Last month we had an extended family dinner for a cousin who had just announced his engagement. The ‘grown-ups’ sat at one table and all the cousins (and their partners) sat at the other. One of the other cousins who usually sits at the grown-up table (delusions of maturity) decided to join us that night, for reasons beyond my comprehension.
He’s quite a character this cousin, whom I will refer to as Cadbury from here on, but I don’t think he even needs the full glass and a half before he’s well and truly past tipsy. The entire evening he was trying to give us life advice. How to cook, how to enrich our lives, how to ‘shine’… The cousins don’t usually say much in response to things like this because we were raised to be quiet (and polite, but sometimes that’s the same thing). So he kept going on.. and on… and ohgodspleasemakehimstop.
Some choice pearls of wisdom that he was so gracious to impart upon us:
“To cook well is to use fresh ingredients. So the trick to doing this is to only buy what you need.” - No. Shit. Sherlock.
“My parents, unlike myself, are flawed. They don’t understand what is important in life. I do, that’s why I shine.” - Oh really, I thought that rosy glow was the result of the alcohol you have imbibed this evening.
A lot of his advice was only served once he had decided he had accused you enough of not being as wonderful as he was. He interrogated engaged cousin and his fiancée (CF) about the last time they cooked. They don’t cook very much and he found this somewhat offensive and began to lecture about quality of life.
He told another two cousins that they look like they have the potential to shine, but they have to love themselves first (or something) and that he doesn’t have that problem at all (obviously).
There was also a lot of “When you get to my age…” the problem is, there’s only ten years between the eldest and the youngest cousin. And he was wearing my patience sorely thin. After the nth “When you get to my age” I had to interject with “And how old are you, grandfather?”.
Cadbury dominated the table conversation all evening but things came to a head when he asked CF what she would do if she had only 24 hours left to live (part of the ‘Quality of Life’ lecture). She replied that she would be at church praying.
He replied “Oh, so you’re Christian?” and she said “Yes.” Cadbury tried to determine how ‘Christianly’ she actually was by asking her when was the last time she went to church. She replied “Last Sunday” and he expressed complete surprise because he had expected her faith to be one of convenience.
Cadbury started asking about whether she believes in the gift of eternal life (she said ‘yes’) and tried to establish the strength of her belief. He said “If God manifested himself in front of you right now, and said that there is no such thing as eternal life, would you still believe in God?”
CF said “Yes.”
Cadbury replied “LIAR!”
I thought “Oh no you didn’t.”
He said “You would believe in God, even if he told you no such thing as eternal life?”
“Yes”
“I don’t believe you. If God manifested himself in front of me and told me I would have eternal life if I believed in him, I would and I would do everything in my power to achieve it.”
He also said things about how he isn’t Christian because he believes in the strength of his own skills and ability to do or get whatever he wants or needs. And he expressed his disbelief that people would believe in God even if the promise of the reward of eternal life didn’t exist.
It was around this time that I snapped.
I may not be religious, and I don’t like people forcing their faith upon me, but I acknowledge and respect that people have their beliefs. I also read about said beliefs because it’s what I do, I read. And whether it was Christianity, Islam or a potato, if someone says they believe in something, who are you to tell them they’re a liar just because you don’t believe yourself?
Not to mention this is their freaking engagement party and you’re antagonising the people whose party this is for to satisfy your arrogance and narrow-mindedness.
I also don’t appreciate people treating faith like a reward point system. You’re not collecting fucking Frequent Flyer miles that you can trade in for points+pay for your very own Eternal Life from the bloody catalogue.
In all fairness, there are people who are actually like that, and I am being a hypocrite with respect to those people for judging them on how they choose to demonstrate their faith. But how shallow would you have to be to treat the holy text of your faith, the entity you believe to be a Higher Power, for some their raison d’être, the way you treat discount coupons or stamps on a loyalty card? It just seems so cheap.
I said most of this at the cousin table, and directed it mainly at Cadbury, although without the swearing. Never have I been so vocal at a family gathering. And never have I felt as much anger towards any of my extended family as I did that night.
Besides that, what is the definition of eternal life anyway? All faiths have some interpretation of it. And it’s up to the person who believes to know how they feel about it and what they think it is or means.
Another cousin asked, “If all faiths have eternal life then what makes Christianity different? Why would someone choose it over another faith?”. This question made me think of when we were asked to upsell products when I was working call centre… It was a very peculiar feeling.
I ended up having to try to explain what I believed (hah) I understood of eternal life and defending faith. Most of you have no idea what a strange position this was for me. You know, the one whose relatives have called her a pagan or Godless heathen amongst other colourful and more interesting names.
It’s obvious that eternal life in the Christian definition isn’t physical immortality. Immortality of the soul or spirit? Perhaps. It could also be eternal life through reincarnation, becoming one with The Powers That Be, with the universe or your higher spiritual self. It could be any number of things depending on who you are, where you feel you sit in the Grand Design, cosmic scheme of things or whatever it is you feel most strongly about, or what gives you the most comfort to know or believe.
That might have been a faffy explanation, but there’s just so much that it could be depending on who you are and how you look at it. I couldn’t possibly articulate how big the question they asked was to them. It is not family dinner conversation at all. Not in the slightest.
And at the end of my stint on the soap box, at least two of the cousins asked me if I was Christian. I wanted to ask why in the hell do I have to be Christian to read and want to learn more about different beliefs and spirituality?
But that was, and is another rant for another time.
![My cousin posted on facebook a request for us to vote for her family in this family portrait competition.
In this screenshot are the other three families (I would have included hers as well but my browser couldn’t fit all four in at the same time for me to screenshot). Please click through from the link above to see all four and tell me if you see something amiss. You might even be able to tell what is amiss from the screenshot itself.
The competition is called the “IMAGE Families Competition”. IMAGE because that is the name of the company, and based on the name, the competition theme is families. I don’t know about you, but I don’t see ‘families’ in the portraits of the other contestants on that page.
I made mention of this on my cousin’s post thread and was informed by one of her friends, “I think you’ll find that “families” come in all shapes and sizes… not just husband, wife and children.”.
Firstly, I find it laughable that the response was assuming that I potentially had a problem with a gay family, or that possibly, I had a problem with the other contestants not having children. It might be PMS speaking, but this struck me as such a righteous, high-horse type response. I’m so glad you’re such a liberal and open-minded person who feels strongly enough to try to defend gender, sexual or marriage equality. I certainly feel put in my place now for thinking that these other contestants couldn’t be considered families, how conservative of me to think this way in modern society[1][2].
When I first saw these photos, this certainly was not the first thing that crossed my mind. The lack of children admittedly did cross my mind, but it certainly wasn’t the first thing that occurred to me. Although now that you mention it (from Dictionary.com):
fam·i·ly [fam-uh-lee, fam-lee] plural -liesnoun 1a. a basic social unit consisting of parents and their children, considered as a group, whether dwelling together or not: the traditional family. 1b. a social unit consisting of one or more adults together with the children they care for: a single-parent family. 2. the children of one person or one couple collectively: We want a large family. 3. the spouse and children of one person: We’re taking the family on vacation next week. 4. any group of persons closely related by blood, as parents, children, uncles, aunts, and cousins: to marry into a socially prominent family. 5. all those persons considered as descendants of a common progenitor.
Those definitions tend to suggest children forming part of the family unit. Don’t really need to go into that bit much further.
What I am taking issue with, in case you haven’t noticed it already, is that while some of those photos are lovely examples of general portraiture with aesthetic value, good use of light and shadow, interesting focus and emotive elements, blah blah blah, they don’t strike me as thematically appropriate photos for a family theme.
Most obvious one, the Elsing family: I’m quite certain these are not found in your usual family album. They’re in their underwear. One of them is a rather seductive pose where one family member is straddled on top of the other one.
The Nimmo and Walter family also appear to have topless shots or shots of them in their underwear. In one of the Nimmo’s, it looks like there’s a hand cupping a boob.
I think I’m far from a prude about these sorts of photos and again, as portraits, some of these are quite lovely. For example, the second Nimmo one is adorable and I think the individual Walter portraits are quite striking. Even the last Elsing one is quite lovely even though the style and post makes me think of “The Kiss”. In fact, the only one I don’t really like is the Nimmo muscle shot.
I just don’t think that they’re really family photos and I think the photography studio is remiss in using them for this theme. Call it a regular portrait competition, but don’t try to label it a family one. The photos aren’t exactly family friendly, and when I was sending the link to friends, I had to include a NSFW tag out of courtesy. There are few if any circumstances I can think of when something family should also be labelled NSFW.
Returning to my cousin’s friend’s comment, I suppose if you think that (partially or wholly) naked and/or in the midst of seduction is one of the shapes and sizes of a family and that those photos are perfectly acceptable to put in a photo album between Little Johnny’s first steps and Grandma’s 80th birthday then okay, I concede that perhaps I am a little too traditional and most definitely not progressive enough for modern society.
Anyway, I voted for my cousin’s family in this competition, not just because they’re part of my family (as defined by dictionary definition 4 and 5) but also for the principle of the thing. I requested that I be omitted from the prize draw though because I don’t really want anything to do with a photog who thinks family portraits include seductive photos or nakey/lingerie.
[1] I had thought about this a while to figure out if I misinterpreted the comment. But I’m not sure what else she could have been alluding to. So if she was referring to something else entirely and I jumped to the invalid conclusion that she was referring to the sexual preference or lack of child preference of the couples, then perhaps I’m the overly righteous and defensive one. In which case, let’s blame PMS for this rant.
[2] *snark*](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lq4wbkJhF31qz86zko1_500.png)
![suitep:
Yes I’m watching it. In a rerun. I love seeing how tickled they are with each other. I love seeing Princess Diana’s shy smile peeping out of William. That kills me a little bit because I loved her. Like most people, I remember where I was when I heard she’d died.
I love the pageantry and the sense of centuries of history you can feel. I love it that everyone is cheering and singing.
And I love seeing that there’s joy in the world. Just when you think everything’s gone to hell, it’s good to be reminded it doesn’t always feel that way.
This is exactly why I think this whole thing has been lovely. Poo-poo to all the haters.
And poo-poo to those people who have gone “Oh, I’m so disappointed because her dress isn’t original” “It’s such a rip off of Grace Kelly”. How dare she wear a dress that she likes to her own wedding. She should have been thinking of what the rest of the ‘fashionistas’ would think when she chose that Grace Kelly inspired number for the day that would be more important to her than anyone else in the world. What is this I don’t even[1].
As I’ve tweeted, it’s not that I’m a royalist, nor am I one of those people who have had their wedding planned since age three[2]. It’s that weddings are (generally) happy and warm fuzzy things.
And while the level of media coverage does mean papers and television have been in your face about it for weeks, considering the year the planet has had so far, I think it’s a nice deviation before we return to the seemingly endless torrent (no pun intended) of natural disasters.
If I was at home during the wedding, I’d also have organised a Royal Wedding Tea Party. Pretty much because I’ll take any excuse to have High Tea[3].
So, go Kate and Wills. May you live happily ever after! And stuff. *tea toast with extended pinky*
[1] I don’t quite get this expression, but it seems appropriate.
[2] There are other things I could be mooning over, like I dunno… food… shinies…
[3] It’s a day of the week that ends in ‘day’[4]: Tea Party!
[4] Royal Weddingday!](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lkg5pxKTyq1qz7t8to1_500.jpg)
