Does It Jiggle? Be Ashamed!

My breasts defy your rules!

I am quite thin. As in jutting collar bones and clearly discernible hipbones thin. Yet I am still a woman and when I move, things jiggle and bounce. My breasts bounce, my rear wiggles, my thighs jiggle a bit. It's part and parcel of being a woman- your body gets jiggy whether you do or not.

So when I read this (below) about body parts jiggling and strapping them down with extreme prejudice, I had to both laugh and fume. Laugh because I don't care how much duct tape you use, jiggling will occur, and fume because the female body is what is and I'm sick to death of being told all the ways I should be ashamed of it, and all the effort I should put into hiding it. If someone's not mocking my hair, some other asshat is advising multiple bras to keep my breasts from being breasts. Hello! They're fat and glands held in by nothing but skin, what do think is going to happen when I move? Oh, and nipples? Yeah, they happen. Get over it.

The congregation I attend has congregational dancing on Shabbat These are the guidelines for modesty while dancing. :D As a ring of gold in a swine’s snout, So is a lovely woman who lacks discretion (modesty) Proverbs 11:22

Or has breasts and dares to leave them untaped!

(I'm just hitting the highlights of this ridiculous list. It's much longer than what appears here.)

Shirts/Blouses/Dress Tops Must not cling to reveal or accentuate the roundness of your breasts, or the curvature of your figure.

How on earth, where on earth, do I find a top that doesn't "cling", "reveal" or "accentuate" what is sticking out from my ribcage? Think about that for a second. During the winter, I frequently wrap a pashmina* around myself, and even with a big swathe of fabric loosely draped around my shoulders, you can still see my breasts exist, and I'm hardly busty. This would be impossible for a woman with even average size breasts.

Well, I suppose I could buy a burqa.

Skirts/Dresses & Pant suits a. Must not cling to the hips, thighs or buttocks to reveal or accentuate the curvature of roundness of them.

Again, hips and bottoms stick out. This is just, I dunno, anatomy, physics, three dimensionality. Again, the burqa is the only logical solution.

And here's the money commandment:

c. Proper Support should be worn. Applicable body parts should be anchored at all times while dancing. (May require sports bras, additional bras, control top pantyhose, etc.) General Rule of Thumb: If it jiggles or bounces, even slightly strap it down. To ensure modesty, a bra that is fiber lined will prevent unwanted protrusions from being visible under blouses.

As I mentioned above, even I jiggle and bounce. A woman of healthy weight much more so. This is a direct command to be uncomfortable, unhealthy and ashamed. Seriously, "additional bras"? I'm not even sure how one wears more than one bra at a time unless they are suggesting a sports bra on top of a regular bra, and then I don't see how anyone is breathing. Control top pantyhose? Ever worn those**? Again, no breathing. "Unwanted protusions"? Oh, right, erect nipples.

I have a solution. The burqa. It's clearly where you are going, just stop tormenting your female congregants with control tops and multiple bras and go with the burqa.

Really, who wrote this out? And how much fapping interrupted this screed?

Who may ascend into the hill of the L-rd? Or who may stand in His Holy Place? He (she) who has clean hands and a pure heart. Psalms 24:4

And duct tape around their breasts.

*My boss' wife picks out the nicest Christmas gifts!

** I have no idea why anyone makes control top pantyhose in my size, but they almost all are control top.

I'm Going to Smear Lime Jello on My Elbows for You

I do so love a rambling semidefense of prayer as actually doing something . . . or something. You'll see what I mean.

The message came in a flurry of emails on a day that was no busier than usual. It was bad news. An old friend was letting me know that her long-time babysitter had just been diagnosed with colon cancer and was going into the hospital soon for surgery.

"Prayers!" I typed. "I'll keep her in our prayers." What else do you say? How else do you respond to really bad new? The thing is: do you really mean it, and are you really going to do it?

How about, "I'm sorry" or "I'll keep her in my thoughts"? Or, if you really actually want to do something, what about a fundraiser to pay for medical bills and missed wages, or cooking freezer-ready meals for her and her family or a gift certificate for a maid service or taking up a collection to pay for rides to and from treatment or, you know, actually fucking doing something? Oh, right, that takes effort. Got it.

So, anyway, the author managed to forget even doing the nothing that is praying.

I don't believe for a minute that God didn't get the message when I typed my email "Prayers!" and anyway, if God cared about this lovely faith-filled woman, he would be on top of it. (Leave alone for a minute the whys of her illness.)

Um, no. How about you're going to have to explain why god will answer a prayer to cure a disease he allowed a person to have in the first place. Otherwise, you've involved me in the old Steve Martin skit in which he explains that the way to be a millionaire is to get a million dollars.

But I needed to say that prayer for me as much as for her.

She has cancer, dude. Stop thinking about yourself. How selfish can you be? (Apparently, that selfish.)

Praying for others is at the heart of prayer. As has been often pointed out, the Lord's Prayer is in the first-person plural, not singular. Praying -- and I don't think I'm any better at it than anybody else -- is a joint effort. Faith is about compassion, and how compassionate can you be if you don't pray for others?

Oh, I see. I actually do things for the suffering people in my life, but because I don't talk to myself about it, I'm a sociopath.

Do I know how it works? Haven't a clue. Do I believe it works? Of course I do or I wouldn't prevail.

Ah, the unexamined life. Also, the word you are looking for is not "prevail". Prevail means to win. You mean "persevere".

There have been times when I've depended on it. Scared out of my wits in a hospital room before open-heart surgery, I took comfort in a print-out of emails from friends and family promising their prayers. And when I couldn't pray at all, I was grateful to a pair of old friends who called and prayed some sense into me on the other end of the line. What I couldn't do, they could do for me.

I'm not sure how one prays sense into someone, but fine. If prayer comforted you prior to major surgery, go for it. I would never take that comfort from you, surgery is terrifying. In fact, were you a friend of mine, I would lie and tell you I prayed for you. I would also smear lime jello on my elbows if that's what would make you feel better. However, don't tell me the heart of compassion is prayer.

There's a lot of goodness in this broken world, and prayer feels like a way of shaking it loose. I have no problems praying for dear friends who think it's a bunch of malarkey. They love me and have to accept that this is some endearing idiosyncrasy of mine like making dopey toasts or breaking into song. When you pray for someone, you learn to love them, and you think of them all day long.

So, without the prayer, I cannot "learn to love"? Get over yourself. Also, hatred also makes you think of people all day long. As does obsession.

That babysitter is getting out of the hospital soon and going into rehabilitation. I've been checking in and am attuned because she's on my badly maintained list. "You're so nice to ask," my friend says. But I'm not being nice. I'm doing what I think is essential and will keep trying. "You're in my prayers" is a powerful thing to say and even more powerful when you show how you mean it.

That babysitter could use an awful lot of things. She could use help cleaning her house. She could use a big platter of baked ziti. (I'm Italian. We believe in the healing power of pasta. For everything.) She could use a million things that don't involve you making yourself feel better about your inaction.

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