I despise cookie cutter Christianity

A while back I heard that Brio Magazine folded. And I was so happy to find that out. Let me explain why. As someone who grew up in fairly conservative Christian circles, Brio was the magazine to read if you were a girl. And I hated it. Sure, it had some good things to say, but the overall focus was modesty and purity. Like that is the most important part of being a Christian girl apparently. Actually, it was more MODESTY and PURITY!!! As if the pit of Hell would open up under you if your belly button ever saw the light of day or you wore *gasp!* spaghetti strap tank tops. Because that is the definition of a good Christian girl for some: you're modest and pure. That's it. As in the rest of our culture, it's all about the outward appearance, albeit with a different focus. Instead of pushing how sexy you can go, it's how covered can you get without dying of heat exhaustion?

We match our curtains!

There is definitely worse out there,
but I want to keep this family friendly

Brio was predominantly pink and shades thereof. It was as sweet and saccharine as cotton candy dipped in honey. "Oh, surely you exaggerate, Elisabeth." Exhibit A, ladies and gentlemen.

I rest my case

Here's the thing, I'm no hater. I'm a Christian, I love Jesus, I think His followers should be different from the surrounding culture. Teen fashion magazines in general are waaaay too sexualized, yet still offer some sage advice. I would love to see a teen magazine that bridges the gap between being culturally relevant and encouraging and nurturing a deep, vibrant, active faith. Brio was not that, in my opinion. It was sugary, sappy, fluffy christianity-lite. It tried to be too many things poorly. And don't get me started on the much hyped Brio And Beyond. It was supposed to cover deeper issues and such for older teen girls. The cover was different...and it literally had one extra article, otherwise all the content was the same. 

My sisters and I preferred to read Breakaway, which was aimed at boys. The difference alone in the covers tells you quite a bit. If you Google "Brio Covers" you see multiple images of smiling girls not really doing a whole lot of anything. However "Breakaway Magazine Covers" returns very different results, generally action shots of males doing something. (The passive vs. active imagery is a great commentary on how girls and boys are "supposed to behave," but that's another post in itself). Breakaway would actually cover tough, relevant teen issues, like cutting or addiction to porn or suicide. Matters of the heart and soul were well represented in addition to outward appearance (they had an ongoing section on exercise routines).

I'm weird, I know that--I've always had a desire to "go deep," striking out for the deeper waters of faith and thought rather than wading in the shallows of superficiality. But surely I can't be the only one who chafes against this portrayal of "feminine" Christianity? I wear skinny jeans, tank tops, jewelry, makeup (when the mood strikes)...but I also love long flowy skirts, peasant shirts and leaving my face au natural. 

My sisters and I are the prime example for not trying to lump Christian girls into one box:

Leah working security at Sonshine

Hannah surfing

Me in my Ren Fest best

We all love Jesus, yet we each follow Him in our own way. We don't follow what others say we should be, but what the Bible says a righteous Christian is. And it don't say nothing about wearing frumpy clothes and pretending like we don't have a brain.

At the end of the day, my point is not that I hate Christian publications (I don't), or that I never wear pink (I do), or that Christianity is stupid (it's not). It's just to call out that overemphasis on outward appearance and external actions for girls I've seen in the Christian circles I've run in growing up. We need to find that healthy middle ground and not swing to either extreme as we live out being women who love Jesus.

Green raspberries for breakfast

There are things we love not for what they are, but what they represent to us: Brie cheese will always remind me of college, because of the art department's gallery openings I regularly attended. The smells of a bonfire and pine trees recall my summers at Storybook. Carry on Wayward Son by Kansas was me and my roommate's theme song my last year at Northwestern. And raspberries evoke a very specific memory, one of the oldest that I can remember:

It's a steamy summer morning on the Iron Range of Minnesota. Enter a huge yard, filled with flowers and towering trees grown into the rickety metal fence almost the same age as my grandparents' century old Victorian house. Just outside the back door is a small garden, where two little girls are stuffing their faces with as many raspberries as they can reach. The blonde is my younger sister, Leah, and the curly red head, that's me all of four-years-old. We don't know much about gardening at this point; all we know is that what grows out here is edible. If the red ones are good, then the green ones must be okay too. We completely plucked those bushes bare from the ground to as high as our little grubby hands could reach. We hear the back door open and scamper away. My Grandpa walks out with his bowl of cereal in hand to add some fruit to his breakfast. He gets over to the raspberry bushes and looks around, trying to find any ripe berries that might remain. Leah and I were quite thorough. He looks over at us, our red stained faces, hands and clothes completely giving us away. He chuckles and shakes his head. "Those bushes were full just yesterday! I can't believe you cleaned them all off. I wouldn't be surprised if you got a stomach ache from eating so many, especially the green ones." He went back inside and I could hear him exclaiming to my parents and Grandma how quickly we had made short work of his berry crop.

The house is still there two decades later, though the berry bushes aren't, and my Grandpa won't be around much longer either. My grandparents sold it in 1992, and today it's my uncle's home--he bought it after two different owners almost ruined it. The interior of the house is completely different these days--my aunt and uncle renovated and remodeled the entire thing. I don't really remember much of what the inside used to look like; mostly I recall running around the yard and playing at the park down the street.  The back door garden is gone, but there's even more flowers around the yard as my aunt has quite the green thumb. The fence is still standing with the old trees grown up through it. The back door shutting sounds the same though. And I still remember where the raspberry bushes stood. I can hear the echoes of two little girls' giggling on a blue sky morning as they ate green (and all the red) raspberries for breakfast.

The Mystic Knights of Tir Na Nog

Sadly, they do not come together and form a Dark Ages Voltron

Today at work I got a blast from the past. I shelve in the children's section and came across an old chapter book based on a Saturday morning kids show, The Mystic Knights of Tir Na Nog. I loved that series; as an 11-year-old I thought it was so cool. There was magic, and dragons, and magic armor, and a kindly old druid, and they had to go to a magic well where they got sucked into the land of fairies and got magic weapons...did I mention there was magic? And it was set in Ireland, which in my mind was the land of awesome (I really liked Irish mythology...still do actually).

Anyways, it lasted one season and I was so bummed when it got cancelled. I hadn't thought about that show in years...until today. And of course, I came home and Googled it (thank you, Wikipedia, for helping me to recall when it was even on the air)...and was subsequently semi-disappointed. It's Power Rangers, Lord of the Rings style. They even have a Gandalf and Smaug. The vague half-memory I had of this show was way cooler than the clips I just browsed through on Youtube. (My sister, Hannah, just peeked over my shoulder and was like, "Of course you'd like something like that. It's magical Ireland type stuff. That's totally you.") However, I will most likely watch at least one episode of this, since some similarly nerdy person was kind enough to post them on Youtube.

We are so cool. We know you're jealous.

Look, it's our orphaned hero raised by the aforementioned kindly druid, the plucky independent princess, the "bad boy" friend, and the token minority, all dressed like ye old times! (mind you, this is supposed to be set in ancient Ireland--not really a place known for its ethnic diversity, but ya gotta be PC for the kiddies.) I see better costumes than this at the Ren Fest. Seriously, my Ren Fest costumes look better than her outfit (what is that on her head anyway?) *end nerd rant*
And, of course, their personalities match the elements they're the knights of. Grumpy, blunt bad boy can cause earthquakes and throw giant boulders; moody female character can control the wind, etc, etc. However they did not dress in the respective colors of their armor, which it makes it hard to remember who is who when they're all powered up. How am I supposed to remember who the green guy is if he doesn't wear green all the time?!  I just love how awful and clunky their armor was (shoulder pads were big back then apparently), and their weapons were just ridiculously huge. I was going to post a clip here, but it's being stupid and won't let me, so just watch this to see what I'm talking about.

Man, the nineties were awesome.