Jesus Goes to Charm School

Just when you thought it was safe to walk again …

The Charm Marm gives the sweet girlies in her charge another walking tutorial on page 20 of the Christian Charm Manual. The lesson titled “As I Walk Through Life” includes several thoughts to bear in mind while putting one foot in front of the other, including the following warning:

A girl will never be charming – no matter how harmoniously her muscles are coordinated – if she is out of harmony with her Creator, out of harmony with family and friends, demanding her way above theirs.

We then see a list of scripture verses to support various walking imperatives: ” God wants me … to walk circumspectly, to walk in the Spirit, to walk worthy of the Lord” – and then my favorite – “to walk in the fear of the Lord.”

Yes, chickadees – that’s how the Charm Marm does it. The simple act of walking becomes a quagmire of literal and metaphorical spiritual missteps. (And what is fundamentalism if not a mishmash of literal and metaphorical?)

The upshot: Again, we mustn’t assert our will above the wishes others. Again, the slightest stumble may mean we aren’t worthy. And again, we must live, walk, breathe and brush our hair in fear.

Part of the problem here of instructing young girls to make no demands and to live in fear – often, the fear of not being worthy – is that they develop no sense at their core of their right to fully occupy their space, to have a personality, to have desires, to have a say in what happens to them. We’re instructed in countless sermons and Bible lessons to “die to self” and to not “let the world squeeze us into its mold” (renegade, non-King James translation on that last one). But how can we give away a self that doesn’t even exist? How can we tamp down something that has no shape? The sweet girlies in Christian charm school are subtly persuaded that we have nothing to offer at all – to ourselves or to the world – that is truly our own.

Undo the Charm Marm

You can’t swing your arms properly while walking if you don’t have a backbone. The ultimate trickery is that we’re taught that the backbone itself is the act of giving ourselves away – we’re taught that we’re nothing on our own, that only with help from outside ourselves can we muster a loving attitude to “walk in the Spirit.”

It’s time for sweet girlies everywhere to know that their backbone is their very own inimitable self, complete with desires and talents. Sometimes demanding your own way is the best possible action you can take. Your way is valuable. For that matter, you’re serving others most effectively when you know what you have to offer and what your metaphorical fingerprint looks like. (Hint: It may look like a fingerprint, but it feels like a backbone.)

Consider these your walking papers.

This entry was posted on October 27, 2009 at 2:21 PM and is filed under Charm School Rules. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.