The Waiting Room has changed venues

Hello, dear reader. Thank you for your interest. We would like to inform you that for purely aesthetic reasons, we have moved over to Wordpress. We can now be found at:


http://www.hereinthewaitingroom.wordpress.com


You might like to travel over there now to appreciate our slick new layout, re-sign up for email notifications and check out Christine's interview with one of the people who recently participated in a prayer vigil in our Prime Minister's office and was booted out. It's called non-violent civil disobedience. Don't know what it is? You will soon.


Love,


Alie, Chris & Tara.

The Boy Detox

My dork years were of a fairly intense strain. By the time is was 14 I was already a head taller than everyone else. I was all arms and kneecaps, there was not much distinction between my eyebrows, and I thought platform shoes with boardies were hot to trot. Despite a number of ridiculous, misdirected crushes, the menfolk largely regarded me as a potato. I didn’t care too much as I was mentally dating Orlando Bloom. 

At 18 I enlisted in the army and suddenly I was the only girl as far as the eye could see. So, despite my ever ballooning weight and my lesbian-esque buzz cut, my ridiculous crushes started to be reciprocated. This new found male attention threw out all my old insecurities. Perhaps I wasn’t a dag, perhaps I wasn’t a hideous monster. It was pretty fun. I felt like, after years of being bypassed, that attention validated me. If a guy starts pulling moves on me, then it said he wanted to be around me, he thinks I’m worth his debonair charm. But when that attention was gone, I didn’t know what to do with myself. My sense of worth had become so reliant on men’s approval of me that I couldn’t let it slip. For two or three years I was in almost back-to-back relationships. If there was no one I liked, I’d just pick someone. I dated some shudder worthy guys, I dated mean guys, I dated intensely creepy guys, and in doing so I told myself that anything was better than feeling invisible. 

By the time I was 21 I felt old and jaded. Everyone’s relationship status can be summed up in a dvd store analogy. Some are ex-rentals, some are new releases. I was the dvd that gets kept behind the counter because it’s scratched and doesn’t work anymore. When I accidentally ended up at Bible College and realised who Jesus actually is, I knew in my tired spirit that I had to do something different. I decided I would devote one year to being intentionally single. I called it a ‘boy detox’. It would be both sucky and awesome in equal measure. I didn’t know what it would achieve, but I knew it was important. Note, there’s a difference between intentionally single and begrudgingly single. When you’re begrudgingly single, your focus can still be on dating and pursuing relationships. When it’s intentional, you aren’t on the prowl, you aren’t assessing everyone for their boy/girlfriend potential. You have to just force yourself to be content. 

Ecclesiasties 3:1 says ‘There is a time for everything and a season for every activity under heaven’. There is a time to be married, and there is a time to be single. The world tells us that the ultimate goal of our lives is to fall in love. Rom coms tell us that being in love will solve all our problems. So often, we race towards love and marriage and we skip an important season: The season of singleness. Probably the most underrated season. Now, I’m going to tell you something that I discovered during my boy detox. This may shock you, so make sure you’re sitting down: Being single is actually OK. There is freedom in being single that people seem to lose when they’re married. That’s not to say singleness doesn’t also come with hardships, but so does marriage. There are pros and cons to both marriage and singleness but so often we only see the pros of marriage and the cons of singleness. 

Ideally a healthy Christian marriage should be two people serving God together, and growing in faithfulness together. At 21 I had no idea who I was, I didn’t know my identity in Christ, I didn’t know my giftings or how I wanted to serve. My Christian walk was more of a stagger. If I had entered a relationship then, I would have clung like a limpet to the faith of whoever I was with. Obviously I would have grown from their faith, but they probably wouldn’t have. The relationship, although Christian, still would have been unequally yoked. They would be pulled me up, I would have dragged them down.  

The year wasn’t spent sitting in the dark mourning my sad life. It was spent in the word, and in prayer, working out who the frick I was. I had a lot to work through from my army years and I was able to invest time and energy into doing that. First I had to forgive myself for the damage I had inflicted on my soul. Second, I had to reclaim my worth apart from men’s approval. This is important to know: your personal worth and value is already set, you are valuable and worthy of dignity whether you realise it or not. It isn’t something that can be taken away from you. Our job is not to find or create our worth, but to realise our worth. It doesn’t change or grow. It is the same today, tomorrow, and forever. Jesus died because he wants you around for eternity. I had to realise that I am a daughter of the most high God. He knows me fully, even the bad bits, and still accepts me. If he says I am worthy then I’m not qualified to disagree with him. This means that if I like some guy and he doesn’t like me back, that sucks, but it is not a judgement on my worth. If my validation comes from Christ, it isn't swayed by rejection or acceptance from anyone. I don’t want to make this sound like an easy process to go through. You have to resist so many messages that say you need to buy this product or achieve these grades, or please these people to find your value. Rejection is like a king hit to the soul, and if you’re not at a point where you know your worth, it can tear you up. 

I didn’t come out of my boy detox  at some super enlightened point where I immediately grasped my identity in Christ and my relationship with him. In fact I’ve only just reached that point of knowing my identity this year, but it launched me down a healthy track. The point of a detox is to get the toxins out of your system, so I went through a process of casting off hurt, rejection, and bitterness. When I did start dating again it was with a clean slate. I didn’t have to bring the baggage from my last relationship into a new one. It also ensured that if I went into a relationship, it was because I liked that person enough to want to be around them a lot, possibly for the rest of my life. I wasn't entering a relationship out of a need to be validated by that person. 

If you are thinking about doing something like this, I hugely, wholeheartedly recommend it. Feel free to leave any questions in the comments below and I'll do my best to answer them. 

The more important question

Possible trigger warning: please feel free to question and comment, but we ask for reasoned discussion and thoughtful engagement with the argument.

A few weeks ago, I found myself in the women's bathroom at UNSW staring at a poster. It was a simple design with a blue jelly bean in the bottom right hand corner. Five Words. "This is not a child". Nothing else. The designer of this poster boiled down a very complicated moral and ethical issue to five words. 

I am a 24 year old Christian woman who converted to Christianity in my university years. It is needless to say my opinion on this matter is informed by the worldview I subscribe to. I am sure you've heard the classic reasons why, namely the view of a creator who cares about his creation so much that He would send His Son to pay the penalty of their sin. I am not here to engage in a debate on why I think abortion is wrong. In my opinion that happens best in relationships as you work out the messiness of life. Rather, I am keen to take one step back and ask a more important question. How did you get there? How did you get to the point where you began to think a foetus wasn't a human? How do you work out what is right and wrong? 

We have entered into a time where abortion, same-sex marriage, the use of pornography and the like are widely accepted and so we are now beginning to accept them before actually assessing the moral weight of them for ourselves. 

I spend most of my days on the university campus of UNSW, chatting to university students about matters pertaining to God and life. Something that I along with my colleagues have observed is the shift of our culture where morality is informed by our ethical judgements. It seems to me that we are no longer concerned with the rightness or wrongness of things. The lines have become blurred. We have moved away from upholding our obligation to the truth and moved towards the best outcome for the individual, mainly me. 

The ethical framework of our generation is the increase of pleasure and the avoidance of pain. You make the decisions you do to enhance your experience of life. We all do it, from the small decisions to the big decisions. This is how we're intrinsically wired, right? This seems so evident in the video diary of Emily Letts, who documented her experience  of her abortion. Having the child aborted avoided the burden that child would have had on her life. Her life is better because of it. So abortion is okay. 

Let us take this to it's logical end. If we abide in this framework, we will surely end up justifying all sorts of evils. Lying is justified when I take a sickie because I deserve a day off. Downloading my entertainment illegally is justified because I am entitled to it. Cheating on my spouse is justified because I am in love. This sounds all too familiar doesn't it? 

I am just as guilty as the next person when it comes to making decisions for the betterment of myself regardless of the cost of others. Dan Ariely, professor of psychology and behavioural economics at Duke University, aptly identifies that we will rationalise any sort of behaviour as long as we can maintain a positive self image. Where do we draw the line? 

How will you assess the moral value of life? My greatest desire is to see many young people standing up for what is right instead of standing up for what will best suit me. How do we determine right and wrong? We don't. If there truly is a Creator, He does. 

About Kat: 24 years old, shorter than most people. I became a Christian at the University of New South Wales when I was presented with the truth about Jesus from the bible. I studied music education and worked as a music teacher in Western Sydney for a short time. I am currently back at UNSW, in my second year of a ministry apprenticeship at Campus Bible Study. I'm married to Daniel and we enjoy sipping coffee and listening to good music whilst fantasising about our dream dog. 

Revisiting Rape Culture

Rape Culture is an environment in which rape is prevalent and in which sexual violence against women is normalized and excused in the media and popular culture. Rape culture is perpetuated through the use of misogynistic language, the objectification of women’s bodies, and the glamorization of sexual violence, thereby creating a society that disregards women’s rights and safety. - Marshall University’s Women’s Center website:

Victims of Amherst rape cover ups and the
hings that were said to them

At some point this week I would like you to look around and notice how many women you’re with. If there are more than 4 then it’s statistically likely that one of those women has been raped or abused either sexually, physically, or emotionally. That's the statistic, but in my experience, it's more common than that.

So if rape and abuse is so common among our friends why do we never hear about it? I think there are several reasons. Firstly, a lot of people don’t even realise they’ve been abused because, as a society, we do a pretty bad job of explaining to women how they should expect to be treated. The second reason is because of slut shaming and victim blaming. In a nutshell, both these attitudes tell women that if they have been raped it was their own fault.

"If you didn't want to have sex with him, why were you sitting on
his bed two weeks before?"

Don’t believe it? I didn't either at first. When I first read about victim blaming I thought it was the love child of feminism and a persecution complex, but the more I thought about it the more I noticed it. Have you ever heard of a woman being abused and asked yourself what she was wearing? Or whether she went to the guy’s apartment, or if she led him on? We seem to think that some women, judging by their behaviour or what they were wearing were ‘asking for it’. When we say this we are not teaching ‘don’t rape’, we’re teaching don’t get raped. You could be walking down a dark alley way in the middle of the night wearing nothing but a ‘come hither’ smile. That still would not make you deserving of rape. Admittedly it’s not a good idea, and you’d be very cold, but it does not justify rape. Nothing does. No one is allowed to rape you or treat you with anything less than respect and dignity. No matter what you are wearing. No matter where you are. No matter how much you’ve had to drink.

Consensual sex is not sex with someone who is too drunk to object, nor is it convincing someone who is unwilling. It is not making someone too scared to say no. It is not making someone feel so guilty for saying no that they eventually agree. It is not hassling someone until they are so sick of arguing that they say yes to keep you quiet. Consent is not gained through persistence. Rape is not a misunderstanding, and it’s not an accident. It’s not something you can feel really bad about later and say ‘I didn’t know what I was doing’.

"C'mon, you go out every weekend. Stop telling people
he raped you or my teammates won't want
 to pregame in our room anymore"

Rape culture is not only incredibly misogynistic, but it doesn’t give much credit to men. What we’re claiming is that men are completely unable to control themselves. Simply by observing a woman walking down a dark street with a short skirt, the man in question is reduced to a frothing animal with no choice but to rape the woman. He is removed from the responsibility of his actions because he was ‘invited’ or ‘tempted’. Guys deserve more credit here. They do have control over their actions and if they don’t want to rape someone, they have the ability to just not rape them. I mean how hard could it be?
Here's my 1 step plan to not raping:

Step 1: Don't rape.

Seems pretty simple to me.

 Unfortunately porn has nurtured the dehumanisation of woman, rendering them an object and making their consent irrelevant. Rape is something that will always be a reality in any society, and no amount of campaigning will stamp it out. But it is a reasnoble expectation of our generation, that we can blame rapists for rape. Not victims.

Rape culture tells me that I should feel flattered by comments yelled from car windows, or by the inevitable groping every time I go out. Sadly we get used to it. The first time I went clubbing I yelled at every guy who touched me. The first one who did it found his hand seized, a finger pointed, and me in his face, mouthing a very eloquent argument that he probably couldn’t hear over the music. His friends thought this was hilarious and proceeded to grope me every time I turned around, high fiving each other and laughing about how hilarious they were being. Many years later I was waiting at a Sydney bus stop with a homeless man yelling at me for ten minutes straight, until my bus arrived, the content of which is not public forum appropriate. I kept looking at the people around me expecting some of the guys to step up and say something, but no one did, even the guy sitting next to him in the bus shelter. Only stony, shame faced silence from the five or six men at the bus stop. Last year I was on a bus to uni when I felt something on my ribcage. I looked down to find the hand of the man behind going in for a sneaky grope. I shoved his hand off but thought that if I was to turn around and yell at him for touching me theres a chance no one would defend me, the man wouldn't change, I'd probably get kicked off the bus. Why do I expect this reaction? Because we live in a rape culture. These experiences are not rare. Ask the girls around you. We've all got stories. AmIrite, ladies?

"Why couldn't you fight him off?"

Men, you might not have realised that this is a reality for women, which I believe is why feminism comes across as paranoid whining. But women shouldn’t be the feminists. Men should be. Not every man is the problem. Only a percentage of men in Western society treat women with less respect than they deserve, but another larger percentage is marked by their silence - the ones that didn't defend me at the bus stop for example. Men need to be a strong voice against rape culture. Stand up for the women in your life and defend their right to respect and decency so maybe the next generation won’t have to campaign for their right to not be abused.

We often compare ourselves to the wrong end of the spectrum. We look to the worst horror stories of abuse and we think ‘my situation is nothing like that’. The Bible tells us that we are fearfully and wonderfully made. We are sons and daughters of the most high God, we are loved and treasured by him. So we need to look at the other end of the spectrum. The one where are people are being treated with the dignity and respect that God meant for us. If you look at that end and can still say ‘my situation is nothing like that’ then something needs to change, and it’s not you.

Dieting: The Acceptable Idol

 I don't remember when I knew I wanted to lose weight. But I do remember the ridiculous apple diet I went on at the start of year eight. It involved cutting an apple in half, eating half for recess and saving half for lunch. No wonder I ate the entire kitchen every afternoon when I got home.

I also remember the time I tried the Atkins diet during our trip to Ireland in 2003. I don't remember much from our bus tour of Dublin except bacon, soup and falling asleep for most of the trip because I just had no energy.

Then came was the carrot diet I went on in year ten (partially for health reasons, partially because I wanted to test the theory that eating a carrot every day for five years turned you orange. I lasted two weeks.)

There was the time I inherited a series of Weight Watchers books and proceeded to inform anyone who would listen to me that sausages were worth eight points each, and a packet of Migoreng was more than half your daily allowance of points. They all banned me from using the word points on our camping trip.

In hindsight, some of these stories make me giggle. Some make me cringe (I can't believe I was that ridiculous), and others make me sigh because I realise how annoying I must have been. But here's the thing: nobody taught me I needed to lose weight, or worry about those numbers on the scale. I just knew and I just did.

I find myself, even more so now than ever before, surrounded by this diet culture where losing weight, being healthy and active are key messages. New gyms keep opening and my news feed is full of people "checking in" at the start of their workout. Coles now has a home-brand diet range of products. Apps like MyFitnessPal have over one million monthly users.

As a Christian trying to scrutinize and evaluate the world through the lens of the cross, I find myself struggling to find balance and truth in this crazy health/diet/body-obsessed culture. There is so much I want to write and explore when it comes to Jesus vs diets, and hopefully this blog will give me space to do that.

But today I wanted to think about the influence the world's wisdom has on us when it comes to the reasons why we might want to get healthy. Because being healthy in and of itself is neither good nor bad. It's so often the motivation behind our actions that taints what we are doing.

I can only evaluate and speak for myself here.

Sometimes I am motivated to be healthy by a desire to keep my body well and serve others. Taking care of my body by eating healthy foods and exercising regularly is a good thing to do, according to most doctors. It gives me energy. It allows me to serve others around me and go the distance in ministry. It makes my body feel good and my digestive system regular. It's not a failsafe way to never get sick, but being healthy is meant to reduce the risk of a lot of illnesses. I enjoy eating fruits and vegetables and other healthy foods. It's nice knowing that you're looking after your body, and encouraging others to look after theirs as well. It's good to keep yourself in shape so that you can be available to serve others. It's good to prevent what illnesses you can by being healthy so that you can be well enough to care for others. Exercise makes you feel good and is great for combating stress. Last year I did the Michelle Bridges 12 Week Body Transformation and loved it because I learned so much about cooking, eating healthy and exercise. There are so many good motivations and great reasons to be healthy. 

Other times, I am motivated by less honorable desires.

There are days when I look in the mirror, or step on the scales, and decide that "I'm going to do better" because I don't like what I see. My motivation is self focused - I want to weigh less, look younger and thinner and stronger, I want to make these changes to my body and manipulate it for my own benefit. And herein lies the problem: the world will always say "you are not enough." And I will never be enough, according to the world. I will never be thin enough, I will never be young enough, I will never be healthy enough, and the world says that my worth depends on this. The world is quick to place our worth as people on unattainable goals.

If my motivation for being healthy is tied in with my worth and how I value myself as a person, this does three very destructive things. Firstly, it causes me to tie the value of others with these superficial markers. People are amazing individuals, each with their own stories, experiences and personalities. It is grossly unfair to boil them down to a number on a scale, or a size on a clothing rack. It is a lie, an inaccurate representation of who they are, and it's a result of the way the world teaches us to think.

Secondly, it sets me up for failure. These goals are goals that nobody can attain. Who gets to say what is thin enough anyway? What is the perfect number on the scales? And besides, even if two people weigh the same, body shapes are all different - they are going to look different and then we will only be dissatisfied with something else! We will always fail trying to reach these goals, because you can never be thin enough, strong enough, healthy enough for the world. There will always be someone better out there. And even if we are just doing this for ourselves, we will always fail ourselves eventually.

Most dangerously though, it makes me lose sight of the cross. My attention is not on Jesus anymore, instead it is on myself. I have instead become completely self focused. I am the god that I worship and make sacrifices to, not Jesus, because my goal is to bring myself glory.

So there you have it. This is the fine line that I balance most days. I know who the cross makes me: I am a child of God, saved by the blood of Jesus. The very fact that God chose to save me gives me worth as a person. The fact that I was created by God and given life gives me worth as a person.

However, the world will always try and tie my worth into other things. The world will always tell me otherwise.

So as I look in the mirror, step on the scales, or look back on a weekend of wicked over-eating, and make the decision to be healthy, I need to keep asking myself the big question: why?

The absurdity of self-imposed censorship

A lot of stuff is going on this week, in our country and in our world. I suppose that’s always the case but at this point in time I feel the weight of it and am somewhat apologetic for posting a blog like this. I almost feel as though whatever I want to write next should be left unsaid, just in respect of the things that matter. That being said, I’ve decided to continue anyway because a light needs to shine in all kinds of darkness.

Sydney Film Festival, yo. I get pretty excited every time it comes around, but I have to admit my taste is pretty lowbrow. There are films from all around the world exploring a myriad of ideas in strange and interesting contexts but I chose to buy tickets to Happy Christmas starring Anna Kendrick and Lena Dunham (i.e. the chick flick of the line-up). Perhaps I redeemed myself by also purchasing tickets to Frank, wherein Michael Fassbender plays an eccentric musician in a giant papier mache head, but then again no, on account of, everyone is going to watch that one. Suffice to say SFF for me is basically just a chance to catch advance screenings of indie films I’d be watching in 6 months anyway. So much for my cultural capital.

There is one other film I’ve kept coming back to but have still not yet bought tickets for. Palo Alto is the feature film debut of yet another one of the Coppola clan: 27 year old Gia Coppola, granddaughter of Francis Ford and niece to Sofia (so what other career choice did she have, really?).

The film is described as an exploration of teenage life in a small American town and the frustrations and inevitable rebellion that comes when you’re an idle teenager just waiting for something to happen. It is also based on a collection of short stories written by James Franco who appears in the film (at Coppola’s request) to portray a high school soccer coach who eventually seduces one of his players, the very shy and shamefully virginal April (played by Emma Roberts).

The drawcard here for me is Coppola. She seems to be following in her aunt’s footsteps, shooting in a similarly slow but dreamy style that I think will explore something true about the angst of youth. And the reviews have been solid. But I find myself hesitating to ‘add to cart’ because these days I seem to be thinking (or overthinking) harder about what I choose to watch.

Self-imposed censorship is a bizarre concept. In some ways it’s less odd – i.e. choosing not to watch a horror film for fear of sleep deprivation over the next week seems reasonable, but filtering what you choose to view, listen to or read for the sake of a wholesome mind is something else entirely.

See I just don’t know if watching Franco play sexual predator to Roberts’ April is all that helpful for me; something about the promise of that illicit affair gave me pause and I’ve been trying to work out why. Because I don’t just put a blanket ban on any film involving sex. Sex has a legitimate place in film, how can it not when it is so much a part of our lives? That doesn't mean I happily walk into any film that portrays it however, and I tend to stay away when I know it will be used gratuitously.

The Wolf of Wall Street was initially a no-brainer for myself and my husband to go and see. Scorcese and Dicaprio are a dream team, there was really no question. But the more reviews I read and heard I knew that for me personally a line needed to be drawn. There are some things that you just can’t unsee.

I’m sure this is all sounding very tired and predictable. Christian has problem with sex in film. Go figure.

But that’s not exactly true. Going through this thought process is so much more than ‘that film has sex in it, sex is bad, must avoid’. It’s actually about thoughtful consideration of what goes into my head because despite popular opinion, it will inform what comes out. We do not go unchanged by what we choose to meditate upon and I find it incredibly foolish when people suggest otherwise.

Despite my insistence I have to admit that I find myself struggling because by choosing to filter what I take in, I am trying to achieve something a little like innocence and innocence in this world is intolerable. Attempting to cultivate a kind of innocence in a world dominated by sex, violence and all around vulgarity makes me seem (and even sometimes feel, despite my best efforts) naïve and ignorant because these are in fact key forces that make up the reality of life. I know this is true. I love film for the very fact that it captures our stories: it reflects back to us who we are, what we value, what we search for and all of our flaws. But I am responsible for how I respond to this wealth of material. It shouldn't be so unthinkable that we all stop to consider what is helpful or unhelpful for ourselves. I would even posit it as a kind of freedom, perhaps one that could even be more liberating than the pursuit of the most controversial films and ideas that people seem to crave. It's a novel idea, one I expect many to ignore but I challenge you to consider the possible merits of it.

As for Palo Alto? To be honest I'm still undecided.

Introductions: Tara

Christine and Alie promised me two things: I could write whatever I wanted, and it didn't have to be fabulous. It just had to be about my life, Jesus, and how these two are so tightly woven together they are actually one.

So, what is it exactly that I want to write about?

If there is one common thread in all the rambling thoughts I want to process and post, it is this: JESUS IS RELEVANT.  That is the sweet sweet sound of the Christian message. God is not a far away being, he is not sitting on a cloud merely plucking the hairs from his toes while he waits for us to screw up our world and destroy ourselves. God is intricately involved in each one of our lives. His Word, the Bible, has a message of salvation for everyone to hear. Jesus came down from heaven to die for us and restore our relationship with God. A person doesn't hear the message of Jesus and leave unchanged.

I first discovered Jesus was relevant in year 8. I grew up Catholic, understanding that God existed and that he was a pretty important guy, but not much else. I knew that Jesus had died on a cross, but had no clue what that had to do with me. Then, I learned what sin was. Contrary to my previous thoughts, it was not saying no to people when they ask for help (or when they told you to clean your room). It was actually saying no to God and choosing to live your own way, and that deserves punishment.

Suddenly I realised THAT'S what Jesus had died for - my sins! That's how he was relevant to me. For the first time in my life, I was certain I could go to heaven. No more wondering if I had been a good enough person to impress God. It was all to do with Jesus' death.

I made the decision to follow Jesus over ten years ago now. Why am I still continuing to follow him? Because it doesn't matter whether ten or ten hundred years pass, these are truths that don't change with time. We are sinful people, and need saving. Jesus is that saviour. He is relevant always.

But what does it mean for the gospel to impact my life, when these days it consists of knitting, podcasts, train trips, cooking, calorie counting, Instagram, Batman pajamas and old television shows? I know God's word should be shaping my opinions on big issues, encouraging me to be more thoughtful and causing me to take less of a #yolo #partyintheusa approach to life, but how?

It's intimidating to post this after two excellent intros from Alie and Chris. I probably won't be blogging much on feminism but I do like talking about sex. I also like thinking about money, health, fitness and diet culture, consumerism and what we watch on TV, so I'll hopefully start to work out how Jesus impacts these things and write about that.