Magnificant Maleficent

We are a mere week out from Louisiana Annual Conference. We are sweet marbled breath in, sweet labored breath out. The steam off the city streets begins to accumulate, and we wait -- breathless and longing for the start of the event -- .

The circumstances were right, right? "Maleficent" dominated the marketplace this weekend, which has seen female-leading films continually challenge the much-disputed but still prevalent notion that male stars fuel box office.

It really is simple: Angelina Jolie plays an evil character. And people like things like that.
One of the things that bores me about feminist literature is that, often, the female characters can do nothing wrong. And if they are evil, they are evil because some man hurt them, or they were violated, or beaten or something like that.

It is rare (yes, it happens, but it is rare) to find a character that is truly evil. It used to be that way (e.g.: Wicked Witch of the West; but under the inspiration of feminism, if we did that movie today, we'd likely read that the wicked witch had been sexually abused or some such nonsense).

So, finally we are waking up from the stupor of feminism that portrayed women as the victims of men (and only men as evil or stupid, or clumsy). Finally, we are seeing female characters who you enjoy hating (without having to understand their childhood trauma at the hands of men).

Close, but not really. Sort of evil, but not really. That's our plan, our discovery, our game-plan. Discovery etched in blood and sweat. That's what today, the plan, is about.

The women in the story are evil because someone has hurt them. The story has evolved from suffering, has grown out of pain, has been given breath from non-existence. The story has grown from ...to ... something. It came into being like a morning mushroom, like a dew dampened pink dripping rose. Honest.

It wasn't.
Then it was.

And it is. Honest as before a grace-giving, love-loosed, sweetness-swathed God of our Fathers and our Mothers, gently dancing and swaying to Crowns that have been cast before us.

It's Monday. And we're deep into Psalm 139 ... "Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be." That's what life is about today. Lived. Absorbed. Laid bare before us.