Today’s Advent meditation is on Ephesians 5:6-14. In this reading, Paul is warning the Christians that the moral norms of Ephesian pop culture go against God’s wishes and not to be swayed. They are now awake in the light and need to act accordingly.
“Beloved Girl”
It would be a easy to write something judgmental here, but I prefer to be inspirational. Upon brainstorming this one, my thoughts went to Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave”. If you’ve forgotten it from school, it is about a group of prisoners who have been chained their entire lives inside a cave. The only visual they have are the shadows cast by those outside, so they believe that to be reality. The question becomes, if they could emerge and see reality, would they believe it to be real? Would they rather return to what they know? Or would they grow to understand life in the light and pity those still in the cave.
Plato may have lived 400+ years before Christ, but his musings of ancient Greeks are no less relevant today. Even now, we can easily believe what is sold to us without question. One of my big issues is the damage done to girls and women through pop culture messaging. I grew up with (mostly) sisters, female cousins and have a daughter. I have seen first-hand what happens when a girl considers herself “not good enough” and it’s painful. Not only does she harm herself, but she can deny herself real connection to family and friends…the very people who could pull her from darkness.
In today’s art, I’ve shown the form of a woman filled with words. If you read all the words, including those in the dark areas, you get a sense of some of the insidious lies that girls and women face each and every day. We often blindly believe them to be truths, like the shadows on the cave wall. But if you block out the dark words and only read the light ones, you claim your true message from God…you are loved.
This image is available as a matted art print here or as a 2.5 x 3.5″ ACEO trading card in my Etsy shop. Good for pocket reminders for the girls in your life!
Here are a few other resources I like pertaining to girls and women:
Miss Representation
The Girl Effect
Women for Women International
When a Woman Meets Jesus by Dorothy Valcarcel
