According to the article linked below, on any given Sunday women outnumber men 61% to 49% at Christian services.

Murrow, a 1983 Baylor University graduate and author of “Why Men Hate Going to Church,” contends that the modern church is too chatty, too touchy-feely and full of hokey rituals that don’t affirm a guy’s manhood. In short, the faith founded by one man 2,000 years ago needs a testosterone shot.

—Modern Churches Don’t Suit the Macho Man

However, the article also mentions a 1910 YMCA survey found that two-thirds of church attendants were female. So I’d say this problem is more deeply rooted; 1910 isn’t ancient history, but neither does it qualify as modern to my thinking.

As one who belonged to a charismatic, evangelical church for several years, I do concede one point to Murrow. He says, “Praise and worship services are 20-30 minutes of love songs to Jesus Christ in words no man would say to another.” Services are, and while some of the songs are lovely, they may not suit all personalities. However, Murrow also says church services have become “a time and place for mush, emotion and sentimentality.” This has not been the case in all denominations (Roman Catholic comes to mind, as do other churches with more formal, ritualized services). The atmosphere Murrow bemoans is a key trait of the evangelical charismatic style, which aims to heighten a person’s awareness of his unsaved condition by making him aware of his wretchedness and sinfulness, and by then appealing to fear (of damnation) and hope (of salvation) by calling him to “be born again.” It is a highly emotional style that has been a component of evangelicalism for many, many decades. Perhaps less focus on emotional manipulation and more education on what it means to follow Jesus is in order?

Interesting article.

[via MacRaven]

Being unemployed provides swaths of time that beg to used, and lately, I’ve been sprawled across the hammock or sofa with my nose in a book. I finished Gilead, a novel written in the form of a letter from elderly father to young son. It was lyrical. I’ve tucked about a dozen quotes away for use on the blog.

I’ve begun dipping into Bill Bryson’s Neither Here Nor There, which has already delivered to my expectations. His chapters are concise and make for pleasant bedtime reading — unless you’re my husband, attempting to fall asleep to occasional spurts of muffled laughter. Bryson really tickles me.

And of course, I’ve hopped onto the Harry Potter bandwagon. We own books one through five, but we stalled out in the middle of book four a couple years ago. (While I enjoy the stories, I’m not bitten that severely by the mania.) Since the fourth movie will come out in November, though, I thought I’d best get up to speed. Besides, I’ve heard so much murmuring about the darkness of the latest volume that my interest is roused.

Being immersed in books has quieted my urge to write. I haven’t posted my own thoughts, because I’ve nothing but very mundane things to say about my very ordinary days. I’m not feeling creative, loquacious, or disciplined. Of course, I would love to write about what I did today — writing is a way I process — but this blog, while somewhat personal, isn’t the place for such run-of-the-mill writing.

I am reading and healing. As soon as my body is ready, we will again attempt to kindle life. Talk about creative! It amazed me, what my body had begun. To make something out of almost nothing, to participate in a complex process that unfolds with such order and precision. How do certain cells know their job is to become eyes, or skin, or nerves, and how do they know in what order to manifest? It made me wonder, and I felt involved in something important, eternal, and magnificent. I feel a bit of fear; I could be unsuccessful again.

To dream, to hope, to strive — all this creates attachment, and attachment carries the risk of loss and pain. But that’s okay. I accept this as part of life. It became clear to me, within a day of confirming that I was pregnant, that there would never again be a time when I could sigh and say, “All done! No more risk!” If anything, having a child increases risk. I was tempted to say, “Once I get past the first trimester, I’m in the clear.” But no, this is not guaranteed. “Once I have the child, and it’s healthy, we’re all set!” Again, no. A debilitating disease might occur, or an intellectual disability, or any number of misfortunes may await. “Once my child graduates college and has a good job, I’m done!” A parent isn’t at liberty, ever, to be “finished with” caring for a child. Even during my abbreviated pregnancy, I grasped this. That scared me too. So to try again, I think, is evidence of true grit, and perhaps a dash of insanity.

Making the decision to have a child — it’s momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.

— Elizabeth Stone

In for a penny, in for a pound. As I see it, we can try again, and we might fail. There will be sadness and even anger. We can try again, and we might succeed, and then there will surely be sadness and anger, but also joy and amazement, and laughter and vitality. We can decide, instead, that the risk scares us and continue with life as we have been. A life without one’s own children will also contain sadness, anger, as well as joy, amazement, laughter, and vitality. All three paths are similar in this way. So the driving force is curiosity. Which path most intrigues me? One question I ask myself over the years is: Is the decision I am about to make based on fear? For me, a fear-based decision is the incorrect one. Fear is valid, no dispute there. I give it its due. I just won’t (or try not to) let it shape my life. The risk of being a parent scares me most of all, and this is the very reason I will choose to try again.

Gee, for someone who protested an absence of words, I apparently tapped a hidden spring.