Bearings Journal | Issue 7 | Story | Spring 2024

ISSUE SEVEN

S P R I N G 2 024

AT T H E U N I V E R S I T Y O F V I RG I N I A

STORY

OUR MISSION Bearings is a student-run journal of Christian thought at the University of Virginia that seeks to provide an interdenominational and interdisciplinary forum for spiritual conversation on Grounds.

COVER ARTWORK Lydia K im entanglement, 2023 Mi xed Media: Collage and Digital A r t

Dear Reader, The books that fill my shelves are the signposts of my life. There are those stacked on the floor beneath my desk, waiting to be read. Each month they stack higher and higher, marking one busy semester after another. There are those that sit by my bed, ready to be opened at any moment, and there is the one I carry with me now that will later mark this day, this week, or this season. When I look at my bookshelf, I do not just see To Kill a Mockingbird sitting next to My Bondage and My Freedom; I see my freshman year of high school sitting next to that day I spent in Mudhouse Coffee last year when I could not put Frederick Douglass’ autobiography down.

From fiction to history to theology, the words I read frame the steps I take. As Christians, we know that the steps we take fill the pages of a much larger story; we believe that God is at work in our stories and in the ones that came before us. In our suffering, we turn to those who have suffered before us, like Job, and in our celebration, we turn to biblical feasts like that of the return of the prodigal son. For this seventh issue of Bearings, we explored this idea of “Story,” aiming to grapple with the stories—both ancient and new—that shape our own.

In the pages you are about to read, you will find poetry and lyrical writing that wrestle with ancient scriptures in our modern

context. You will also encounter pieces that reframe the stories that fill contemporary culture. Our writers have taken the questions that challenge them and posed them to you, and our artists and photographers have filled these pages with glimpses into the creation flowing through the biblical story and our own lives today.

I am grateful to the Parent’s Program, the Center for Christian Study, and our anonymous donors for their generous financial support. I want to thank the entire team of editors and designers who contributed, as well as the writers and artists who so carefully crafted each element to make this issue of Bearings a story worth reading.

Lastly, thank you, dear reader, and may the stories in these pages shed light on your own.

In Christ,

Meredith Hicks Editor-in-Chief

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The Team EXECUTIVE TEAM

Meredith Hicks Editor-in-Chief

EDITORS

Lillian Buchanan Anna Heetderks Selby Ireland Sarah Lambert Katie Mead Paola Mendez-Garcia

Maddie Mislock Maggie McDermott Emily Nicely Peyton Rabb Grace Whitaker

FEATURED ARTISTS

Lauren Campbell | Illustration Ashley Fan | Illustration Catherine Judd | Photography Lydia Kim | Cover Artwork & Illustration Thomas Laughridge | Photography

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Sophie Burk President

DESIGNERS

Lauren Campbell Ashley Fan Catherine Judd Lydia Kim

Carey Thomas Design Chair

Jack Miller Peyton Stallings Carey Thomas

Katie Mead | Poem Excerpt Jack Miller | Photography & Illustration Peyton Stallings | Illustration & Artwork Carey Thomas | Illustration

Contents TOPOGRAPHIES OF REVERENCE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 06

Maddie Mislock

WHAT IS LEFT. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Sophie Burk

GUARDIAN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Lilly West

GROUP. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Grace Whitaker

RECLAIMING BARBIE: FINDING REDEMPTION IN PINK. . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Meredith Hicks

STAMEN SCARS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 Lydia Kim

RITE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 Timothy Graff

EXILE AND RETURN: THE STORY OF GOD’S MERCY. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 William Kuebler

FATHERLAND . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 Claire Huchthausen

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Then the voice of Elohim echoed out, A command reminiscent of a melody: Sweet like honeycomb and smooth like wine So light was, and darkness seperate soon after.

Subsequenty, a reigning breath: evening and morning—

Topographies of Reverence MADDIE MISLOCK

W

hen I was younger, I remember reading My Side of the Mountain and being utterly infatuated with the life that it portrayed.

The novel details how a boy named Sam runs away to the Catskills and makes his home in a hollowed out tree. He gathers and catches all his food; he even trains a peregrine falcon to aid in his hunting endeavors. I first read this book ten years ago and I still often wish I were living in the mountains like Sam—making acorn pancakes, eating dandelion greens, and drinking sassafras-root tea. As someone who read insatiably as a child, there were many fictional realms I wished I could explore, like Narnia or the Hundred Acre Wood. Yet the terrain of My Side of the Mountain was distinct from the others. It was not unreachable or fantastical (well, perhaps it was slightly fantastical). It was a land much like the

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one I inhabited, and thus the land I inhabited became wondrous too. I wanted a life as closely connected to the earth as Sam’s. Conveniently for me, the year I read My Side of the Mountain was the year I got to experience some semblance of such a life.

It was sixth grade, a pivotal time at my school—a watershed. The year was intentionally set apart in its educational methodology; our learning welled over the walls of our classroom and out into the landscape beyond. We were sent to venture around the school building, field guide in hand, on quests to identify the trees around us. We named and then drew them: white pine, tulip poplar, pin oak. We learned about poetry and its mechanics, and the ways it revealed to us something that scientific inquiry could not. One day, we sat out in a flurry of falling snow while capturing

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the experience in verse (one of the shoeboxes in my room brimming with old scraps and memories still holds the weather-worn poem from that snowy day).

As we brought our studies outside the classroom, our classroom in turn became a treasury of things from outside. Old wasp’s nests, snakeskins, pressed flowers, and antlers adorned the shelves. Many dissections took place in that beloved room: worms, a sunfish, blue crabs, a goldfinch. One hundred and thirty eight brook trout (our state fish) found their home in a large tank inside our classroom from the time they were eggs, up until they grew into fry. We took trips every Tuesday to test the water in a nearby stream, and released the trout into the stream at the end of the year. Each Friday, we spent the afternoon in the garden out back , each of us tending to the

plot where we had carefully planted our seeds (mine were radishes). We eagerly removed the winter moth caterpillars waging battle against our precious crops and lamented every nibbled and withered leaf that we had lost to their onslaught.

Perhaps the best part of the whole year was our harvest feast, when we gathered what we had grown, then prepared and ate it together.

I adored this year wholeheartedly, in part due to the fact that we spent almost more time outside than

PHOTOGRAPHY FROM JACK MILLER

inside. More importantly, though, it introduced me to an entirely new way of engaging with the world—a way of gazing at the landscape around me with wonder, curiosity, and reverence. It also taught me to look for the ways in which I could care for the land, and the ways in which the land cared for me. I loved returning to the same trees, the same stream, the same trout, and the same patch of soil, and witnessing the transformations that occurred therein. I loved dissecting the world around me through poetry and chronicling the intricate personal lives of radishes and clouds and worms, each with a narrative more wildly imagined than the next. Nature was enchanting, and I came to discover ways to capture that enchantment with my words. Yet, I did not discover this art alone in the woods (although that was where I often practiced it). No, I discovered the potency of the written word in describing the natural world while sitting at my desk, nose-deep in My Side of the Mountain.

My Side of the Mountain was not the only story that presented an enduringly compelling mode of interacting with the natural world. Several years later, I found myself holding a copy of Hannah Coulter, the first work of many that I would read by Wendell Berry (in fact, I’m still making my way through his oeuvre). Wendell Berry is a fascinating figure for far too many reasons to catalog here, but one such

reason is that, apart from being a prolific writer, he is also a farmer, and that identity strongly informs his writing. The stories he shares, much like his own life, feature people whose lives are intimately intertwined with the land around them. The narrative and the land often exist codependently. In Hannah Coulter, the seventh book in Berry’s Port William series, the eponymous heroine is aged, reflecting on her life and the land it was built upon. She chronicles love, loss, and legacies. The culture of family farming is under fire as technological advancements threaten the ties that bind her community together, yet hope springs up again as her grandson returns home to help care for the farm. While reading Hannah Coulter, the beauty of a strong sense of placehood reinvigorated a desire within me to be connected to a certain landscape, as well as a desire to live from that connectedness, even in seasons of transience.

Though I may not currently grow or gather all my food, and I spend much of my time in a classroom instead of fields or forests, that does not have to mean that I am entirely separated from the land around me. I have so often felt an aching to run to the mountains or get my hands dirty in the garden, but it took stories that engaged my imagination of such a life for me to begin to articulate why exactly that ache seemed so vital. These stories taught me that looking at the natural world with awe and doing whatever is in our power to care for it is a worthwhile pursuit, regardless of our season of life.

Maddie Mislock is a third year studying English, Religious Studies, and Health & Wellbeing. Outside of class, she spends as much of her time as possible in the mountains or at a concert, especially of the bluegrass or indie country variety.

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What is left SOPHIE BURK

Of the towers of stone that mark my path some are merely pebbles Weary efforts, weathered and windblown unsteady signposts stranded to the past There are those that stand tall and strong, too A welcome weight born on patient, knotless shoulders These are familiar to the gale Often I wonder if even the mightiest can withstand or if a landslide of my own making may one day do me in You whisper from the top of ancient peaks from the night air around me You remind me that these hands I hardly recognize were taught to lift and not to crumble To stretch heavy palms to a darkened sky

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You say I will walk in peace steps girded by fir and myrtle My shouts will join in with those of great, imposing slopes And the ground will tremble from our joy alone These rocks found their voice when mine sat stubborn in my chest Moment by moment they proclaim You are the One Who Sees Me wherever I pitch this feeble tent So there is no sacrifice to make upon these well worn stones But to let this dry dust coat my knees again and again Before another misshapen altar hands and heart asking You to dwell

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Guardian LILLY WEST

Y

ou sit on a time-worn porch, watching the woodpecker whittle away at the oak tree you call beloved. The wild giant’s limbs twist their way out from under its blanket of spanish moss. It seems as though pain and life course through each limb such that they have never been asleep but have always been drowsy, as though the weight of its companion has trapped this oak in a night of constant wrestling. In the image of this beloved tree, with its wearisome nature, you find a home.

For a moment you wonder if this oak senses to whom it belongs. Surely it must. It’s been my tree for so long. We’ve grown together. I know each curve of its limbs, each knot in its trunk.

All these nights I’ve spent in its company, it has to know. It couldn’t belong to anyone else. Ah yes, you have always been greedy. You humans and your fixation on possession.

Your perception of ownership is so misconstrued, darling, so that you would claim to possess even me. You seem to believe that every person has their own guardian. You do not refer to me except in reference to yourself, as if I exist solely in relationship to you, to safeguard and protect you. If you could hear me with your small, decorated ears, I would be able to tell you that I do not exist only as I relate to you. In fact, I was designed to be a messenger. I have been woven together so that I

may make proclamations, sing joyfully of good news, and serve the world on behalf of the one who creates.

Therefore, my voice resounds with a melodious tune.

If you could hear it, you might say that it is gentle and firm, deep and bright, nostalgic and prophetic.

Such, also, is my appearance. I do not appear as your silly cartoons, acclaimed paintings, or even stained glass windows suggest. The form in which I naturally exist is one unlike creatures in the world in which you live. I am a triumphant image, and I would cause you to tremble in awestruck fear. For this reason, as I sit with you now, as always, I am hidden from your perception.

I rest in the rocking chair beside yours, a habit which time and languor has reinforced.

As I look at you, I gaze into your lonely eyes.

In the hours you sit here, listening to the paint-chipped boards of your porch creak as you rock yourself into a trance, you believe that you are the most true version of yourself, that all pretenses dissipate in your moments of silence.

Unfortunately, it is also in these moments that you feel the most alone. When you are your most lonely, I lay my wing around you. When I do this, you shudder quickly and then puzzle at whatever on earth just caused you to shake. It is a natural response, since your finite body cannot comprehend my permanence.

After these encounters, you remind yourself that you are lonely, and you look out towards the tree you call

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beloved. A tree and a view that you call yours.

Most precious darling, what you call yours even I cannot claim to own. Do you not yet understand the difference between stewardship and ownership? You are but an image, the bearer of a standard. Any power you hold is simply that which has been imputed to you. Only the One who creates truly owns, and you and I, I’m afraid, did not create this. Yet here I am with you, and you call this beloved tree yours. Do you not understand that the oak has been created for itself?

And also the ferns, and the flowers, and the field, and the horses, and the island? All of these things were created for themselves. You may say they are for you, and that would be true—but not in the way that you would mean it. All of everything was created for itself and for the other. Those that are created for self and for the other do not belong inherently to either.

All your actions are inextricably linked to life around you. Thus, even in your autonomy you do not belong

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to yourself. What a world it would be if this were not the case. Can you picture it? How undesirable! It would be a world devoid of relation, and therefore devoid of any of the joys derived from such. In this imagined world, love would cease to exist. There would be no true friendship, no true sexual intimacy, no children, and you and I, dear, would not exist together in the way that we do now. You humans were molded to exist alongside each other, and each of you, though your uniqueness plays a distinctive note, contribute to a melody that is only experienced best if experienced in its fullness. Therefore, it must be good—very good, in fact—that you all do not belong to yourselves.

And you are debating whether to shoo the woodpecker.

My tree shouldn’t have to suffer through this terrible woodpecker’s violence. I think I should let this woodpecker go and find some other place where he and I won’t compete for my tree. In fact, it would be better for both of us to have our own trees. Mmm. It is interesting, I’ve decided, the way that you go about manipulating

your desires into imagined altruistic realities. It has always been this way since the beginning of you. I believe that your inmost self must sense your own greed and cannot bear to willfully ignore it. It is quite a clever solution. Instead of facing this hard truth, you cover it with a beautiful lie. In fact, you can paint these imagined realities opaquely in the world in which you exist. To the point that you, yourself, are unable to discern what is real or invented.

I, however, do not reside in the world that you live in.

The world in which I live overlaps the world in which you live. This is how I am able to be with you in the way that I am. In my world, your imagined realities do not seem opaque at all; they are, in fact, sheer. The world I live in is a world where everything exists in its truest nature. The One who creates makes it so. It is here that the form in which I naturally exist is the most victorious, that the voice I have been given rings out with the most clarity. I am with you of course, but not fully. My image and resonance are hidden from your world, which obscures the most true things.

You might be surprised, dear, if you were to learn that you also exist with me, but not fully. In the moments that you exist in your true nature, you reach, briefly, into the world where everything is its most true.

Unlike you suppose, you exist truly when you exist in the presence of another whose distinctive note plays in consonance with yours. Existing most truly is the greatest delight. I cannot speak clearly of it except to say that it is relationship, as the One who creates is relationship, and it is joy, as the One who creates is joy, and it is life, as the One who creates is life. I suppose that might still be unclear. You will see when you are in the world where everything is most true that truth is inextricable from the One who creates, and so true existence reflects the image of the One who creates.

From my beginning I have existed here. When it is time, you will exist here with me too. When we are here together, I will be able to call you darling audibly, and you will know what you might not always have known, that you are loved.

do not own it does not mean that we cannot delight in it. You delight in the oak, the ferns, the flowers, the field, the horses, and the island. I see that you do. You have misnamed your delight as possession, but it is still true that you delight.

“HEY! YEAH, YOU. GO ON, GET.” Ah, the decision is made then. The woodpecker flies off. Possession and ownership lay claim to your true delight. I can see in your hollowed eyes that this decision was more permissive than active. The creaks from the paint-chipped porch boards slow as you sit with your decision. Your shoulders sag as you look out on the tree and the view that you call yours. I know. Your hands, gifted as they are, are weary. Your skin is weathered.

Do not fear, darling. Soon it will be good for you to also be where I am. It is not for me to know the times or the seasons, but I feel it will be soon. Until then, I will be here.

Photography from Catherine Judd.

In the meantime, we will be like this, drinking in a world that is for us and is not ours. But just because we

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Group GRACE WHITAKER 5:00. Tuesday Afternoon.

Fluorescent lights flicker in the basement of a church that only grandmothers attend, one that hosts knit-a-thons and AA meetings Pink flyers begin to peel off the walls, resistant Others, crumpled and sweaty, are clutched in the hands of the Newcomers Still others are branded on the chests of the Regulars Welcome to Group, He says This is where we air our grievances.

5:03.

He nods encouragingly to a girl a few seats to my left, and she begins to speak She is new, and she is young I get the feeling she won’t be here more than a few weeks before she is ready to stop coming I am correct I usually am She tells her story, imploringly at first, begging us with her eyes to acknowledge that she has been jilted That she has not gotten what she deserves But soon her speech becomes slow, thoughtful Her focus turns inward, and she stops speaking altogether As if she has just realized that what she had to say means nothing at all This happens occasionally with the younger ones It is the older grievances that are harder to shake She looks up, and He holds her gaze.

He doesn’t even need to speak, not to this one, because her eyes brighten and her shoulders loosen and she sheds something invisible She glances around, noticing us for the first time, and sits back in her seat Her pink flier flutters to the ground She smiles, just a bit, and He smiles back at her warmly I know she will not be back.

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5:24.

He turns to me, and it is my turn to speak I have been here longer than anyone, and the other Regulars know my story by heart He is the only one who still listens to it I tell it the same way I always do I talk first of my father, who loved too freely I talk of my brother, who squandered what was ours I talk of the pigs, and the scraps that changed his mind I talk of his return, when my father ran to him and kissed the mud off his face and put rings on his thieving hands and took what was mine to give to him as if he forgot what was lost I talk of myself, and how I remembered How I still remember.

5:38.

By the time I am finished, I am incensed He speaks to me gently but I do not hear it I am silent for the rest of Group This is how it always goes The next to speak is another Regular, but I do not listen Once again, only He does Instead, I think about Group I think about my first meeting, when I clutched a pink flier in hopeful grip I think about Martha, Martha, who joined not long after me I think about the way He spoke to her of something better I think about the day she finally left in search of it I think about the weeks following, when more and more Regulars left I think about the day I stopped recognizing faces I think about the way He spoke to me every week without fail, as if every week He fully believed that this time I’d be ready to leave I think about how I never am And then I think again about my brother.

6:00. Evening.

Suddenly, Group is over We file out, one by one Some of them have changed, some of us have not I am the last one out the door I glance back, as I always do He is still sitting in a rusty metal chair, as He always is He smiles slightly, patiently, and for some reason I am filled with grief See you next week, He says And He will.

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Reclaiming Barbie: Finding Redemption in Pink MEREDITH HICKS

S

trolling into theaters dressed in head-to-toe pink, women of all ages embraced Greta Gerwig’s Barbie.

Its astounding success led to a twenty-five percent surge in Barbie toy sales and solidified Gerwig’s status as a top director.2, 3 Remarkably, Gerwig tackled one of the most problematic representations of womanhood, Barbie, and reclaimed it, creating a story of redemption and female empowerment that resonates with our modern world. She did this all with the toy company, Mattel, sponsoring the film as, ultimately, an advertisement.4 Many Christians have been hesitant to embrace the film, uncomfortable with how Gerwig seemingly conforms to the typical feminist trope of elevating women at the expense of men and accusing her of neglecting key aspects of womanhood.5, 6 Nevertheless, despite not being a Christian herself, Gerwig masterfully weaves her Catholic roots within the fabric of the feminist narrative, reframing Barbie’s history through the biblical mythos. Gerwig even admitted to Vogue that she created a Barbie version of the Apostles Creed for the movie, revealing its intentional 18 | bearings

religious elements.7 By using religion, she crafted a palatable, pink, sparkling, secular display of what it means to be a woman that Christians can and should embrace.

In the biblical creation story, God created man, and from man, He created woman: “Then the Lord God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner’. . . And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man.” 8 Gerwig inverts the biblical creation story with her retelling of the creation of Barbie. In BarbieLand, Mattel created Barbie first.

They then created Ken for Barbie, just as God created woman for man.9 The movie’s narrative draws on the actual historical events of Ken’s creation coming a full two years after Barbie’s.10 From this point, Gerwig uses Barbie’s history to reconstruct Earth’s creation under the precedent that Barbie, representing Eve from the biblical story, came first. This reconstruction creates a sort of feminist utopia where women dominate and men serve

Kelly Allen, “Everything We Know About the Barbie Sets and Filming Locations.” 1

as mere accessories. As the narrator Hellen Mirren states, “Barbie has a great day every day, but Ken only has a great day if Barbie looks at him.”11 Men, and particularly Ryan Gosling’s portrayal of Ken, become the primary source of humor in the film. After all, they were only created for Barbie, so this is Barbie’s world; Ken’s just living in it.

Some Christians, then, critique the film as adding fuel to the fire of the gender wars where men are burning in the ashes. They cite the way society has shifted since the beginnings of the feminist movements: in 1972, there was a thirteen-point gender gap in bachelor degrees favoring men. Today, the gap has shifted to a fifteenpoint lead for women, and the top decile of GPAs is now predominantly female. These inequalities in education stretch into other areas of life, and partially contribute to the strikingly high rates of suicide among men, as men are four times more likely to commit suicide than women.12 These data highlight an ongoing shift in the gender landscape. Christians are some of the first to point

out that sometimes, feminist efforts and narratives come at the detriment of men, and this detriment is not inconsequential. For this reason, Christians justly identify these narratives as an overcorrection.13, 14 Consequently, many Christians are quick to recognize the idyllic, pink utopia Gerwig presents at the film’s outset as not-so-idyllic and potentially dangerous.15, 16 However, some Christians have fixated on this critique and, as a result, have missed Gerwig’s broader message.

There are cracks in the pink, sparkling facade of BarbieLand, and Gerwig uses these cracks to foreshadow the ending revelation that BarbieLand is not so perfect after all. Gerwig weaves the biblical narrative into the movie by shaping BarbieLand to reflect the Garden of Eden.17 However, this Garden of Eden is not so perfect.

After all, a toy company created BarbieLand, and God created the Garden of Eden. The inferiority and disposable nature of Ken is not the only flaw of BarbieLand. For a start, the Barbies exile a “Weird Barbie” and treat her as issue seven issue six | 19

biblical story to highlight these faults. If BarbieLand is supposed to reflect Eden, a sinless, perfect world, the faults in it become even more apparent.

Barbie ultimately makes the decision to leave BarbieLand.

Again, Gerwig is careful to intertwine Barbie’s decisions with Eve’s. The choice to leave or stay in BarbieLand is framed through the choice between a pink high heel, representative of BarbieLand, and a Birkenstock, representative of the Real World.22 Just as Eve takes a bite of the apple, Barbie chooses the Birkenstock. Their choices here are very different though because Barbie exists in a fallen world, whereas Eve’s choice results in our fallen world. Although the movie initially displays Barbie’s choice to leave as a result of her “malfunctioning,” it later becomes clear that there is something deeper at work. Gerwig foreshadows this deeper layer through the use of Billie Eilish’s song, “What I Was Made For,” which echoes in the background throughout the movie.23 Barbie realizes she must leave because she has thoughts of death, her shower turns cold, her toast is burnt, and then (gasp!) her feet become flat! To salvage what she believes was a once perfect utopia, Barbie must enter the Real World and repair the relationship with the girl playing with her.24 Mirroring the biblical story, when Barbie and

“Barbie ad, 1959,”

So although BarbieLand is, on the surface, a feminist utopia, it actually upholds unrealistic and demanding beauty standards for women to the extreme . . .

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less-than-human (or rather, less-than-Barbie). There’s also a pregnant Barbie named Midge, whom the narrator dismisses as “just too weird” to focus on.19 Further, Barbies always stand on tiptoes and adhere to extreme and unrealistic beauty standards. These are Gerwig’s jabs at Mattel: the toy company did not release a flat-footed Barbie until the year 2015, and it is physically impossible for women to embody the company’s doll in reality;20 after Mattel actually released pregnant Barbie, Midge, in 2002, they quickly pulled her from shelves.21 So although BarbieLand is, on the surface, a feminist utopia, it actually upholds unrealistic and demanding beauty standards for women to the extreme, so that there is not even a place for pregnant women in this world. Gerwig distorts the

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Ken enter the real world, they become self-aware, just as after Eve eats the apple, her and Adam become selfconscious of their own nakedness.25 Barbie explains, “I feel kind of ill at ease—like—I don’t know the word for it—but I’m conscious, but it’s myself that I’m conscious of,” while Ken counters, “I’m not getting any of that. I feel what could only be described as admired, but not ogled, and there’s no undertone of violence.” For Barbie, there is “very much . . . an undertone of violence.”26 Gerwig satirizes the real world as a contrast to BarbieLand.

Ken observes, “Everything’s like reversed here,” juxtaposing BarbieLand, where Barbie came first, with Earth, where Eve came second. He discovers this reversal to be the

United States’ version of the patriarchy, and he takes this concept back to BarbieLand, inverting the imaginary land to create “Kendom” where “everything exists to expand and elevate the presence of men” and women only have a role as “long-term, distance, low-commitment, casual girlfriends.”27 One could interpret this as a critique of God’s actual creation of the world, especially because Gerwig is not Christian. However, as Christians, we can see through this superficial critique. It is not God’s ordering of humanity that is at fault. Rather, it is our sinful creation of the patriarchy where men have dominated and women have served as mere accessories. Even Christians who embrace complementarianism, a patriarchal view of gender where men serve as the head of the household, should be able to recognize the ways in which sin has distorted and corrupted such a design.28 In seeking to repair the damages of sin, both Christians who hold patriarchal views and those who do not, should embrace feminism in addition to working against its overcorrections.

Feminism is the fight against the sinful, distorted, and violent elements of the Earthly patriarchy, and feminism is continually necessary because, as Christians, we know the world cannot be fully redeemed until Christ comes again.

It should not take long for audiences to realize that neither of these worlds, Kendom or BarbieLand, is truly good, which Gerwig makes clear both through her parallels to the biblical mythos and through her use of the theory of false utopias that she takes from Herbert Marcuse. Herbert Marcuse expanded Marx’s theory of the continuum of progress by introducing the theory of false utopias. Given Gerwig’s historic use of Marxist theory in her films, it is reasonable to assume that she had some element of a Marxist offshoot theory of utopia in mind.29, 30 Herbert Marcuse invokes the idea that not only is utopia impossible, but it is also not actually “Heavenly.” In our effort toward a heaven that is not possible in this world, in a sense, we create a

hell.31 Of course, Marcuse was not referencing God’s redemption of this world, and Marx’s identification of the class struggle misses the deeper root of the problem of sin.

However, as Christians, we can identify the truth within their theories. Gerwig creates two hellish versions of utopia. In the first, she inverts the biblical story to reveal the danger that can occur when feminism overcorrects.

In the second, she satirizes the way our sin on Earth led to a corrupted patriarchy. Therefore, although the film opens on a pink utopia for women, the film says exactly what Christians are saying: men are not superior to women, but women are not superior to men either.

When we lift one sex up and forsake the other, we create hell on Earth.

At the end of the movie, Gerwig presents an alternative way forward that more closely aligns with God’s vision for the world.

When the Barbies reclaim BarbieLand from the Kens’ patriarchy, they do not restore the order from before. They offer “Weird Barbie,” who had previously been an outcast unfit for BarbieLand, a place in the presidential cabinet and Midge, the pregnant Barbie, also has a place in this new BarbieLand.

They offer one of the Kens a lower circuit court judge position, as the narrator explains, “Well, the Kens have to start somewhere, and maybe one day, the Kens will have as much power and influence in BarbieLand as women do in the Real World.”32 The reclamation of BarbieLand does not display a fully redeemed world that is only possible with Christ. Rather, it mirrors the ongoing redemption happening here on Earth that, one day, Christ will make complete. Most notably, Gosling’s Ken realizes his own worth in this redemptive process when he previously thought, “I only exist in the warmth of [Barbie’s] gaze.” Barbie explains to him, “You have to figure out who you are without me . . . You’re not your girlfriend, you’re not your house, you’re not your mink . . . you’re not even beach. Maybe all the things you thought made you, you aren’t really you. Maybe it’s Barbie and it’s Ken.”33 BarbieLand is an inverted version of this

issue seven | 21

flawed and sinful world, and just like this world, it is on the path toward betterment but remains waiting for complete redemption. Just as Barbie spends the movie finding herself, Ken must find himself. This movie is just as much for men as it is for women, urging culture toward a new way of being together where we do not forsake one sex for the other.

Gerwig ends the movie just as she began it, calling back to the biblical mythos of creation. Near the end of the movie, Barbie meets her maker, Ruth Handler, the actual creator of Barbie dolls. It is in this moment that Gerwig brings Billie Eilish’s “What Was I Made For” to the foreground.34 In addition, she expertly frames a shot between the characters of Ruth and Barbie reminiscent of Michaelangelo’s painting, Creation of Adam, when Barbie chooses to become human in an effort to live a more true and good life.35 Barbie finds herself through her creator, and is then given a new life. This mirrors a baptism into the body of Christ. Being a Christian is not merely a set of morals or rules to follow; it is not merely a belief that this world was meant to be better and that it will one day be made better by Christ Himself. A Christian is reborn into a new life with Christ. Similarly, the movie emphasizes the importance of the relationship between creation and one’s creator. Barbie, however, is a secular movie made by a non-believer. Therefore, Barbie’s “baptism” does not actually lead toward life with Christ. However, Barbie’s new life leads “Barbie The Movie 13” Doll - Margot Robbie,” Product for sale, Image edited by Carey Thomas. 36

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to a beautiful depiction of what womanhood looks like here on Earth that Christians should celebrate.

In Barbie’s first moment of life in the Real World, she steps into the frame with her flat feet and pink Birkenstocks, walking into a building to see a receptionist.37 Given her beige blazer and wishes of good luck from her friends, a viewer might anticipate Barbie walking into a job interview since a single woman conquering the career field is often the feminist trope movies display. Yet, there are many different pictures of strong women, and both secular society and Christians can tend to force women to try to fit one category or the other; although the career-blazing woman is a necessary and beautiful picture of a strong woman, so is the woman raising children and fostering a home for her family. Contrary to viewer expectations, Barbie declares, “I’m here to see my gynecologist.”38 That is how the movie ends, with a representation of womanhood that does not force women into a binary. Gerwig chose an aspect of womanhood that all women can relate to, one society has shied away from by discontinuing pregnant Barbie dolls and fostering an environment where girls in schools bury their tampons in their backpacks. This is what Gerwig says of womanhood: it is not a binary. Rather, it is simply the shared experience of being a woman that is in and of itself extraordinary. She places that experience at the forefront for society, Christians and non-Christians alike, to confront.

Gerwig took one of the most problematic representations of womanhood and reclaimed it, writing a more full, true, and inclusive story of what it means to be a woman. This story has been easier for the secular world to swallow,39 but Christians should be embracing the movie as well, recognizing the way Christ’s redemption of the world is visible in it. Barbie points us toward the equal, just, and biblical picture of the beauty of both sexes. In addition, it centers its characters on finding purpose through their creator with the finale highlighting the toy’s creator and the song “What Was I Made For” echoing throughout.

Christians’ task is to be counter-cultural, but in this instance, culture got it right in many ways. We must always hold two truths in tension: the world is broken, and Jesus is redeeming the world. By pointing society toward its creator and elevating women and men to the position of rightful equality, Barbie is a pink, sparkling, secular display of that redemption at work.

Sampurna Banerjee, “Margot Robbie Reveals Her Favorite Barbie Scene’s Christian Symbolism.” 40 Kelly Allen, “Everything We Know About the Barbie Sets and Filming Locations,” Hearst Magazine Media, Jul. 24, 2023, https://www.housebeautiful.com/lifestyle/entertainment/ a44345243/barbie-movie-sets-design-filming-locations/.

2 Parija Kavilanz, “Barbie toy sales shoot up 25% after film’s release,” CNN, Sept. 13, 2023, https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/13/business/barbie-toy-sales-circana/index.html.

3 “Rotten Tomatoes,” Fandango, Accessed Aug. 8, 2023, https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/barbie.

4 Natalie Kitroeff (Host), “Can Barbie Be Rebranded as a Feminist Icon?” The Daily (podcast), July 21, 2023, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/21/podcasts/the-daily/barbiefilm.html?.

5 Daniel Blackaby, “Barbie (Christian Movie Review),” The Collision, July 21, 2023, https://thecollision.org/barbie-christian-movie-review/.

6 Katelyn Walls Shelton, “Barbie’s sparkling pink Gnosticism,” WORLD Opinions, July 26, 2023, https://wng.org/opinions/barbies-sparkling-pink-gnosticism-1690370516.

7 Abby Aguirre, “Barbiemania! Margot Robbie Opens Up About the Movie Everyone’s Waiting For,” Vogue, May 24, 2023, https://www.vogue.com/article/margot-robbie-barbiesummer-cover-2023-interview.

8 Genesis 2:18-28 (NIV ).

9 Greta Gerwig, Barbie (movie), (Mattel, Warner Bros. Pictures, LuckyChap Films: Jul. 21, 2023).

10 Kitroeff, “Can Barbie Be Rebranded as a Feminist Icon?”

11 Gerwig, Barbie.

12 Ezra Klein (Host), Richard Reeves (Guest), “The Men—And Boys—Are Not Alright,” The Ezra Klein Show (podcast), Mar. 10, 2023, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/10/opinion/ezraklein-podcast-richard-reeves.html?showTranscript=1.

13 Kristen Clark, “Why Feminism and Christianity Can’t Mix,” GirlDefined Mar. 20, 2015, https://girldefined.com/feminism-christianity-cant-mix.

14 A.J. Higgens, “A Christian Worldview: Feminism and the Feminist Movement,” Truth & Tidings, Accessed Nov. 11, 2023, https://truthandtidings.com/2016/04/christian-worldviewfeminism-and-the-feminist-movement/.

15 Blackaby, “Barbie (Christian Movie Review).”

16 Shelton, “Barbie’s sparkling pink Gnosticism.”

17 Alissa Wilkinson, “In the beginning, there was Barbie,” Vox, Jul. 20, 2023, https://www.vox.com/culture/23800753/barbie-review-bible-eden.

18 “Barbie ad, 1959,” The Press Democrat Newspaper, Newspaper.con, Ancestry, 2024, https:// www.newspapers.com/article/the-press-democrat-barbie-ad-1959/15460906/.

19 Gerwig, Barbie.

20 Jeff Smith, “Why It’s Physically Impossible to Look Like Barbie,” GOOD, May 2, 2015, https://www.good.is/infographics/infographic-why-it-s-physically-impossible-to-look-likebarbie 21 Korin Miller, “Everything To Know About Midge: The Controversial Pregnant Barbie And Her Husband Allan,” Women’s Health Magazine, Sept. 11, 2023, https://www. womenshealthmag.com/life/a44611311/pregnant-barbie-midge/.

22 Gerwig, Barbie.

23 Ibid.

24 Ibid.

1

Wilkinson, “In the beginning, there was Barbie.”

Gerwig, Barbie.

Ibid.

28 Jeremy Bouma, “Is the Bible ‘Patriarchal?’ Yes and No - An Excerpt from Gender Roles and the People of God,” Zondervan Academic, Aug, 29, 2017, https://zondervanacademic.com/ blog/is-the-bible-patriarchal-yes-and-no-an-excerpt-from-gender-roles-and-the-people-ofgod.

29 Stephen D’Arcy, “‘World Turned Upside Down’: Gerwig’s ‘Barbie,’ Anti-systemic Politics, and the Marxist Tradition,” The Public Autonomy Project, July 24, 2023, https:// publicautonomy.org/2023/07/24/gerwigs-barbie-and-the-marxist-tradition/.

30 Daniel Tutt, “Something Bigger: Lady Bird and the Divinity of the Name” (blog), WordPress, Feb. 10, 2018, https://danieltutt.com/2018/02/10/something-bigger-lady-bird-andthe-divinity-of-the-name/.

31 Herbert Marcuse, The End of Utopia, (lectures in Berlin: July 1967), https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/marcuse/works/1967/end-utopia.htm.

32 Gerwig, Barbie.

33 Ibid.

34 Ibid.

35 Abigail Weil, “Is the ‘Barbie’ Movie the Greatest Biblical Retelling Ever Made?” heyalma, July 27, 2023, https://www.heyalma.com/is-the-barbie-movie-the-greatest-biblicalretelling-ever-made/.

36 “Barbie The Movie 13” Doll - Margot Robbie,” Product for sale, Image edited by Carey Thomas, Fingerhut, 2024, https://www.fingerhut.com/product/NR7XO.uts.

37 Gerwig, Barbie.

38 Ibid.

39 “Rotten Tomatoes.”

40 Sampurna Banerjee, “Margot Robbie Reveals Her Favorite Barbie Scene’s Christian Symbolism — ‘Creation of Adam’ Easter Egg Everyone Missed,” FandomWire, 2024, https:// fandomwire.com/margot-robbie-reveals-her-favorite-barbie-scenes-christian-symbolismcreation-of-adam-easter-egg-everyone-missed/.

25 26 27

Meredith Hicks is a fourth year studying Political & Social Thought and Economics. She loves to read and write and has seen Barbie five times.

She is adamant that it gets better every time you watch it.

issue seven | 23

Stamen Scars LYDIA KIM climb up that georgia magnolia tree with all three, shouting “wait for me” yes, childlike curiosity never at a cease each foot steady in step as we sought after the specks of blue and green each hand unsteady in reach as we grew more every season hesitation in the near changes but i didn’t see my brother, branch to branch had been broken and bruised no longer the boy that i knew awaited and precipitated a hand of healing that seemed to not be in sight as he began to lose his might so i wept like the willow waited on the ground so low till i seeped into the broken soil sifting sediment of turmoil for he didn’t see me tugged onto a heartstring of hope interrupted by whispers of doubt: does the maker of the tree intend to abandon this sapling? i linger still in these questionings yet i will wait once more for him by that georgia magnolia tree.

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issue seven | 25

Rite

TIMOTHY GRAFF “All men climb the Mountain.”

T

he words fell on Yanichko’s ears with feverish intensity, stirring up memories just as the whirling, fanning arms of the Elders stirred up the smoke that rose before the Mountain’s peak. For as long as he could remember, the young men of the village climbed the Mountain in the spring. What they saw upon its slopes, he did not know; all he knew was that the Mountain was the center of a man’s world. The men would never say as much, but Yanichko could tell by the glances they shot towards the peak when they thought no one was looking. His father often tarried to gaze upon it at the end of the day’s labor, even though his wife and children eagerly awaited him at home.

Yanichko could remember his mother pacing back and forth in the evenings, wringing her hands as she called out to his father. That the Mountain contained some beautiful mystery, some element essential to properly becoming a man, Yanichko never doubted.

“All men climb the Mountain.”

The Elders’ voices pulled Yanichko from his reverie.

The Elders stood in a great throng before the dim and dying embers of a once great fire. With outstretched arms, they addressed the crowd of young men that stood before them: “All men climb the Mountain.”

“So it has always been, and so it shall ever be. For those who fear never returning, we offer this wisdom: follow no light but your own, and come back the way you came. Let him who seeks manhood seek it there. For this is the test, to climb and return to climb again.”

All around him the young men stepped forward into

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the throng of Elders, received their torches, and started into the all-consuming darkness of the Mountain’s trail. As he stepped forward to take his sputtering torch, Yanichko looked into the men’s eyes. In the faces of friends, mentors, uncles, and even in the face of his father, Yanichko saw clearly for the first time the milky orbs that stared back at him; they were as cloudy as the eyes of stillborn lambs.

“All men climb the Mountain.”

Yanichko ran for a long time without stopping; the drumming of his feet against the earth and the pounding of his heart drowned out the other young men running beside him. He leaped over the stones and decaying logs that littered the path and sped ever deeper into the somber darkness of the Mountain’s shaded slopes.

When he stopped running, the only light that disturbed the night was his own quivering torch.

Sucking in great gasps of cool air, Yanichko trod onward.

In the sheen of the moonlight, Yanichko passed the scorched remnants of wooden walls and roofs which seemed to jut out of their mossy stone foundations like crooked teeth from diseased gums. The torch began to flicker in the wind.

Its light played across the cavernous interiors of old houses that refused to relinquish their secrets to him.

He stood for a while, his heart captured by the curious nature of this place. In the otherwise perfect stillness of the night, a voice drifted, raised in a lilting melody.

Yanichko looked around, but neither the forested slopes nor the tired bones of the houses offered any answers.

He tried in vain to continue on his way, but the voice and its song tugged at him incessantly. It drew him from the path and deeper into the forest. After a while, the trees thinned and opened into a large clearing beneath the starry summer sky. The voice emanated from what seemed to be a great mound of brightly colored fabric.

The garish colors and motley collection of patches reminded Yanichko of the sort of tents that traveling showmen and peddlers would set up when they stopped in the village during festival days. As Yanichko approached the spire of cloth, it opened to reveal a surprising image. Astride a great scarlet palfrey was a woman of inestimable beauty, clad in the most expensive clothing and jewelry he had ever seen. She was arrayed in purple and scarlet and a great number of brooches, bracelets, and rings of the finest gold and silver. In her right hand was a cup brimming with bloodred wine, and on her brow written in fire was a mystery: Take me up. Pay my price.

She grinned and beckoned to him with a ringed hand, giggling with syrupsweet laughter. As he approached, Yanichko could see something even more tantalizing than her beauty: She promised to love him, to fill his days and his nights with nothing but abject adoration. She offered him the cup in her right hand, and with a sultry voice She whispered, “Take me up, pay my price.”

Yanichko drank deeply, allowing the wine to feed his head and heart with visions of the Great Woman. His eyes gorged themselves on her beauty, but it failed to satisfy him. He sensed that there must be some deeper beauty She was hiding from him, some greater sacrifice that She had yet to make for him. The Woman seemed to know his complaint and cast aside her great garment.

In the whirling of the fabric and the pealing of her raucous laughter, Yanichko lost sight of the Woman.

As the cloak fluttered to the ground, Yanichko’s heart pounded in his ears and his eyes longed for her unveiled majesty.

In the same place where the ravishing Woman appeared, there now stood a monster more horrible than he could imagine. Yanichko couldn’t comprehend what stood before him. Its throat was an open tomb, and its body overflowed with fat—the kind he had seen the village butchers peeling away from the kidneys of sheep and goats. From one throat sprung many heads with ten horns encircling each brow, and its many arms were like a net.

The hideous creature crept towards him, dragging its flabby body across the ground with its many arms, but Yanichko was paralyzed with fear. The creature’s arm— slick like the head of a foal as it passes from its mother— worked its way around his body and lifted him high into the air. Its many jaws creaked and popped as it spoke, still with the sonorous voice of the Woman.

“Why are you running, little one? Let me give you eyes to see my true beauty, and all will be well once more.”

Yanichko found that he could not speak and that he was powerless to refuse the creature’s offer. His heart still yearned to gaze upon the Woman and her beauty, so he did not resist as the creature’s hands groped across his face and its lanky fingers pried open his eyelids.

The Beast’s many mouths blew a saccharine breath that settled over Yanichko’ eyes; tears streamed down his face unceasingly, and his vision narrowed until the only image before him was that of The Beast. He tried in vain to shut his eyes, but the Beast held them open.

Once more it breathed over him, and Yanichko’s eyes began to burn. His already narrowed vision grew hazy,

issue seven | 27

as if he were covered with the same blue-gray glassiness that he had seen so many times before in the eyes of dead lambs. Slowly, Yanichko could see the silhouette of the Beast contort, and the Great Woman upon the palfrey once more stood before him. Yanichko rose to embrace Her but found that he could not. She rode away, stopping for a moment at the crest of a ridge to pierce Yanichko with a bewitching glance, then She was gone.

In the coming days, Yanichko intended to return home, but the Woman’s dulcet tones still called out to him. Her song lilted through the cool Mountain air, drawing him away from his homeward path. The song would swell and Yanichko would chase after it, but he could only catch the merest glimpse of Her before She disappeared. The more he sought Her, the more the color of the world was lost to him and the more it seemed that She, and She alone, could restore its vibrancy. So, he sought Her unceasingly, until the day dawned that he could no longer see well enough to find the path home. Yanichko crawled his way across the Mountain slopes—a worm in all but name—bitterly cursing the day he ever decided to climb the Mountain. He called out in vain for someone to point him homeward, but he received no response and fell into the conviction that he, and he alone, had the misfortune of falling victim to the Monster. His world shrunk to a collection of mere shadows and he lost even the will to cry out.

As he sprawled upon the earth in defeat, Yanichko caught the barest glimmer of light in the distance—the kind of shimmering half-light of the sun’s rays twisting their way through water. Yanichko picked himself up and turned towards the light and found that it was growing brighter and brighter. Fear seized him; could this be the light that Elders had warned him not to follow? He rose to his feet and lurched away from the radiance, but it continued to grow more lustrous until the very presence of it seared Yanichko’s cloudy eyes. He fell to the earth and tried to turn and shield his eyes, but the light surrounded him. From the cloud

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of brilliance emerged a new form: an Arm holding aloft a flickering Torch. Yanichko squinted and crawled forward, trying in vain to see the person to whom the arm was attached. With great amazement, he found that the arm had no owner, and hung in the air by its own power. The Arm made no noise but brandished its Torch and motioned for Yanichko to follow it.

“How can I follow you when my eyes are covered in darkness?” Yanichko cried.

There was no response, but the Arm and the Torch drew near to Yanichko. The now blazing flame rested right before his face, and the Arm inched it forward to Yanichko’s eyes.

“If you take my eyes, how will I see at all?”

In that moment, a great gust of wind rushed down the Mountain, stirring up the Torch into a brilliant conflagration. A deep voice, more majestic than even the Mountain and deeper than any well descended upon the wings of the wind.

“I will give you eyes to seek me.”

The Man placed the blazing torch onto Yanichko’s face, and the ever-growing flame engulfed him. The brilliant

tongues of flame consumed his decaying eyes; he could see nothing. Horrible fear seized Yanichko’s heart with icy fingers. Had this kind voice and bright light been nothing more than a trick, or some cruel-hearted trap that the Beast had laid for him? In the darkness, Yanichko could feel tender hands gently stroking the empty socket where his right eye had been.

caught the merest glimpse of a Glory whose image defied description, burning in the distance with an intensity fiercer than even sun itself. To travel towards It would be to leave behind everything Yanichko had ever owned. He fell to his knees and cried out.

“Lift thy head, child, and seek my face.”

At once the shadow of the Mountain was peeled back, and Yanichko beheld a great host of men who journeyed ever onwards in steadfast anticipation of reaching the unutterable magnificence of the Glory on the horizon.

Some ran with great endurance over the hills and crags of the land below, while others stumbled along in groups, clinging to one another for the strength to carry on. Still others crawled, on hand and foot, towards the horizon. Regardless of whether they ran, or stumbled, or crawled, Yanichko saw in their faces one universal trait: all of them had but one eye.

The empty socket was filled with a single, shining eye and Yanichko saw the Mountain, which for so long had been covered in the inky darkness of foul midnight, now bathed in the resplendence of dawn. The once dark and misty trails were pierced with the deep purples and flaming reds of daybreak.

As Yanichko looked around, he realized he stood upon the very peak of the Mountain. Looking out over the verdant elegance of the great sea of trees stretching out to cover the height and breadth of the landscape beyond the Mountain and his provincial world, Yanichko

“How will I find the way if there is no one to guide me?

Exile & Return:

The Story of God’s Mercy

WILLIAM KUEBLER

PHOTOGRAPHY FROM THOMAS LAUGHRIDGE

I

t is the seventh century BC, and Josiah is the King of Judah. For the faithful Judean, this monarch is a blessed relief from the idolatrous times of the past sixty years under Amon and Manasseh.

King Manasseh, who reigned from 697–643 BC, had constructed altars to Baal, made idols, sacrificed his son, and consulted necromancers and fortune-tellers, while King Amon abandoned the Lord, the God of his fathers.1 However, as much as Josiah has enacted reform efforts, not everything has returned to how it should be. Many have fallen away from orthodoxy to follow Baal or worship the stars. Israel has turned away from God, the same God who had delivered them out

30 | bearings

of Egypt and into the Promised Land, and has fallen into the evil worship practices, serving false gods. This fall into sin and idolatry rightly deserves punishment.

At the same time, a man named Zephaniah moves through Judah with a message from God. God speaks through the prophet Zephaniah to declare that He “will stretch out [his] hand against Judah and against all the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and [He] will cut off from this place the remnant of Baal and the name of the idolatrous priests along with the priests.”2 This prophecy foretells the future exile of Judah at the hands of Babylon. In 586 BC, about fifty years later,

Babylon will conquer Judah, destroy the Temple, and exile many Israelites into the rest of the Babylonian kingdom. The invasion and exile are a dark time for the Judeans that Zephaniah warns of in the seventh century BC, saying, “A day of wrath is that day, a day of distress and anguish, a day of ruin and devastation, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness.”3 However, God does not give Zephaniah a message exclusively about judgment; He also includes an element of hope for the people of Judah. Chapter 3 of Zephaniah focuses on the promise of restoration and renewal for Israel. God’s promise is that “From beyond the rivers of Cush my worshipers, the daughter of my dispersed ones, shall bring my offering.”4 God promises a restoration of Israel to its homeland from exile, with the faithful brought back from the far reaches of the world, restoring their honor and prestige with the rebuilding of the Temple. He will return to dwell with his people, taking away their judgments, and quieting them with His love.

God fulfilled this prophecy in 539 BC after Cyrus the Great decreed the Jewish people could return to their homeland.5 This return was one of joy, as they restored their sacred worship practices to worship the God that freed them from exile. Those who only had vague memories of Temple worship from their youth finally experienced it fully. After seventy years of trial, God delivered them back to their homeland.

The Israelites were home and could take comfort in being back on familiar ground and worshiping as they knew was right.

Judah failed to do so, God kept his promise that He would punish evil.

However, God did not abandon Israel and Judah to punishment forever. He graciously restored His people to their homeland and restored their proper and familiar worship practices. Furthermore, this story of Israel’s exile and subsequent restoration points beyond itself to the New Testament and our redemption by Christ. From our exile and separation from God, Christ, by His incarnation, death, and resurrection unites us to Himself. By this we are made right with God, brought into His family, and indwelt by the Holy Spirit. Zephaniah foreshadowed this in the seventh century BC saying, “The Lord has taken away the judgments against you; he has cleared away your enemies. The King of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst; you shall never again fear evil.”6 As Israel was restored to the Holy Land after exile, we are restored to our spiritual home in union with God through Christ.

We can experience the same joy that the Israelites experienced when they returned from exile. We worship the same God that frees us from the power of sin and death. We are forgiven and are at peace with God and one another, quieted and calmed by this act of God’s grace. We can look to the story of Israel’s exile and restoration as an example of God’s faithfulness to His people, and trust that He will likewise finish the good work He began in us.

2 Kings 21:21 (ESV ).

Zephaniah 1:4 (ESV ).

Zephaniah 1:15 (ESV ).

4 Zephaniah 3:10 (ESV ).

5 Ezra (ESV ).

6 Zephaniah 3:15 (ESV ).

1 2 3

Zephaniah’s prophetic message to the people of Judah in the seventh century BC is an exemplary demonstration of God’s justice, mercy, and faithfulness. God was just and right to put an end to the idolatry, child sacrifice, and the other evils the kings promulgated in Israel and Judah. The idolatries and oppressions practiced by Israel and Judah were affronts to God and to many innocent individuals in each kingdom.

The afflicted and innocent welcomed God’s justice as relief from their torment, and those who propagated the evil received due penalty for their actions. God was merciful to restrain judgment and give Israel and Judah opportunities to repent, but when Israel and

William Kuebler is a third year Government major with a concentration in Political Theory. He is a member of both Reformed University Fellowship and Orthodox Christian Fellowship. He is an avid singer in both Jubilate and the Reformed University Fellowship worship team.

issue seven | 31

I.

Fatherland CLAIRE HUCHTHAUSEN

A question

Where are you from?

II.

Some answers

The red-doored house on the corner, three towns with buried bones whose blood I bear, five places named home, three continents, the dust.

III.

An ideal

Philosopher Simone Weil wrote, rootedness is a need of the human soul. Rootedness is a belonging that bonds past to present. She speaks of rootedness in nations, cultures, families, houses. She would approve of the man in a novel I read who chose to return to live and die in a certain tiny town just because it was where he was born, where his parents were born, and their parents before that. She assumes our souls flourish in the soil they came from.

It is my instinct to believe this. There is romance in the simple story of belonging to the land that fathered my father’s father. I wish someone would ask, Where are you from? and I could give a single answer.

IV.

A reality

You have deep roots here, a woman insists, in the town of gravestones. I consider the ground, try to care more, and don’t. If these are roots, I have many, strung out over too much earth.

V.

A questioning

Why do I want to tell a simple story?

VI.

Exiles, many

Torah tells of a people promised the land of Abraham’s tents. They even in exile so deeply belonged to a place

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that they seemed always to know where they were exiled from. They bore back Joseph’s bones. But where did they name home? strung out over too much earth VII.

A resolution

Mixed—someone I meet calls me this with a smile. I am delighted. I do not want a simple story. A stranger cares to read the lines of my face and to not reduce what is there.

VIII.

A world

Scholars call St. Paul a cosmopolitan because he said, There is no longer Jew or Greek. To replace these, scholars imply, there are citizens of the world. Ah, but we are local creatures. Our locality may have multiplicity, but I think it is impossible to be a citizen of the entire world.

I offer a complexity: there is still Jew and Greek. The roots in the old dirt are not null because God who is not a stranger cares to carry a story he has given. And You are all one in Christ Jesus.

IX.

A hope

We are called children of Abraham, children through troth, not through root or through seed. I believe that children of Abraham, long strung over the earth, belong to a land and a promise. Yes. We belong to the land of our Father though its dust is not yet made.

After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb X.

A question, reprise

To whom shall we go?

PHOTOGRAPHY FROM THOMAS LAUGHRIDGE issue seven | 33

Peyton Stallings He washes our feet, 2023 Mixed Media: Acrylic and Hand Beading 34 | bearings

Creative Writers Katie Mead is a third year studying computer science. She also writes and edits poetry for Bearings, leads YoungLife in the Charlottesville community, and jumps at any opportunity to go swing dancing!

Sophie Burk is a fourth year studying Environmental Science and Religious Studies. She drew inspiration for her piece from Genesis 16 and Isaiah 55.

Lilly West is a fourth year studying Religious Studies and Global Security and Justice. She leads Wyldlife at local middle schools, Lakeside and Journey, facilitates book studies for RUF, interns at the Center for Christian Study, and is a Horizons Fellow with Theological Horizons.

Grace Whitaker is a third year majoring in English.

She is a writer and editor for Bearings, and in her free time, she enjoys a good book or a good nap.

Lydia Kim is a third year studying Global Commerce and Environmental Thought & Practice.

As a photographer and illustrator, she loves to tell stories through different compositions. She finds much peace amidst God’s handiwork, whether in the places or people she comes across.

Timothy Graff is a second-year nursing student and Elzinga Residential Scholar. He credits his life-long love of reading and writing to the many books his mother read to him as a child and his father’s excellent bedtime stories.

Claire Huchthausen is a third year studying Physics and Biology. She is a homebody and is deeply fond of cocoa. Virginia, land of blue mountains, is her favorite place she has lived.

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Partner With Us JOIN THE TEAM

SUBMIT YOUR WORK

To learn more, email bearingsuva@gmail.com.

To submit work, visit bearingsuva.org/submissions.

DONATE

WHO WE ARE

If you are an undergraduate student interested in writing, designing, editing, or managing social media, we would love to have you on our team. We are always looking for new members who are passionate about integrating faith and culture on Grounds.

Your donation allows us to distribute our journal to the University of Virginia as well as the greater Charlottesville area to foster dialogue on Christianity in an academic setting.

To donate, visit www.bearingsuva.org/donate.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thank you to the Center for Christian Study at the University of Virginia for their continued support.

We also extend our gratitude to the UVA Parents Program and various community contributors who made the production of this issue possible.

Lastly, we would like to thank our mentor, Fitz Green, for his guidance and encouragement.

If you are an undergraduate student at the University of Virginia, we eagerly invite you to submit your work. We accept a variety of written work and visual art.

Bearings is a member of the Augustine Collective, a coalition of student-run journals at university campuses across the nation.

www.bearingsuva.org @bearingsuva bearingsuva@gmail.com