Mercy Sunday, Lena Dunham, And The Missiles Of Righteous Wrath

Today, for Catholics, is Mercy Sunday.  It is a time for remembering and celebrating the mercy of God.  And for reflecting on how we should show mercy to others.

This has gotten me to thinking about Twitter.  I love Twitter.  I have "met" (if you can call it that) many wonderful people there.

When I first started using Twitter, I naturally followed some Catholic and Christian stay-at-home mom types.  I figured we would have things in common.  I also followed some artsy people -- cinematographers and directors and actors and producers and writers.  I find that world quite fascinating, even though I don't consider myself to be very creative.  And most of the people I have encountered on Twitter have been delightful and kind and funny and interesting.  I have greatly enjoyed their "company."

I am going to describe an interesting experience I had, though.  I hope nobody takes this as an insult, or anything.  It is just an experience I had that caused me to reflect, and I think it is relevant to the whole idea of mercy.

Around election time, back in the fall, many people's opinions were being tossed around all over Twitter.  There were liberal opinions and conservative opinions and moderate opinions.  Of course, being a Catholic, I was reading opinions of the other Catholic and Christian stay-at-home moms.  I was also being exposed to the opinions of the people those moms were listening to, by virtue of the "retweet" option on Twitter.  And some of those opinions had to do with a young lady by the name of Lena Dunham.  She had done an ad for the Obama campaign, the aim of which was to encourage young people to vote.  She compared voting for the first time to having sex for the first time.

And the Catholic and Christian and conservative people pretty much went apoplectic over this ad.  Interested by their vociferous Tweets, I Googled the ad and watched it for myself.  And I giggled.  Well, I pretty much laughed really, really hard.

I then went back and sent a Tweet to a couple of the Catholic ladies telling them that I thought the ad was kind of funny.  I didn't mean any offense, or anything.  Then hell proceeded to rain down upon me from the Catholic/conservative corners of the Twittersphere.  I sort of didn't expect that.  I thought we could all have our opinions and be respectful of each other.  I thought we could try to see each others points of view.  I thought we could all have a SENSE OF HUMOR.  Well, I was wrong.

I felt sort of bad for making these poor moms stressed out with my opinion of Lena's ad.  A lot of these moms have many kids and homeschool and are quite tired, so I didn't intend to further complicate their lives with my obviously misguided thoughts.

This whole thing got me thinking, though, about kindness and mercy.  Especially where Christians are concerned.

Now, as a Christian, I probably have most of the same ideas about sexual morals as these people who fired their Missiles Of Righteous Wrath down on me.  And how did these Missiles Of Righteous Wrath make me feel?  On the one hand, I was kind of amused.  On the other hand, I felt a little angry.  Why?  Because, as Christians, we have to think about how our words and actions and attitudes towards people -- even actors -- will affect them.  If you hope that somebody will come to see and feel God's love, it is not helpful if you just shit (pardon my French) all over that person and his/her opinions.  I mean, if I were Lena and I read some of the stuff religious people were saying about me and my ad, I would just think to myself, "Screw those self-righteous people.  Long live the HHS mandate!"  I would not be thinking about how I really wanted to go to Church now and socialize with all the Church people at their Church festival.  I would get as far away as I possibly could from them and all their self-righteous ways.  And, as I recall, Jesus himself did not care too much for the self-righteous, for the hypocrites.  In fact, he tended to go to a lot of parties with a lot of people who were probably a lot like Lena Dunham.  Because -- you know what?  People like that are the people with the hearts yearning for love.  They are the people with the open hearts.  They are the people who yearn for fairness and justice.  They are also a lot of fun.  And I think Jesus liked to have fun, or he wouldn't have been going to all these parties. 

Please don't misunderstand me here.  I am NOT saying that you should be kind to people, that you should befriend them, because you want to convert them.  That is NOT what I am saying.  I have had people befriend me for that reason and, trust me, it did not feel good.  That is not friendship.   A friendship is based on mutual acceptance.  It is unconditional.  It exists in spite of differences.  It respects and appreciates differences.

So, saying that, I hope my little diatribe has not been too offensive.  And may we all reflect, on this beautiful Feast of Mercy, on how we can be a little kinder, a little more loving -- a little more merciful.

P.S. -- If you look at the people I follow on Twitter, in order to find the offending parties written about herein, you will not succeed.  

That Whole Lena Dunham Thing

Did y'all see that Lena Dunham commercial?  The one that playfully compares having sex for the first time to voting for the first time, in order to -- drum roll please -- get people's attention.

Before I comment in my usual rebel without a cause style about this commercial, I want to mention something.  I just read that Ms. Dunham got many hateful tweets from conservatives about this commercial.  Although, of course, she got many positive comments from liberal people.  Yeah.  Go figure.  Anyway, it is just plain wrong for conservative people -- who are supposedly Christian and believe in charity and believe in loving the sinner and all that -- to send this young woman hateful messages.  And if you are a conservative who does this kind of thing, I have some news for you.  You are basically helping Obama win the election because of your hypocrisy.

So, as for the commercial.  It has been said that this ad treats women as unintelligent.  That it is demeaning towards them.  That it is disgusting.  Someone even said that she can't believe the thing even exists.

Well, this is my take on it.

I think the ad is not meant to be a serious, logically reasoned argument for the positions of President Obama.  I believe it is intended as over-the-top humor, meant to grab the attention of a young person who is otherwise not paying attention.

Envision This:  Eighteen-year-old student studying in one of the common areas of any of a number of liberal (or fairly liberal) institutions of higher education.  There is a TV in the room.  The TV is on.  Said young woman is engrossed in her organic chemistry textbook.  Suddenly, she hears, "Your first time should be with..."  What does she do?  She looks up from the chem book and watches the rest of the commercial, which is encouraging her to vote in the next election.  For Obama, yes.  Because the person who made the commercial is campaigning for Obama, as is her right as a citizen of this country.

Now, if this hypothetical young college student is diligently studying her textbook and she happens to hear the following words emanating from the television -- "It is your right and duty to vote..." -- well, she will probably not look up from those engrossing diagrams of carbon-based compounds.   Because, after all, she has a test the next day.

Let's face it -- sex does get people's attention.  You may not like this, but it is true.

As for the political positions embraced by Lena's commercial.  They are the positions of President Obama and many of those who support him.  You may not like these positions, but you should not be angry that a commercial supporting the President supports these positions as positive things.  I mean, commercials for a candidate are going to portray his positions in a positive light.  This is to be expected.

So, as a Catholic, wife, mom, citizen, and person with a rather inappropriate sense of humor, this is how I am going to respond:

1.  I am going to appreciate Lena Dunham as the beautiful, clever, funny, talented young woman that she apparently is.
2.  I am not going to be offended by her, as I do not believe she intended to offend me.  And, even if she did intend to offend me, I am still not going to be offended.
3.  I am going to try to view the issues that she brings up -- women's rights, gay rights, foreign policy -- through her eyes before I respond.  Why?  Because in order to build up a fraternal society, in order to have fruitful discussion, we need to be willing to see things from different perspectives.  Even perspectives with which we do not agree.  If you want someone to consider your position, you have to be willing to consider theirs.  Otherwise, you are just going to have a nation that is full of people in trenches who are unwilling to talk to each other.
4.  I am going to discuss this ad and these positions with my husband, children, and any others who wish to have a calm, civilized exchange of ideas.  I am not interested in throwing grenades.  I am not interested in having a "culture war" with you.  One of the popes once said that war is not good for anybody -- even the victors.  I found this to be a fascinating statement.  And maybe it applies to culture "wars" even as it applies to conventional "wars." 

And as for those who cite this ad as evidence that the Obama campaign is dismissive of the intelligence of women, I would like to respond by saying that there are other ads and techniques being employed by the Obama campaign that are much more cerebral in nature.  For example, Ben McKenzie -- double major from University Of Virginia in Foreign Affairs and Economics, successful actor, speaker at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, supporter of a couple of rockin' good charities -- has been out campaigning for Obama in places like Iowa and Wisconsin.  And he has been doing so in his characteristic intelligent and low-key manner. 

This whole thing kind of reminds me of the firestorm over Ronald Reagan's "It's Morning In America" commercial.  The one where he rode the horse around and told us all how great things were going to be again.  Many liberals became literally apoplectic over the whole thing -- saying it was dismissive of people's intelligence and demeaning to anyone with a sense of reality.  The shoe, as it seems, is now on the proverbial other foot.

Yes.  This is kind of a rant.  I will blame it on menopause.  Menopause is a convenient excuse for many things. ;)