The least funny thing on the internet

I had not met the acquaintance of Angelina Belle until this morning, and maybe I've just encountered her internet alterego, but I've been feeling a certain way for the rest of the day.

Ms. Belle posted a video to Facebook called "A list of instructions for all you men out there who want to understand women (;" She adds a disclaimer, "This only really works if you two are talking / dating... if she no like you and you a creep, these don't apply to you!" which only marginally qualifies her message as less offensive.

In a sampling of things women often say, which roll in back-to-back flash spurts, Ms. Belle offers a part/counterpart of "When she says..." versus "What she really means." Examples include, "When she says, 'Leave me alone,' Ms. Belle counters, 'What do you do? Yes, that's right! You stay!'"

Having been a woman who speaks for herself for the better part of 35 years (which apparently makes me eligible to run for president) I can say with some measure of confidence that I do not need an Angelina Belle anger translator. I have never ever wanted someone to stay whom I've just told to leave me alone. Not a harassing guy on the subway, not a megalomaniac boss, not a lover who is driving me all kinds of crazy. President Obama may appear to need the anger translator of Key & Peele, but should the presidency fall into my hands, I'd hope an internet entertainer wouldn't flip my script just because I am a woman.

Ms. Belle goes on to clarify that only when a woman calls the police should you really leave her alone because, "Damn! This girl actually means what she says...which is really rare."

Let that settle in your mind for a minute. We should expect that women will rarely say what they mean, and only when armed authorities are called in should we take them seriously.

Perhaps the most harmful thing that Ms. Belle espouses is a belief that women's "'NO' can mean yes and her 'yes' can mean no...the last two can be a little tricky so you have to watch for her tone."

Here is what I say to that. See if you can watch for my tone.

This. Is. Why. Rape Culture. Is a Thing.

When the lines of no and yes are so blurred that we are supposed to be tone monitors, we have a problem. When women are painted as incapable of meaning what they say when they say NO, we've got a communication crisis.

On her Facebook page, Ms. Belle offers a signpost that says, "Please do not take my jokes and sarcasm the wrong way. I exaggerate to create humor. I just want to make people laugh :)"

If people had not found Ms. Belle's video funny, I'm sure I wouldn't have stumbled upon it. Obviously, there is humor to be found in the chronic double-speak women are inclined to use. As Ms. Belle points out, when she says, "If you want," she really means, "No." I suspect every woman knows what this is like. We don't want to be painted a diva who must always get her way. And why is this? Why do we as women resort to passive-aggressive speech patterns, to relinquishing control, to living a life fearful of being branded the bitch?

Here are a couple of places we might start to look: Are strong women who speak their minds celebrated in the media or are they often vilified, portrayed as shrew-like, unmanageable?

Are there enough arenas where women show strength of character and competition other than so-called reality programs where women are belligerently fighting over a potential husband?

Are young girls encouraged to speak their minds in school, rather than prefacing what they say with, "I might be wrong but..." or "This might sound kinda crazy but..."

Are we training up young men to remember their privilege can be used to empower those whose voices are often marginalized, whose strength is often compromised? That they are at their strongest when they are lifting up another?

In her parting thoughts, Angelina Belle recommends that men "just be" a mindreader.

In one of Christ's parting thoughts, he said, "Let your yes mean yes, and your no mean no. Anything more than this comes from the evil one." (Mt 5:37) I'm going to trust that the reader of hearts was on to something.

Conquest Cupcake

I read the Yelp reviews and decided after the fourth 5 star rating to pick up my mat and go, find, seize the Salted Cupcake. I had some unclaimed time at the conference, and who knew when I would make it back to these parts. With the brazen confidence that Siri inspires, I set out with a heavy bag on my journey. The spring sunshine of western Michigan beat down on me as I traversed subdivision after 1960s-era subdivision. This was not quite the Grand Rapids I had expected.  Did an indie cupcake shop not imply that this was to be the cool hipster zone of commerce? Where were the bike couriers with ill-fitting pants? Where was the independent coffee house? Where were the artisanal everythings?

I finally came to the main drag which was like one of those repeating cartoon backgrounds where the Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote keep passing the same set of cacti and canyons. Only instead of cacti and canyons, this backdrop was a neverending concourse of plazas. Generic, segmented plazas full of big box chains where you have to drive and park and drive and park and consume. Everything wrong with America.

I walked past an Infiniti dealership for crying out loud. When does one ever walk past an Infiniti dealership?

I was into the second hour of my journey, feeling all kinds of guilt that a pastry had derailed me this far. I came upon the street where I was to find the oft-desired cupcake of all of my sugar-coated dreams, except something was awry. This street was decidedly residential. I neared the location that GPS had confirmed. This was the house that would have made Hansel and Gretel stumble and fall hard.

A sign outside of a little white boutique in the midst of a line of bungalows read:

I went in, expecting a cozy cottage with some tables and chairs where a grandmother in a gingham apron would pour me some milk with the famed Salted Cupcake upon which her Midwestern fame rested.

Instead, there was no bakery case. There was a chalkboard wall with displays of individual cupcakes. There was a table but it was covered in the accoutrements of a cupcake caterer working on a huge order on a frantic deadline. There was a cashier who did not know of my unlikely pedestrian-hood and how far I had come for my Salted Cupcake.

"That'll be $3.50," she said, boxing up my cupcake.

I waited for my Uber which would take me to the decidedly more hipster den of Grand Rapids where I would sit in a public space with homeless people and tourists and happy corporate lunch-eaters and I would devour my cupcake sans fork or napkin. And I would do so with relish. It was easily one of the best cupcakes I've ever eaten in my entire life: cake was moist, icing was thick, fluffy, flavorful. Nearly divine.

***

There is no grand metaphor at work here. Maybe Antoine de Saint Exupery would say that it was the time I had wasted for my cupcake that made my cupcake so important. Maybe Bob Goff would say that I should have shared the cupcake with the homeless, maybe Anne Lamott would say that the cupcake was like my spiritual WD-40, loosening up some of the stiffness about schedules and gotta-dos in order to enjoy the serendipity of a sweet confection.

But they didn't taste this cupcake. Nor did they walk the hour and a half (I hope they didn't) through suburban wasteland to the cupcake cottage. There was not much joy in my journey nor in the sunburn I earned en route. The destination wasn't what I expected, but the cupcake exceeded all of them.

Sometimes it's just about the cupcake, the reward, the trophy, the oversized teddy bear at the fair. Sometimes you just have to carpe the cupcake and have no regrets.

To the young friend who can't take more tomorrows like today

To my dear friend whom I've never met but whom I know so well: Your life right now as a young person is anguish, yes? Maybe you are bullied or depressed or abused or addicted or caught up in a shame spiral that keeps pirouetting and shows no signs of slowing down. There is no exit from this ride. Today blends into tomorrow and on and on the days and nights blur and you push through in autopilot, three turns to the right, two turns to the left, over and over and over, you wait for the click on your combination lock. What's in that locker you've got packed so full and so well? Is it a relationship you can't get over, even though you know it wasn't for your benefit? Is it tension at home that won't evaporate? Is it a looming decision that seems to eclipse all the other things that are meant to bring you joy? Is it the sense of belonging that everyone else seems to have but for you, it's always fleeting, always vanishing like sand held in your hand? Is it all of this and so much more, and you just can't take any more tomorrows if they are like today? The heaviness, the sourness, the emptiness, the pain.

My friend, I see you. I feel all that. I have felt all of that.

I want you to know that I'm sorry. This is a hard season of life for you and I am sorry for all the crap you have to navigate. A show* that I loved, one that was only around for one season (adding injury to insult over the anguish of being young) had a main character who said, "When your parents ask you how was school, it's like they're asking you how was the drive-by shooting?" Just existing in this hard season is subjecting yourself to all manner of assaults and offenses you don't expect. You are subjected to the drive-by, maybe multiple times a day.

*

The real drive-by is not the pain that people or situations in our lives cause, though. Rather, it's the lies we choose to believe. And that's where I want to tell you not to buy the lie. This is your greatest weapon in the battle.

So much of the counsel we give young people points your focus in the wrong direction. We tell you how bad the bullies must feel about themselves to have to prey on someone like you. We tell you not to get involved, not to feel so sorry for yourself--think of all the kids who would kill to have what you have. That still doesn't advance your game piece very far, though, does it?

If you were really involved in a battle, you wouldn't spend all your time looking to the opposition, studying their weapons, memorizing their tactics, predicting how they will plot their course and none of the time training yourself, right? You would build up the muscle and agility to fight back, or perhaps strategize a plan that would circumnavigate the enemy all together.

I don't know much about fighting, but I do know about enemies. I know about the enemy that lies to our minds and hearts about who we are and what we're worth. I know about an enemy that used to push me onto a hamster wheel of busy, keeping so busy all the time with two jobs and a full load of high school classes and leadership in all the clubs and a saint-load of community service. The busyness became my identity. I was The Busy Girl, so talented with all the flaming torches I was juggling, the one relied upon, the one who had no time to reflect or eat or be anything but kind and dependable on the outside, whereas on the inside I was a decaying sack of depression, anxiety, and serious feels that I could never be enough--not for my parents or teachers or people I called friend--not even for God. I had bought the lie that I was not enough and needed to work to be valuable.

The good news, friend, is that just because you bought the lie, you don't have to keep it. However, you will have to fight to return it. And the fight will make you stronger for future battles. The enemies that lie about who we are and what we're worth never go away. Seasons will pass and life will not get easier. It will increase in depth and complexity. But training yourself to spot the lies will better equip you for the battles ahead.

For most of us, friend, training ourselves to refuse to buy the lies starts small. You are going to just want to put on that brand new life of Not Buying Lies and to coast freely down the hill where all the other rah-rahs are in a huddle cheering for everyone UP WITH TRUTH! DOWN WITH LIES! The reality is that sometimes you are going to have to strive to wake up and pledge to not buy any lies about your worth today. Or maybe to pledge not to buy any lies for just the next hour. Or next minute. Or next fourteen seconds. It might sound like this:

I am part of an amazing creation. I am made for more than this. I am loved. I refuse to believe anything to the contrary. For the next four seconds. Amen.

Or your fight might look like a Napoleonic side-eye. Get thee behind me, lies.

Or a MCG power stance. No lies here. Only Superstars.

Or a Drakeoneon dance. That can only mean one thing.

I wish I could tell you, friend, that you could perfect your stance or just Drake dance through life and lies will have no more power over you, but the lies continue. Sometimes they slip them in our coffee or sometimes enemies visit us just before we're catching sleep. When the lies stack up and seem to hop into our shopping cart, remember that you are not alone. You are never alone. Call on your friend, call on your Higher Power to get in your corner and speak truth back into your life. I did this just the other day. I was simply not strong enough on my own two legs so I had a friend pray me out of a hard place. Enemy lies are strong but truth and love are stronger.

Young friend, I so wish for you a more peaceful season. I hope in the meantime that you grow strong and brave on the battlefield. I pray that you may stay strong and brave for the next day, the next hour, the next fourteen seconds.

Your friend, Kendra