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CONTENT 03 Editor’s Note Rechelle-Lee Smith 05 The Issue with Censorship of the Female Body Alexandre Pluviose 09 Fist Bumps with Jesus: Your Dirty Laundry Angelica Cornejo 11
Body, Mind, and Soul Elsy Cornejo
14 "Censored" Jasmine Pickett 17 19 22
All the Children of the World Kira Bruggemann
Boobs. Booty. Brain? Nakeda McDonald
Censored Religious Questioning Z o r i s h a Pe t e r s
Layout Design, cover art, and illustrations by Jacqui McCarty
I am obsessed with Black Mirror. I know, I know, it’s a crazy sci-fi show but the blurred lines that this show has created between reality and fantasy fascinates me. One of my favorite episodes is Arkangel. WARNING: BLACK MIRROR SPOILERS AHEAD. READ AT YOUR OWN RISK. Arkangel is the name of the chip that allows a parent to track and monitor their children, as well as pixilate images that would cause their child emotional distress. This led to some serious problems. Sara, the child in the episode, grew up not being able to recognize negative emotions, and had a dangerous desire to see what blood looked like. In the mother’s defense, I’m sure that she wanted what was best for her child. Most mothers want to protect their children from harm and she did so the best way she knew how. However, by not exposing Sara to the negative things of the world, she allowed her child to be insensitive when it came to certain things.
used to do amazing things and has saved countless lives, however, it has been used to pixilate what is really going on in society for too long. Christians tend to be the last ones to fully understand anything, if we end up understanding it at all. In our defence, it’s easy to cling to what is comfortable and familiar. Our leaders fear the unknown because they don’t know how to tell you to navigate it. The tendency is to just steer clear of things we don’t understand and unfortunately, we use the Bible to justify our reasoning’s. When we do discover what’s really going on would we be able to recognize it? Would we just dismiss it as something that isn’t serious? How are we supposed to be sympathetic and minister to those we refuse to see? What are some conversations that we aren’t having but we should be? Why aren’t we having these conversations? What invisible laws in society is in place that rule against these conversations? What would happen if we decided to talk about it? We need to do better. We need to be better.
I like to think of the Bible as the Arkangel chip. It is a great inspirational book and has been
Let’s remove the filter.
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E D I T O R ' S N O T E R E C H E L L E - L E E S M I T H
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The issue with censorship of the female body Alexandre
Pluviose
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Before I start I would l say, I am addressing my own thoughts on this matter. That being said, when it comes to censorship, I understand the reasoning for it. There is a time and place for certain things. However, something I noticed is that when it comes to the human body censoring, there is a gender bias. While it’s true men and women, physically speaking are different, we’re all adults here, so by now, we are aware of the differences. But this censorship that society tries to teach us is bit strange. For instance, let’s take a look at the reaction to a woman who is breast feeding her baby in public. This is just a person whose baby was hungry and in order to calm the baby down, she must feed the baby. The mother and baby don’t even try to make it a big scene yet people say that what that woman just did was just inappropriate. Yet when it comes to advertisements, we clearly see women wearing less, yet they allow those images to be shown. Also let me remind you these ads are places anyone can see, in stores, billboards, even on buses. So, correct me if I am wrong but what make women in under or wearing less in ads make it ok then a woman, still clothes just breast feeding her baby. For augment’s sake, let’s say that its because the women in the ads have their “not for safe for work” parts like the nipples not shown. Okay, but again that doesn’t make sense. Because if nipples aren’t okay to be shown then why for men for their nipples be shown in media or even in public. Yet if a
woman dares to be shown without a shirt then that is a big no no. It’s one thing for censorship to be applied to everyone but if men are allowed this, then why can’t women be the same? It’s not like the human body is something to be ashamed of. After all, isn’t the human body considered to be God’s masterpiece? Why do we treat women’s bodies like they are things that we must cover up? Now please don’t interpret what I said as “it’s fine to go all out and show the world what you have.” That is not what I am trying to say. What I am saying is that if the body of a man is considered to be natural and nothing to be ashamed of then why can’t that be applied to women? If they need to breast feed their child, it doesn’t need to turn into big fiasco. Just let her feed her child in peace, it's not like she is forcing you to look. You can always avoid looking at her. A woman’s body isn’t an object to be covered up just for you to feel comfortable. Guys, how would you like it you are at the beach, doing your own thing and suddenly you have to suddenly change your appearance just because some people around you will feel uneasy just for being a guy. It would be annoying. That said, we must remember, don’t stare guys. Let the woman do her own thing. Don’t force women to cover up. The human body is a work of art. Granted there is a time and place for certain things, but one can’t stop people from wanted to express themselves. So, stop body shaming women because their different from men and start embracing what truly makes them unique.
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Y D I R T Angelica Cornejo
“Do you have any dirty laundry?”, I asked, “I can wash yours along with mine”. Being as sweet and as considerate as I am, I was willing to help José with his dirty laundry on that very special day. Just like any other laundry day, I carried down my dirty clothes to the laundry room in Lakeview Hall. As I began to separate my colours from my whites (because mama taught me well), José came down with a blue sealed plastic bin. I turned to him, took the bin and smiled. “Thanks, chiquita!” he responded as he kissed my forehead and left. I didn’t think much about his sealed bin and told myself I’d get to it in a moment. If you know José then you know how much he lives and breathes sports. Whether its soccer, basketball, running, or going to the gym he is always doing something athletic and you can only imagine how much he sweats during it all. Unfortunately, on that very day, I failed to remember that minor detail and as I removed the lid off of that blue sealed bin, my heart stopped and my nostrils died. The sour smell of enclosed crusty, stale, sweat drenched gym clothes overpowered the sweet, clean scent of my laundry already washing in Downy detergent. “What did I get myself into,” I thought to myself as I pretended to cry a few sad tears. Sin can be a lot like that dirty laundry, especially the sins we like to tuck away and never talk about or deal with--our secret sins. Those are the sins that sit in our closets rotting and stinking up our lives. Those secret sins are our dirty laundry. Often times, these are the sins that we do in secret, the things we hope no one ever finds out about us. If this is your case, I don’t judge you because believe it or not we’ve all got dirty laundry. We all have that one thing we struggle with that’s keeping us from moving forward in our relationship
with Jesus. And maybe like José’s laundry, your secret sin has been hiding in your closet for some time now without being taken care of. Sin is the worst. It’s a reality we must all live with and often the battle against it can seem overwhelming and difficult. Although we can tend to believe that keeping a secret sin hidden will be easy, flirting with sin will eventually destroy us. It will eventually destroy you. Well then, what do I do about my secret sin? Well first off know that despite our sins and our dirty sin nature, God knows us for who we are and does not call us “sinners” but rather “His children”. Secondly, the Bible tells us that “whoever hides their sins will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will find compassion.” (Proverbs 28:13). This verse means that God is ready to wash away your sins with His compassion and grace as long as you are willing to confess your sin and turn away from it. Therefore, if you find yourself struggling to get rid of your dirty laundry, start by calling out to God, confessing and exposing your secret sin for what it is to a trusted friend or mentor, and trust that with God you will be able to overcome it. Choose to be intentional about avoiding that temptation at all costs and by God’s grace, you’ll soon come to find that your gross smelling heart and your dirty laundry has been washed and cleansed by the sweet-smelling righteousness of Jesus. Here to encourage you always, Angelica
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“I discipline my body like an athlete, training it to do what it should. Otherwise, I fear that after preaching to others I myself might be disqualified.� - 1 Corinthians 9:27
Body, Mind, and Soul Elsy Cornejo
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There are many aspects of health that at times are overlooked by people because not all of the ideas are positive. No one likes being told they are “unhealthy” and it may be a hard thing to accept. However, it is essential for people, especially us, as active growing university students, to not overlook our health and our bodies well-being. Let’s talk about calories. With exams, assignments, and the end of the semester approaching us it seems to become second nature for us to instantly feel stressed and overwhelmed by all of the day’s tasks. This usually causes a large imbalance in our dietary habits. For some people, due to the stress and lack of sleep, they find themselves constantly eating or over eating. For others, their stress causes them to stop eating or forget to eat. Both sides of the spectrum are harmful to our bodies and will definitely lower our ability to function properly in and out of school. It may seem obvious, but in reality there are many people who rather not talk about their poor eating habits and in return they try to manage their habits alone or not manage them at all. Calories don’t have to be a scary thing. Calories are the amount of energy provided to our bodies by what we consume. Your body requires energy to maintain simple functions such as walking, breathing, sitting, etc. Calories are highly necessary, however when consumed in large amounts they begin to be stored as fat, which in return causes weight gain. On the other hand, not getting enough calories will cause your body to use stored
fat as energy, which will cause a large decrease in weight. Constant fluctuations in weight and calorie intake habits can cause over all stress on the body and lead to several negative side effects (lethargy, fatigue, headaches, dizziness, etc.) or other unnecessary diseases. Analyzing your current workout routine and diet will help you see what you can do to lose or put on pounds and live a better, healthier lifestyle. Do you know the right number of calories you should be eating? In order to maintain your weight, you will need to stick to a certain amount of calories per day, these are your maintenance calories. In order to determine your maintenance calories, take your current weight and multiply by 15. Depending on your amount of physical activity per day and whether you want to gain or lose weight will you can add or subtract a proper amount of calories from your maintenance calories. Here is an outlined chart to help you get back on track with your calorie intake and weight (below). Let us ask God for guidance, temperance, and patience when dealing with our weight and eating habits so that through our health we can be healthy living testimonies to others. With His help and guidance, he will help us consciously live better healthier lives.
"Censored" Jasmine Pickett
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I did not know what censorship meant. Not until I realized that every day of my life, I experienced it. I bottled up my tears, Because everyone had it worse And I had no reason to cry, So why was I crying? It just made everything worse. I did not say my fears, Because they were silly and inconsequential. Everyone had more important fears to be heard, So I just kept them in my head. I did not tell them about my scars, Because they were not inflicted by someone else. I did not have battle scars To prove that I had been fighting. I had never been to a physical battlefield So, they told me my fight was not real. But. . . It IS real. The weapons are words. The scars I have cover my heart and my wrists and my legs. The tears are my silent screams for help. I have learned the hard way that battlefields Are not just physical. Battlefields can be emotional. Battlefields can be inescapable. Battlefields can have a face. Mine is the one I see in the mirror every day. So now, when I see the word censorship, I know. I have been censored every day of my life But that is not going to be the case anymore. When someone sees the tears on my face and The scars on my wrists, I want them to know that I am fighting a battle too. So when someone says that their pain is worse, And you are about to agree, Remember that your pain is just as important And you shouldn’t try to stomp it down. Hold your head up and don’t back down. Getting censored is not the way to go out. So don’t let yourself get censored too.
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When I was a little girl, I had a friend who was Baptist. Our mothers met when we were a couple months old and, both being new mothers, decided that it was crucially important that we become best friends. Thus I came to know Nelly*. Nelly and I were very different people from the get-go, but we got along pretty well. At least we did unless the issue of religion came up. This was inevitable because we were always staying over at each other’s houses, especially on weekends. The first time I remember this coming up was when I was around 5 or 6. I walked into her kitchen one Sabbath morning and asked when we were going to church. Her parents laughed kinda awkwardly and said, “No Honey, we don’t go to church on Saturday, we go on Sunday.” I remember standing there confused. What do you mean you don’t go to church on Saturday? Everyone goes to church on Saturday… don’t they? I spent the rest of the day confused, at least I did during the times I wasn’t living it up watching the Saturday cartoons my parents never let me watch (I’m sure there are a lot of Adventist kids who can relate to that! ^insert embarrassed laughing emoji here ). When I did go to church on Sunday I was even more confused. To a 5-year-old, it was exactly the same as the Seventh-Day-Adventist church I went to, complete with Sabbath School, praise and worship, and the sermon. They sang the same songs, preached the same sermons, and prayed the same prayers. So why on earth did they worship on a different day, thought 5-yearold-pigtail-wearing Kira. That’s a question that raises A LOT of controversy in Christianity and is actually not what I’m going to talk about. I know that was a long introduction, but I promise I have a point so don’t leave yet! The reason I’m bringing this up is because it presented a problem. The problem was not that I didn’t know why the Baptist church did what they did, it was that I didn’t even know a Baptist church existed at all! A problem my mom quickly rectified when I got home. She explained all about different denominations and I grew up never really feeling like I was in the dark when it came knowing about other religions. But if it weren’t for my open-minded mother, I wouldn’t have. Because when was the last time you heard your Adventist
pastor say something about how your congregation should participate in the litter clean-up with the synagogue down the street? Or how you all should get to know the people in the Mosque next door? Or have a potluck with the Pentecostal church renting from your same building? What was that? Oh, never? Yeah that’s what I thought. I’m not trying to slam Adventist pastors. But this is a big problem in our church. We don't interact with or even talk about other religions and, in all honesty, sometimes I feel like we almost pretend they don't exist. This is definitely a topic that is censored. Other religions and denominations are simply not mentioned. And if they are, it’s in a sermon about the evils of Catholicism or the role of Judaism in early Christianity, it’s not about what goes on in our modern society today and how we can relate to it. But why not? Why does this seem to be such a taboo issue in our community? Is it because we’re biased against other religions and simply don’t want to talk to them? Is it because we’re afraid that by learning about other religions we’ll become interested in them? That maybe we’ll realize that, horror of horrors, we’re not so perfect by comparison? Or maybe it’s just that we’ve become complacent in our Liberal Canadian society where we don’t have to worry about our own religion being accepted and we can just go about our business and let everyone else go about theirs. My theory is that it’s a mosaic of all these reasons and others, different for each person. But whatever the reason, we’re wrong and this has to stop. Please forgive my brashness. I’m not saying that we need to go around having tea parties and giving out hugs and kisses. I’m not even saying we have to fully embrace and accept what other religions are and what they teach. And this is something that can be applied to anyone regardless of their religion. We are all entitled to our own opinions and we all have the right to make decisions based on those opinions. But knowledge is the beginning of wisdom, and being informed about something is different than agreeing with it. Learning about someone leads to understanding them, and understanding them leads to loving them. And isn’t love what we’re supposed to be all about? Ignorance isn’t attractive on a person, and it definitely isn’t attractive on our church. “The heart of the prudent acquires knowledge, and the ear of the wise seeks knowledge.” - Proverbs 18:15
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boobs. booty. brain? Nakeda McDonald A few days ago, I sat speaking with a friend while completing an assignment on Culture. I happened across a photograph of a group of women from a tribe somewhere in Africa, and I was instantly intrigued. Their breasts hung freely, and their children clung to their sides, so I questioned, “how is it that men in this part of the world become aroused?” I mean, a ridiculous question, since this is a natural biological function, right? And, of course, he stared at me incredulously, “what do you mean?” he asked. “Well, they aren’t trying to appear sexy, they’re just … there. Fully exposed, there’s nothing left to the imagination, yet it just doesn’t seem very enticing.” He responded, “well, it’s mostly us who perceive the female’s body that way, we have sexualized the woman.” I, like most, though I would deny this otherwise, was thinking at the level of my society, my thoughts were stimulated by my culture, and I was using it to measure other societies. Ethnocentrism, is it? What I had not acknowledged, is that, here in the West, the female’s body has been objectified. She is the image of sex; the symbol of fecundity. She represents this, and is expected to in her entirety: in her attire, her mannerism, and her pursuits, after all, she is, “The Second Sex”; and when she ceases to, she becomes less attractive, less relevant. But what we mean is, who is she, if not the sum of her body parts? She is appraised by the size of her breasts, while I wear training bras, she’s worth only as much as the size of her derrière, while I, well, can’t do a full squat. I hope I am not mistaken, this is not an attack on the women who desire and put the effort into attaining and maintaining this appearance, I admire you — you are beautiful. But does that make me, and those like me, less “woman”?
Here’s the irony, though, there are restrictions on this body: 1. You may only expose your breasts for the sake of fashion, not to nurse your newborn. 2. Be skimpily clad, if you do not bear the scars of motherhood. 3. Be careful now, don’t expose too much cleavage, you must quantify just how much is modest because any in excess, and I’m sorry, you are just “begging for it”. Could we just be given a list already? I mean, clearly, we were born into a body that belongs to someone else. To the use and disposal of “the man” after all, I am the result of his rib, a “help mate”, a gift from Him to him, but let’s not mention it with such contempt. Such indiscretions are unforgiveable; punishable, even. When will the woman cease to be property of the patriarchy? When will our minds and our bodies be our own? At what point do we live by our own definition and not by the influence or suggestions of the man? It is often implied, that a woman can think no farther than her chest, “you’re smart, for a girl,” “you’re good at math, for a girl!” Female excellence is seen as the exception, not the rule. The challenge of any pursuit is not an implication of our inadequacy and we should not be made to feel deficient because of our biology, we do not suffer from “penis envy”, our intellectual excellence is not a rarity, it is a standard, only perpetually diminished and impugned by those of the opposite sex. Is it their virility that they feel threatened? I do not care to find out, rather allow us the same that you have been afforded or perhaps taken for yourselves, but do not deny us and then condemn us for our lack of.
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Censored religious questioning Z o r i s h a Pe t e r s
In a Christian environment, how do we treat the questioning youth in our church compared to those who reside outside of it? There are many within the school who believe this is a conversation that is being supressed within the church and its environment. Topics such as evolution and the secular explanations of biblical events, passages, historical documents and references. There are many who express interest in learning about these aspects of the bible, however are perceived to have a lack of faith or are criticized for simply wanting to seek knowledge to obtain a broader perspective. There are many who believe learning other opinions different from your own is toxic to the growth of the Adventist religion. That conversations about alternative paths whether it leans towards secular information or safe comparisons and discussions about other religions should be discouraged. The suppression of information isn’t a requirement for strong beliefs nor is it a healthy mechanism for dealing with questioning youth in our church and society. There are many who express concern about the reaction when bringing up alternative opinions about the bible to those around them, in simple general conversation some are scorned and even ostracized. Mind you I am not speaking about rude conservations and dismantling the beliefs of those around them but those who simply wish to
speak about the knowledge and information that they found out and wish to ask questions that are more helpful in understanding an interpretation of the information rather than condemning all form of questioning or refusal to acknowledge the information presented by the individual. There are many attempts and places on campus for this kind of information to be heard but even the largest of those spaces fear expressing themselves outside of closed doors. This campus needs to be one of open dialogue, to allow for safe and healthy growth of opinions and beliefs. Allowing alternative conservations does not mean the repressing of Adventist beliefs, on the contrary those who are steadfast and strong in their beliefs would have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Faith should not and does not falter in the presence of information. Knowledge will not cause someone to lose their way and the repression of knowledge does not make for healthy and better Christians. Many are hoping that the campus becomes a place where those who wish to express their thoughts and questions about the bible can do so without criticism, shame and the need for instant evangelism from their peers and elderly alike. Proverbs 19:2 “Desire without knowledge is not good, and whoever makes haste with his feet misses his way.�
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