Save the Date

So we’ve got big news: We have chosen a moving date! 

July 26, 2014

This may not seem like a big deal, but it is for us. Choosing a specific moving date allows us to plan much more concretely. We can work backwards from that date and fill in our calendars with other, smaller deadlines we need to meet. There is still quite a lot to do:

• Find a place to live
• Arrange health insurance of some kind
• Downsize our house and belongings
• Raise the remainder of our financial support

We have already begun basic Internet searches for apartments in the general section of New York near Priority 1’s current apartment and the school where Ginny will attend. It’s fun to look around, to see what is available and where. To picture living on that particular block and seeing how much we could walk to or how long it would take to get to the subway.

We have also noticed that many apartments require proof of a certain level of income, a fact that reinforces to us that we need to bring in as much support as possible. Currently, we have raised approximately 60% of our monthly needs – we’re very pleased with that! But of course, we still need more. We are planning in faith that we can raise what we need in time.

So please pray about coming on our support team. Please don’t feel as though you don’t have enough to give – even $5 or $10 a month would help! Of course, more than that would help even more :), but we’re searching not so much for a certain amount as we are for people who will join us on our journey. It’s about people, not money.

Too, please keep praying for us! There is much to do, and we can’t do it on our own.

“There is never enough time to do or say all the things that we would wish; the thing is to do as much as you can in the time that you have.” – Charles Dickens

In a Bronx stairwell

Elsa Was Wrong

*The following post is of a different nature than most of those we’ve done before. Occasionally we will be doing topical posts about the culture, the world, or an issue of some kind. We would love to hear your opinions and responses.*

Perhaps by now you’ve heard of the song “Let It Go” from the animated Disney movie Frozen. If you haven’t, I can’t help but wonder where you’ve been hiding for the last five months. Though perhaps you don’t have three young girls in your home who sing the song constantly or want to listen to the soundtrack every time you’re in the car. It has spawned countless amateur and professional cover videos on YouTube and seems to be speaking to people of all ages. The song, simply, is everywhere.

It’s a good song. I can say that as a musician. It has musical depth, clever lyrics (come on, they even work in the word “fractals”), and a catchy melody that you feel as though you’ve heard it before and won’t ever forget it. I also like the film as a whole, for how it refreshes the classic (and cliché) Disney theme of “true love.” I give it a hearty recommendation.

Elsa, the eldest of two royal sisters, sings “Let It Go” after her magical powers to create ice and snow are revealed despite her lifetime spent concealing them. She flees to the mountains, fearing not only what might happen to her now that everyone knows her secret, but also fearing that she will lose control again and harm someone else, her little sister Anna in particular (whom she had almost killed with her powers when they were both young). She realizes that there is no longer a reason to conceal her abilities, and she feels free for the first time in her life. She starts experimenting with her powers, building a beautiful ice palace and even creating a frozen gown for herself. The song gives a play-by-play of Elsa’s realization.

But there is one thing that bugs me about “Let It Go”: Elsa is wrong.

The song has been celebrated as an anthem for individuality, self-expression, and self-realization. Kristen Anderson-Lopez, co-writer of “Let It Go” with her husband Robert, said in their Oscar acceptance speech, “Our girls, Katie and Annie, our song is inspired by our love for you in the hope that you never let fear and shame keep you from celebrating the unique people that you are.” What a great sentiment, right?

Sure. Our culture loves this stuff: standing up and standing out and sticking it to the man, and “Let It Go” fits right in there. There’s nothing wrong with celebrating who you are. But there’s more happening here than a fearful girl finally standing up for herself.

After Elsa almost accidentally kills her little sister when they are young, their parents keep the two apart, and Elsa must “conceal, don’t feel, don’t let them see” her powers. So rather than learning to control her abilities, Elsa only grows to fear them, and the relationship between the sisters takes years to mend. Both sisters suffer because of short-sighted repression, and both display remarkable immaturity when dealing with “adult” things like responsibility and love. Elsa sings

It’s time to see what I can do
To test the limits and break through
No right, no wrong, no rules for me
I’m free

She’s right about testing limits and seeing what she can do – her parents should have let her do that when she was little. But she’s wrong that right and wrong no longer exist for her, and she’s wrong that she’s free. She admits it herself later in the movie, when she learns that she has unintentionally caused an eternal winter in the kingdom:

I'm such a fool, I can't be free
No escape from the storm inside of me
I can’t control the curse

And then she loses control and hurts her sister worse than she did when they were young. Her freedom was an illusion. Running away from responsibility and shirking human contact did not bring about her freedom, but only proved how trapped she really was inside her curse. She realizes that it wasn’t society’s “rules” that had taken her freedom, but the “storm” inside herself.

So it bothers me when I hear “Let It Go” described as an “anthem” for individuality and self-expression. It has been called “an anthem for the abused and repressed,” and "what [NPR’s music critic Ann Powers] hears is the fact that every 10-year-old girl is coming out of her shell and coming into her own, and she needs this kind of song to grab onto." One blogger even wrote a post titled “Why ‘Let It Go’ is My Life Anthem.”

Look, I can personally relate to the idea of feeling trapped, restrained, ashamed, and fearful, and understand the freedom that comes from stepping out from under all of that junk. Apparently millions of others relate as well. But the character who sings this song does not see the whole picture. She feels free in the moment, but she says herself that “Distance makes everything so small, and the fear that once controlled me can’t get to me at all.” Remember, Elsa had just that day been crowned queen. She has literally run away from her problems and her responsibilities.

This is not something to celebrate. It is an impulse that grown-ups have to face and overcome. Who doesn’t want to run away from dealing with our mental and emotional junk? We do it all the time in lots of ways. Standing up and “being who you are” is no excuse for shutting oneself off from the world and saying, “Screw my family. Screw all of these people that I have been trying to be so perfect for.”

Ginny (right) covering her ears as Cora (left) sings Frozen songs

Having said all of that, “Let It Go” is still right and correct when it appears in the film. It truly represents what Elsa’s character is thinking and feeling. I have a problem, however, with calling the song an anthem for freedom and self-expression, and with encouraging the little girls of the world to sing it about themselves.

So go ahead, sing and enjoy the song. (Other than the original version, I recommend the one Jimmy Fallon did on “The Tonight Show.”) But don’t forget that there’s a lot more to the story.

Where It's At

Since we have begun aligning ourselves toward the Bronx, we have found ourselves paying much more attention when New York City pops up in the news. And for a number of reasons, NYC pops up quite a bit. It has, after all, the largest population in the country, and serves as the center of much of our nation’s culture and commerce. It just seems as though everything happens in New York City: It’s the home of the United Nations and Broadway, the Stock Exchange and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. And it seems as though half of the shows on TV take place in or are filmed in New York City.

New York is where it’s at!

A mayoral election there makes national headlines. Many people know who Michael Bloomberg and Bill DeBlasio are (the former and current mayors of NYC) and don’t even know the mayor of the town where they live (I’m struggling right now to remember the mayor of Chambersburg. Umm…I think it’s Pete something…)

So New York is in the news a lot. Recently, for example, the Super Bowl took place right outside the city and had lots of press coverage. Then there was coverage of the connection between big sporting events and sex trafficking, and then even more coverage that debunked the myth of the connection between large sporting events and sex trafficking. On the lighter side, Staten Island's own groundhog made his own prediction a few weeks ago, though to much less fanfare than did Punxsatawney Phil.

One news report that caught my eye recently was put out by the Barna Group. They surveyed people from all over the country about their Bible-reading practices and their faith, and created a ranked list of “America’sMost (and Least) Bible-Minded Cities.” Some results were surprising, and others less so. For example, the top 5 cities were more or less in the South , and 3 of the bottom 5 were in the Northeast. One exception is the Cedar Rapids/Waterloo region of Iowa, which surprises my inexpert eyes because I always figured Iowa to be a rather conservative place. Apparently not.

Then I looked for New York City. Not surprisingly at all, the NYC comes in at a disappointing 89^th, actually falling four places from the previous year. My head and heart said in unison, “I want to go there.”

I like how the Barna website itself puts it:  

“The economic well-being of a nation rests largely on the health of its cities. Likewise, the spiritual vitality of the U.S. is deeply connected to the faith of the people living in its largest cities.” 

Where the cities go, so often goes the rest of the nation. But to bring the scope closer, there are literally millions of individual people in that big, sprawling city who need Jesus and who have no idea how much He loves them and what He did for them. God tells Jonah concerning Nineveh, “And should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left?” (4:11, NIV) That is a concern we share for the great city of New York.

New York City is definitely where it’s at.