Thursday, June 03, 2010

Orthograph #93 - Personal Testimonies


H/T: Kacie

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

What about good looking and hardly sinning at all, like me? (note the heavy joking here, as i'm both ugly AND a unique sinner).

Alix said...

I am afraid I am neither lovely nor a unique sinner. No one wants to hear from a chubby old grey haired crippled lady that she yelled at the dog for something that was her own fault and forgot her evening prayers YET AGAIN!! I guess I will not be getting my own reality show anytime soon!!

BUT.........

Let's see--maybe plastic surgery and a year of horrendous sinning....of course, I would have to foresee the KIND of horrendous sin that would be most popular in next years sweeps run--and what is the newest gorgeous look--maybe even the plastic surgery could be put into the sin category if I make sure they film me sighing into the mirror in total vanity mode. I could compound the plastic surgery sin by skipping town without paying the doc and then going on Jerry Springer talking about how I didn't pay him because he didn't make me as beautiful as . Hey, I think I am getting a handle on this one.

SIGH---not worth the effort and I don't like pain--so I am back to chubby gimpy lady and petty besetting sins.....

Anonymous said...

Well, sorta kinda tangentially related in the "our own (Orthodox) household" vein . . . Hagiographies of the virgin martyrs. Can anyone name one in which the subject is actually acknowledged to be plain? Most of them go on about how exceedingly beautiful the saint was, attracting the lust of some evil pagan man in power. Or maybe some don't mention her looks at all. But is there even one that notes that she was not especially beautiful? Whether it goes on to make a point about inner, spiritual beauty or not? Just wondering. How many stories of virgin martyrs don't make a point about their physical beauty? I don't want to be bugged by that, but it kinda bothers me.

Ranger said...

Anon,
I think that oft times the inner beauty of the Saint-which is her Christ-likeness, shows forth from within. It is why, although my Saint, Saint Christopher, is called dog-face, it is not appropriate to potray him as having a dog-face, for all saints, essentially have the face of Christ.

Anonymous said...

Ranger:

I'm also a Christopher. I'm kind of fond of the dog-headed St Christophers. Is there another Saint so oddly and interestingly depicted?

--A different anonymous

Anonymous said...

Ranger,

Yes, in just about all cases, the inner beauty of the saint is emphasized, and that's good. What I wonder about is that her physical beauty so often, maybe almost always, is part of the story. Why? We don't have to go off on a full-blown feminist critique to wonder what it says about us, the Church, the hagiographers, etc., that feminine beauty and its allure are so central to the stories. And I'm *not* assuming that what it says, whatever that is, is negative or blameworthy. But I find it curious. (I'd better not pretend here that I've actually read so many hagiographies, but I think it's a safe bet that this is the dominant pattern in the genre.)

Not to go all serious on an Orthograph, though, so my thoughts are perfectly worthy of being ignored. :-) Clearly today's Orthograph doesn't really match my tangential area of concern here. Clearly the testimonies of glamorous, formerly-extra-sinful celebrities hardly ever go on to match the lives of the virgin martyrs, either!

Grace said...

s-p:
For once I'll have to take your word for it. I'm sinning all over the place, but my celebrity status has arrived in the mail. I wonder what I'm doing wrong. Oh -- oops. *Good-looking* Yep, there's always a catch.

Melanie said...

Anonymous, I'm picking up what you're throwing down regarding the beauty of the saints.....in my very uneducated opinion, I think it's because beauty is something to be overcome, much like a man being rich makes it much harder to be a saint. As you know in this society sometimes all it takes to be famous is to be beautiful, so for someone to "give up" the easy life that beauty offers requires as extra level of devotion to the faith. Thanks for the great conversation!