Posted in bible, encouragement, gracious, women

The View’s women: noisy & clamorous, shameful & infamous

Source- ScriptureByPicture.com

The television network ABC has produced for the last 18 years, a show called “The View.” The show is a talk show with an all-female panel discussing news, politics and cultural events of the day. Initially, veteran journalist Barbara Walters was the main host. The show has since rotated different women on and off, each panel becoming more strident than the last. It is a fair thing to say the show is hosted by cantankerous and quarrelsome women. It is an unattractive show.

I have seen the show once or twice. I don’t watch it because I have a severe distaste for programming that includes yelling, and that is pretty much all these women do.

The show’s blurb is: “Created in 1997 by veteran journalist Barbara Walters, “The View” is a daytime talk show hosted by women — Whoopi Goldberg, Joy Behar, Candace Cameron Bure, Michelle Collins, Paula Faris and Raven-Symoné — and each offers her take on the day’s news during the opening “Hot Topics” segment. Later, the ladies welcome various celebrities, who join them in a chat or perform for the audience. The program also offers tips on beauty, fashion, diet and relationships. Known for their freewheeling style, the hosts are often lampooned in late-night sketches.” (source)

This week, two of the panelists commented on a contestant in the Miss America pageant. The contestant they mocked was representing Colorado. During the talent portion of the pageant, Miss Colorado appeared in her nurse’s scrubs with a stethoscope around her neck and delivered an original monologue relating her experience working a particular Alzheimer’s patient.

The two women on the show mainly involved in the mocking were Joy Behar and Michelle Collins. They mocked the woman’s ‘lack of talent’ and her choice to relate her professional experience. They mocked her scrubs. They mocked her stethoscope. They mocked her profession.

Collins’ and Behars’s remarks became controversial and five advertisers have since withdrawn support on the show.

The controversial comments made by Behar and Collins came in response to Sunday’s 2016 Miss America pageant featuring Miss Colorado Kelley Johnson, whose talent consisted of a monologue about being a nurse. The next day, Behar said she did not consider the monologue a legitimate talent, and appeared ill-informed on the nursing profession as a whole. (source)

Feminism has done women no favors by insisting they must have a loud voice in the public realms. (I am not saying woman cannot speak publicly.) However what I am saying is that a continual pattern of strident, loud opinionated screeching in public does not become a woman. Many people, including myself, are turned off by watching such behavior. Let’s see what the Bible has to say about quarrelsome females.

It is better to live in a desert land than with a quarrelsome and fretful woman. (Proverbs 21:19)

A continual dripping on a rainy day and a quarrelsome wife are alike;  (Proverbs 27:15)

Gill’s- and a contentious woman are alike; troublesome and uncomfortable; as in a rainy day, a man cannot go abroad with any pleasure, and if the rain is continually dropping upon him in his house he cannot sit there with any comfort; and so a contentious woman, that is always scolding and brawling, a man has no comfort at home; and if he goes abroad he is jeered and laughed at on her account by others; and perhaps she the more severely falls upon him when he returns for having been abroad;

to restrain her is to restrain the wind or to grasp oil in one’s right hand. (Proverbs 27:16)

Gill’s -Whosoever hideth her hideth the wind,…. Whoever attempts to stop her brawls and contentions, to repress and restrain them, and hinder her voice being heard in the streets, and endeavours to hide the shame that comes upon herself and family, attempts a thing as impossible as to hide the wind in the palm of a man’s hand, or to stop it from blowing; for as that, by being restrained or pent up by any methods that can be used, makes the greater noise, so, by all the means that are used to still a contentious woman, she is but the more noisy and clamorous, and becomes more shameful and infamous;

It is better to live in a corner of the housetop than in a house shared with a quarrelsome wife. (Proverbs 21:9)

Gill’s- It is better to dwell in a corner of the housetop,…. The roofs of houses in Judea were that, encompassed with battlements, whither persons might retire for solitude, and sit in safety: and it is better to be in a corner of such a roof alone, and be exposed to scorching heat, to blustering winds, to thunder storms and showers of rain, than with a brawling woman in a wide house; large and spacious, full of rooms,

Like a gold ring in a pig’s snout is a beautiful woman without discretion. (Proverbs 11:22)

Pulpit Commentary- So is a fair woman which is without discretion; without taste, deprived of the faculty of saying and doing what is seemly and fitting. The external beauty of such a woman is as incongruous as a precious ring in the snout of a pig.

The Bible on having a bitter tongue:

Hide me from the secret counsel of evildoers, From the tumult of those who do iniquity, 3Who have sharpened their tongue like a sword. They aimed bitter speech as their arrow, (Psalm 64:2-3)

Brawling women are not easy to live with (Proverbs 21:9; 25:24).

Angry women are never good company (Proverbs 21:19).

The Bible on speaking defilements:

It is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles a person. (Matthew 15:11)

And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life, and set on fire by hell. (James 3:6)

The Bible on how women are to conduct themselves is also equally clear.

Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, (Titus 2:3)

Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person. (Colossians 4:6. This verse is aimed at both genders. This is a good, short essay.)

Gracious women retain their honor. (Proverbs 11:16)

The women on The View can’t help being strident, loud, obnoxious, or shameful (perhaps with the exception of Candace Cameron Bure, who is a Christian, one who unfortunately is partnering with darkness though by being a panelist on the show). This is because the Bible says–

But no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. (James 3:8).

Only with the help of the Holy Spirit in us with the new creation being sanctified can a person hope to tame the tongue. The Bible says much about the tongue, pro and con, male and female. It is a big subject.

Meanwhile, if you watch The View, I’d hope that you would reconsider, it isn’t edifying to the Lord to participate in these women’s shameful acts and support their bitter tongue. I don’t watch the show but I will keep these women in mind when I am about to speak-ill advisedly or ungraciously. It isn’t attractive, but gracious speech most certainly IS.

Posted in fellowship, gracious, hospitable, hospitality

On being hospitable; Part 2

Yesterday I excerpted Jen Wilkin’s essay on the difference between entertaining and being hospitable.Today I have a more personal take on being hospitable.

I envy people who can easily converse in a crowd. The art of conversation is one that, I believe, is a dying art.

Once we had a friend Mike, we called him Mikey. He was a huge man, 350 pounds, built like an aging football player, with an easy laugh. He lived next door and often, he would stop at our house on his way home. When we heard his truck we knew we were in for a few laughs and a good story. He was a true raconteur, regaling us loudly and always had us laughing in two minutes flat. Mikey was the kind of friend you were always glad to see coming. We were glad we were the kind of friends he felt comfortable stopping in to see.

Public Domain

Other people can converse on a more quiet and less showy way. My gal friend had a husky laugh and her eyes sparkled in delight when we talked. She didn’t say much, but her words were always insightful and full of love. Her style of conversation was more of the listening kind. She would listen with full attention, too. I’d storm in, say, “Guess what happened?!” and she would stop what she was doing, fold her hands across her Buddha belly, and look me full in the eye. She would laugh at all the right spots, and was entertained by the smallest incident. Often, she would add an insightful comment that left me pondering a new thought for the rest of the day.

Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing.
(1 Thessalonians 5:11).
I think that the dubiously named skill of “multi-tasking” has had a negative effect on conversation. Have you noticed that people do a lot of things while they say they are listening to you? Cell phone message checking, taking notes, shuffling papers, glancing at the computer. I am a bad offender of that as well. I need to do better at my listening, I admit. What if we all stopped doing other things and really listened to each other? Gatherings at home would be more hospitable. Please turn your cell phone off.

Italians’ style of conversation is steeped in storytelling. We call it ‘l’historia.” Even the simplest query from a friend, the smallest question designed for a short answer of “fine”, to the Italian, is met with excitement. Immediately we launch into a long, lyrical story that has a beginning, middle, end, and ranges from laughter to tears and back again. Watch out if you ask me how I’m doing! You are likely to get a long, and to me, absolutely fascinating story.

Remember the movie Moonstruck with Cher? A Brooklyn Italian-American family and their trials and triumphs? The brother-in-law character was named Raymond Cappomaggi and it was he who saw the large moon years before. Around the dinner table he was urged to repeat the legendary incident, with the family exhorting, ‘Come on, Ray, tell about Cosmo’s moon!” he responded apologetically, “Well, it’s not a story…but…”

Moonstruck

I knew exactly what he meant. It’s almost genetically impossible for me converse without having a fully born story in my mind, accompanied by hand gestures that usually knock over the salt shaker.

Not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near. (Hebrews 10:25)

There are many different styles of conversation, and the one I like best I had the good fortune to experience one long ago Thanksgiving. As a person with no family nearby I was invited to spend the day at a friends’ house. There were ten of us there, their family members and me. Even though I was meeting some of them for the first time, they included me in conversation that was flowing, relaxed, and easy. I was really touched by their hospitality. Ultimately, the best conversation style is not verbal, it’s one of the heart, one that includes, listens, and loves. I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving and can be hospitable by being a good listener and a lover of people.

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That is, that we may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith, both yours and mine. (Romans 1:12)