of the Messiah” he explains that without an understanding of Mary and Jesus’ Jewishness, we as post-modern westerners have little chance of understanding them.

It is interesting that I read Dr. Pitre’s book about the same time I visited the Holy Land. Our Pastor on that journey encouraged us to read O’Brien and Richard’s book “Misunderstanding Scripture with Western Eyes: Removing Cultural Blinders to Better Understand the Bible”. 

All three of these books affected me profoundly as I toured the Holy Land where everything seems to make scripture pop and come alive. While I certainly cannot completely remove my western tinted glasses or climb into the heart and soul of a first century Jew, these writings took me a few steps in that direction.

Dr. Pitre’s work took what I learned in both of the other titles to an even deeper dive into the Jewish Bible and its supporting literature. I was able to see where my current American cultural norms truly blinded me to things that would have been positively obvious to any first century Jew with even a basic training in the Torah. In fact, it would greatly interest me to know how Dr. McKnight and authors O’Brien and Richard would respond to Dr. Pitre’s work. Sounds like a great YouTube discussion in the making doesn’t it? Well, perhaps only for people like me, fair enough!

The common denominator in all three of these works is a tearing down of the walls of hostility between the various strains of the Christian faith. There seems to be a genuine desire for true dialogue and understanding and I for one welcome it. It seems extremely timely considering the world we live in today. I believe building bridges between the various Christian denominations is more important now than ever, which is why I have been experimenting with tiny ways of doing that and writing about it in the “Building Bridges” section.

I think the Mother of Jesus would approve of these books as well. After all, if God is our Father and Jesus is our brother then in a sense we are all her spiritual children. Mommas love it when their kids get along.

Remember, all produce on the farm is freely given

and never for sale. All donations to the farm

are tax deductible as we are a registered 501(c)(3).

If you've been blessed by our produce and would

love to make sure others get blessed too,

use the 'Donate' button below to pay it forward. 

Fiscal Transparency / Produce Distributed

Alternately, you may send a check to: 

Photon Farms, Inc.

PO Box 36

Grandville, MI 49468-0036

***Phone Browsers***

Contact Farmer Fred by clicking the ‘View Web Version’ 

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Daily Apocalypse - Removing the Veil

I have such fond memories of the tiny Baptist Church of my youth.  The people were so warm and loving. They made sure a God-hungry kid like me was fed plenty of spiritual meals, going out of their way to ensure I was at Sunday School, Bible Camp and every special Church function.

One such function was our recurring invitation of what I called Chart Evangelists to our little Church on Jebavy Drive.  It was a big event when one would show up for a week, preaching loud and dramatically every night with his wall-to-wall colored charts detailing out the end times.  I confess I was enthralled with the maps of end-time events more than the preaching.

They always used the same charts, created by a draftsman who became a Baptist dispensational preacher in the late 1800s.  Clarence Larkin was his name and his attention to detail in laying out apocalyptic chronologies was and is unparalleled.  It takes a brilliant mind to collect all those seemingly untamable images and lay them out in some sort of intelligible order, no matter whether the underlying theology was spot on or not.

That explains why I showed up every night on those weeks in the late 70's when those flamboyant preachers came to town.  For a kid who loved working puzzles, building model rockets and soldering electronic kits I found the end-time charts irresistible, for they claimed to be the key to understanding future events from a Biblical perspective before they unfolded.  They helped me work the puzzle of mankind's future in my mind and set me at ease that God was indeed in control and had a plan, albeit somewhat bizarre, for humanity's future.  For me it was almost as good as I imagined it would be if I had my own Light Saber, X-wing Fighter, Elven Ring of Power (like Gandalf) or better yet, a Palantir (i.e. a Middle Earth Seeing Stone)!

Now, forty years later I am drawn back to those memories with an added layer of meaning.  

Over the years I learned that Apocalypse is the English transliteration of a Greek word and means "unveiling" or "revealed" thus the alternate title of the last book of the New Testament "The Revelation of Jesus Christ".  My early formation in the faith taught me that this "Revelation" of Jesus was to happen at the end of the ages... that the whole world would see Him revealed as King of the universe.

Now however, I have found there is another way to understand this revealing of Jesus spoken of in the last book of the Bible.  In fact, because of this new and deeper way, my entire view of the cosmos has changed from what I held as a kid in the late 70's.  I mean, I used to wish so intensely that the Star Wars and Lord of the Rings stories were really true.  Now I believe with the entire fiber of my being that something even more mind blowing is true on our planet on a daily basis.  I thought I was hungry for my favorite sci-fi and fantasy stories to come to life, but that was just scratching the surface of my longings.

From the time I was a kid, my hunger for God never grew less as I grew older.  It increased.  I couldn't figure out how to feed that deepening hunger for God within the venues where I was seeking Him, so I turned to other less nourishing things to abate my hunger.  Yet like Gollum, the more I partook of those things, the more famished my soul became.  Misdirected hunger could have actually killed me as it has so many others, but God's mercy prevailed until I was ready to hear and embrace the truth.

This came about in 2008 when I heard and finally comprehended that there was a form of the Christian Faith that believed God literally offered Himself to us as food and drink.  Every day.

Literally.  Spiritually.  Mystically.  Physically. 
[I no longer see these terms as contradictory.]

I.  Had.  To.  Have. THAT!

I found THAT in The Lamb's Supper.  In the eastern hemisphere it is usually called "The Divine Liturgy".  Here in the west it is called simply "The Mass".  It is here that Jesus, hidden in the form of bread and wine is unveiled to the faithful in a tiny way each day.  

Believe me when I tell you, that was a lot to unpack for a guy who grew up Baptist and married into the Reformed tradition.   I was not taught to look kindly on the Catholic Church nor anything that smacked of High Church Tradition.

Yet my cosmology shifted nonetheless, for  something greater than Star Wars is here.  Every day Jesus is revealed at divinely appointed celestial portals (Yes, Star Gate is another of my favorite stories) and makes an inconceivably humbling appearance as food and drink to be consumed by the faithful.  [Isn't it interesting that Sci-fi and fantasy genres so often point to something beyond our comprehension.]

Well, for me this is the only reality worth pondering over and over.  This is why I go to Mass every day I am able.  Jesus is there and pours Himself out literally as food and drink and I gobble Him up.  God becomes (in a mind blowing quantum physics sort of way) an actual part of me and every believer who partakes in this time bending "once for all" meal.

Now my conversion to this way of thinking may be interesting (probably to me only) but I cannot help revisiting the stories of others who have come to see things in this cosmology shifting fashion.  That is why nearly every year I reread or at least re-listen to Dr. Scott Hahn's story.

He was a protestant pastor researching how to teach his congregation about prophecy, especially the book of Revelation, when he stumbled into Mass one day on a hunch that it might "reveal" some of the mysteries of the material.  His hunch turned out to be spot on, for the ancient Christian liturgies are chock full of quotes and scenes straight from the Apocalypse.

His story can be found in a book (audible, kindle, softcover) called "The Lamb's Supper: The Mass as Heaven on Earth".  It is relatively short, only a four hour listen.  Every time I revisit it, I am comforted to know that Jesus appears to us daily, if we have eyes to see Him and indeed mouths to consume Him.  

I'm now taught that there are at least three 'comings' of Christ.  The first appearance hidden in Palestine 2000 years ago.  A final coming in the future when He returns as King openly to the whole world.  But also (between that first and final appearance), billions of hidden middle comings in the bread and wine every day, all over the world.

It is a decidedly covert operation, at least for now. Only those given the eyes to see it ever catch a glimpse of it in this life. I have never seen the hosts of angels and all the saints at any given Mass or Eastern Church Divine Liturgy. I have been in Churches that inspire me to see such things with the eyes of my heart however. Usually these are buildings with beautiful stained glass or iconography of Angels and Saints applied with due proportion and harmony.

Once in a while however, someone produces media that gives a leg up to those who struggle to imagine what is really going on in Mass, just beyond the veil of our limited vision. Such is this video produced in 2019. It can prime that pump and lift the veil just for a moment, making seen the unseen for us. It is just a tiny peek into the reality of Jesus speaking in Persona Cristi through the priest, of the heavenly hosts celebrating with us, of that strange compression of time that allows us to participate in the actual last supper of Jesus and His disciples... all of that... just a sneak preview in a bit more than 5 minutes of actual film. 

If it helps one person open the eyes of their hearts, it will be more than worth posting it again here:

Remember, all produce on the farm is freely given

and never for sale. All donations to the farm

are tax deductible as we are a registered 501(c)(3).

If you've been blessed by our produce and would

love to make sure others get blessed too,

use the 'Donate' button below to pay it forward. 

Fiscal Transparency / Produce Distributed

Alternately, you may send a check to: 

Photon Farms, Inc.

PO Box 36

Grandville, MI 49468-0036

***Phone Browsers***

Contact Farmer Fred by clicking the ‘View Web Version’ 

link below. A form will appear in the right column 

when you do this which you can fill out to email him.