NaNoJouMo: Republic, Lost (and other current reading)

[hymnia]

All right, now I'm ready to write about the books I'm currently reading. I have a tendency to jump around between several different books at the same time instead of reading just one, so all of the below are books that I'm still in progress on reading:

• The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky - I like the narrative voice in this story. I

Comments

[eternitat]

Not so sure about Lady in Waiting. It seems like its moral is broken. On one hand, it tells women to have goals and interests- one specific woman is told to go ahead and pursue a doctorate. On the other hand, it tells women to not rely on career satisfaction- only in serving God. You have no idea how tiring it gets after so.many.years of being single to be told simply to "do service" while people in relationships are having all the fun. Life does not start when you marry or find someone to love- but when singles are expected to spend every.single.minute of their free time doing service, one cannot wait to get married and be able to enjoy life and pursue interests without feeling guilty about doing or wanting things for oneself.

[hymnia]

It doesn't bother me that singles are told to focus on service because to me being a Christian means being focused on service, regardless of marital status. If I were married, I would be in a situation where I would naturally be spending a lot of time and energy "serving" my husband (and by "serving" I don't mean to conjure the image of a slave or to say that wives should be subservient to their husbands; I simply mean that it is natural and right for spouses to "serve" one another), and possibly my children, if I had them. As a single, it takes more effort on my part to follow Christ's example of service because I have to seek out opportunities to serve rather than having them naturally and obviously placed in my path due to fulfilling the roles of wife and mother. In general, single Christians have to seek service, whereas married Christians, especially parents, have service thrust upon them. (Of course, most married Christians I know also take on other areas of service apart from their own family, but they usually put their family