OMW to play BOTW

If you know me very well, then you know my favorite video game ever is “The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild” (BOTW). BOTW is an open-world actionadventure game that came out in 2017, but I didn’t start playing it until the summer of 2020 when I bought myself the game and a sunshine yellow Nintendo Switch Lite to play it on. That summer, being stuck at home with nothing to do, became one of my favorites because of this game and the joy I found from playing it. (Is it strange to feel nostalgic for our quarantine era?) I put a lot of time and effort into this game, to the point where I 100% completed it — one of my proudest accomplishments, if you’re wondering.

Being snowed in this week gave me the opportunity to sit down and start replaying the main storyline of BOTW with my boyfriend. And while this was wonderful and fun and I enjoyed myself, it just wasn’t striking up the same sense of wanderlust and adventure I felt the first time I played. Rather, it made me more nostalgic for that experience and almost bitter that I would never experience it for the first time again. I know, it sounds silly, but bear with me. Surely you have a favorite book or movie or TV show you wish you could relive for the first time?

As I grow older, I’ve found more and more experiences are starting to feel like that. Even college, at this point, feels like the same events that I am reliving over and over and finding less and less joy in. I have less drive to read for fun because it feels like something I am always having to do for class. My favorite movies are starting to feel boring. I am taking new classes, but my schedule is starting to run together and feels like every other semester. I am yearning for newer, bigger, better experiences that I know cannot happen while I am here.

But that train of thought cannot keep continuing. How wonderful is it that I loved BOTW so much to devote so much effort to it, and how wonderful it is to replay it and enjoy it in a whole new way. How wonderful that I can reread the same books I love, like “Airman” by Eion Colfer or the “Hunger Games” trilogy by Suzanne Collins, over and over and find a new reason to love them every time. How wonderful that I have seen “The Lego Batman Movie” enough times that I can monologue from it. Yes, it is good that I can look forward to experiencing new things, but so much of my life and your life and our lives is repetitive. I am learning to find the good in the repetition, to relive things and find the joy in them each time, because do we not love a God who also loves repetition? In “Orthodoxy,” G.K. Chesterton writes, “Perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony … It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them.” I hope I, and any others who have found themselves becoming jaded from the same old repeated experiences, can change our perspectives to find the joy in the repetition of everyday life — and in replaying favorite video games.

EMMA JONES is editor-inchief for The Bison. She can be contacted at ejones19@harding.edu.

Why would a woman write an article celebrating manhood? Because not many women would read it if it were written by a man. In our society, the legitimacy of your opinion is directly proportional to the degree of victimhood attributed to you. Men, in general, rank lower on that scale than women. We are constantly exposed to messages conveying that women can do and say things that are touchy or unacceptable from a man. Inequalities in women’s favor are blissfully ignored. Women are praised for being strong and keeping it all together, while men are often the butt of the jokes. The pendulum of public opinion has swung. A disclaimer: I realize I am making sweeping generalizations about culture, men and women, but bear with me.

God, what is good and acceptable and perfect” (ESV). As Christians, it is our duty to reject any unscriptural message. This begins with a solid grasp of the biblical view of manhood.

First, God created both sexes in the image of God and called his creation “very good.”

Where does this culture shift leave Christians? Several New Testament letters contain warnings to churches that had absorbed the surrounding culture. It’s naive to think the church is immune to the shifting sands of societal norms. Romans 12:2 says, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of

Second, God created man as the stronger vessel (1 Peter 3:7); men’s bodies can handle things that women’s bodies cannot. Their bodies aren’t better, just different. On average, men have higher muscle mass, build muscle faster, have greater bone density and a lower body fat percentage. They take more risks (Gary Charness, Uri Gneezy: “Strong Evidence for Gender Differences in Risk Taking,” Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Volume 83, Issue 1, 2012), especially under stress (Mather, M., & Lighthall, N. R. (2012). Risk and Reward Are Processed Differently in Decisions Made Under Stress. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 21(1), 36–41.), and overwhelmingly constitute those working the most dangerous jobs in America and dying workplace injury-related deaths (according to a Public Health Post article published June 9, 2020). Statistically, the firefighters, police officers and paramedics that rush to an emergency are by a large majority male (according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics). Third, men have been given the responsibility to protect and provide for their families. In 1 Timothy 5:8, Paul has harsh words for anyone who doesn’t provide for his family. According to U.S. Census data, men in general, and especially married men, work longer hours than women. Likewise, Paul tells husbands in Ephesians 5:29 to nourish and cherish their wives as they would their own bodies. In 1 Timothy 3:5, he requires that men manage their household well as a prerequisite to managing God’s household as an elder. The idea of men fulfilling leadership roles in the home and the church is unpopular but biblical. As a woman, I am not eager to usurp that purpose. As Jesus says, “From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded” (Luke 12:48, NIV). Just because women “can do everything a man can do” does not mean that we can do it better, we should do it or that doing so is in the best interest of our Christian brothers or ourselves. Granted, masculinity has been twisted by the fall: anger, domination, workaholism and sexual impulsivity are a few examples. We women have no fewer flaws: manipulation, pettiness, competitive jealousy and gossip. Human nature is just plain bad. But our culture whispers that men are transactional, that they want things from us rather than for us. It’s unsurprising that many of us young women no longer want men to lead our homes or our churches — we’ve been marinated in a culture that views men with profound distrust and smugly highlights men who perpetuate its fatalistic depiction.

Worldly ideas are insidious because they inhabit the subconscious, sitting undisturbed and generally unnoticed below the surface. We may not believe them, but we feel them.To fight these subtle ideas, we can call out the overtones. While culture jumps on any opportunity to demean masculinity, it is our job as Christian women to affirm real manhood when we see it. Just as we build up our female friends with small measures of gratitude, extending that same gratitude to the men in our lives shows them that we see them through God’s eyes rather than those of culture. Women: Let’s give men the opportunity to be the sacrificial leaders God intended them to be. Men: Rise to the occasion.