Joanna reluctantly likes something, and on a different note, "Inspiration Porn"

In an earlier post I said our young adults Sunday School class was considering starting a series by Ann Vosskamp called One Thousand Gifts. We did make that the final selection, and have completed three of five weeks of the DVD.

I agree with nearly every single word that has come out of her mouth thus far, but her presentation style is a little ... jarring. Intense. Earnest. Unchanging. The format seems to be either (a) her addressing the camera directly, tenting her fingers and holding her head at an odd angle, sometimes on the verge of tears or (2) these uber-idyllic scenes from her family's farm (she home schools all six of her kids, God bless her) with her narrating. As Matt said, there's never any variation in this pattern, whether she's talking about carpe diem-type happy stuff, of relating her earliest memory wherein her 2 y.o. sister was hit and killed by a truck.

No sunshine or birds
today, but I still
love this window.

So having gotten that out of the way, I'm delighted to talk about the contents. The one thousand gifts in the title is about recognizing, and taking time to give thanks for, the many gifts and blessings in your life. Certainly nothing wrong with that, right? She determined she was going to list these out, one by one until she got to 1,000. Despite the critique above, there must be something to it because I have already started (sort of) my own thanksgiving journal. I have a line down the middle of the page; my plan is to start off my big household "to do" list and beside each item, do a corresponding thanks in the 2nd column. For instance, if To Do #3 is "clean the window over the kitchen sink" then the thanksgiving across from it is, "thanks for the view of the birds at the feeders, and the beautiful rainbows our little hanging crystal prism sends all over the room." I will do my best to make this effort not totally cheesy and sappy, but I guess if you are already keeping a thankfulness journal you are setting yourself up to follow that path. But I do think it will be a helpful process, because I (along with every person I know) complain too much and do not count my blessings nearly enough (more on another perspective on blessing-counting later).


Another main point of hers is that thanksgiving precedes a miracle, rather than the other way 'round. Of course you give thanks for a miracle when you receive it, but I think the overall theory is slow down, notice what you have in your life already, give thanks for that, and by slowing down you are more open to receive what you are in need of. And if you're slowing down and paying attention, you're more likely to notice that your prayer has been answered, even if it was not in the way you expected. "Unanswered prayers" is another minefield of potential cheesiness, and that Garth Brooks song springs immediately to mind, but again, I am on board.


She also discuss the idea of "the hard thanksgiving,"and asked the question,  "What in the world, in a world where loss is guaranteed, what is grace?" This fits well with some stuff I have been reading for book-writing preparation, some notes on Viktor Frankl, who wrote Man's Search for Meaning after surviving internment in a Nazi concentration camp. Among a ton of other noteworthy stuff he says, "A man who becomes conscious of the responsibility he bears toward a human being who affectionately waits for him, or to an unfinished work, will never be able to throw away his life. He knows the "why" for his existence, and will be able to bear almost any "how." More on concentration camp comparisons below ... 

Yesterday she talked about transfiguration, which always makes me think of the Harry Potter series and Professor McGonagall's class. Transfiguration is a really difficult class, nothing that comes easily or quickly - changing one thing into another completely different thing, such that if you hadn't been there to start with you would never know that wasn't always the way it was. Lots to think about.

Another image that stuck with me is that of receiving manna. The Hebrew translation of manna is not "bread from heaven," it is, "What is this stuff?"So Ann was using that as a metaphor, that sometimes God gives us something, hands us something, that is ultimately a gift but initially, all we can do is hold it up and say, "What is this?"or "What the hell is this? What I am supposed to do with it? You call this a gift?"

Stay tuned for more info from this series ...

Now for the "Inspiration Porn" stuff: This is a new term for me, discovered a couple of weeks ago here. There were a bunch of links to other sites with similar information, and another new issue for me, "folks with disabilities" railing against Person-First language. Inspiration porn refers to non-disabled people choosing to find people with disabilities going about their daily lives and doing ordinary things, as a source of inspiration for themselves and a reason for thankfulness. I will 'fess up to doing this exact thing myself on a number of occasions, and I suppose most people have thought it, if not said it. What I took away from it:

(1) The author tells a pretty funny story about being told by a woman on the subway who told her she admires the way the author (? gets on a train every morning and goes to work?). The author (who uses a wheelchair) writes that really, she's already sitting down the whole time so she actually does less work than others.

(2) (Main point) She says that when you use a disabled person's accomplishment for a sort of, "no excuses" approach to look at your own goal achievement or lack thereof, you are basically saying, "At least I am not that person. Life could be worse, I could be him/her, so what excuse do I have for not doing anything?"

(3) Citing the various obstacles a person with a disability has overcome as a reason to admire them really downplays a larger accessibility issue. To cite someone's heroic measure is to overlook exactly how hard this is not just for one disabled person, but all of them trying to do the same thing. One person said, it's not my medical condition that's disabling, it's stairs and bathroom stalls and subway systems without reasonable accommodations that are disabling."

 ... I see what she's saying, I really do. But I'm also thinking, Wow it is really hard to please everyone at the same time. I'm sure we are going to hear a lot about this kind of thing, about David (heck, we already have people treating us as if, and flat-out saying we are heroes or something because ? We knew he was going to have Down syndrome and we chose to have him and raise him despite the perceived burden?). I suppose I agree with her, but I'm going to choose not to get too upset about it just yet, but to continue to steer people toward a more realistic view, the same way we do when people say, "Oh, people with Down's [sic] are so sweet." In Vosskamp's DVD she talks about Jesus giving thanks at the Last Supper, and though she does not say this, my main takeaway was, Jesus was perfectly aware he was getting ready to suffer a horrible death and he still gave thanks to God, so let me stop being so ungrateful. And then Frankl - if he can survive what he did and then contribute as he did, how can I at least not write this book? Ooops, inspiration porn. Well, shoot. Everything's relative, right? You really can't help it, or at least I didn't help it just then. Perhaps a way to start is, giving thanks for what I have (such as general good health) and not what I don't have (disability). And I'll try to remember that when people say any of the stuff listed above, they are generally trying to be nice so I should cut them some slack. Right?