I don’t know if you know this about me or not, but I sort of enjoy watching television.
My affection for it is so great, in fact, that I would consider it a hobby.
Rest assured, though, that I don’t think everybody needs to love it like I do. In fact, please do continue with your rock climbing and your gardening and your other outdoors-y pursuits. Know that I bless your efforts. And know that I will continue to bless those efforts while I am gearing up for a House Hunters marathon. After I warm up with a few episodes from season four of Friday Night Lights (I BELIEVE IN YOU, TIM RIGGINS).
So yes, I realize that it probably makes me seem shallow, but watching TV is one of my very favorite ways to relax. There are certainly other things I enjoy—cooking, writing, decorating, screaming my fool head off at college sporting events, etc.—but TV signals relaxation to me like few other activities do.
Please don’t let that last sentence make you sad. I promise that the beach—in real, live nature—is the most relaxing place of all to me. However, if I could sit on the beach while watching television, I would probably lull myself into some sort of prolonged state of leisure that would render time meaningless and maybe even reverse the aging process. If I figure out a way to make that happen, then naturally you’ll be the first to know.
And believe it or not, I actually have some great memories from my, um, FORTY YEARS of enthusiastic TV viewing. For example, way back when I was a little girl in the 1970s, if Tim Conway and Harvey Korman performed in a skit together on The Carol Burnett Show, one of them would inevitably start laughing before the skit was over. If any of the girls on Charlie’s Angels needed to go undercover, they either wore a hat or a pair of glasses. (Kris was slightly more versatile; she’d braid her hair in pigtails and then speak with a Southern accent.) And whenever the family would watch a new episode of Columbo, my mama would usually fan her face and say, “Whew—I sure am glad I don’t have to be in the room with him and that nasty cigar.”
Mama has always had a very sensitive sense of smell.
When I was eleven or twelve, though, I noticed that TV started to change, and it wasn’t just because I was getting older and becoming more aware of the dynamics between characters. Shows like Dallas, Dynasty, Knots Landing, and Falcon Crest had huge ratings (yes I watched them all, because, as I already mentioned, BABY OF THE FAMILY), and those shows ushered in a trend that’s still with us today: Mean Girl TV.
Seriously. Female characters became increasingly angry, increasingly catty, increasingly manipulative—and increasingly mean to each other. The first I remember of it was Kristen and Sue Ellen on Dallas, and then Krystle and Alexis had an all-out catfight (in their silk blouses with shoulder pads, no less) on Dynasty while Mama and I sat slack-jawed in front of the TV, utterly astonished by the sight of (fictional) grown women treating each other that way.
And this was long before Krystle threw Alexis in the lily pond behind Carrington Manor, by the way, so I would not necessarily say that their relationship improved over time.
We had no idea way back then, but those shows were just the beginning of watching women exchange verbal and physical jabs. Yes, there were plenty of examples of women being supportive and encouraging, but meanness got way more attention. Then TV talk shows hit the mainstream, and while many of them featured legitimate human interest stories, a few seemed consistently bent on stirring up conflict to the point that women would lunge at each other. Scripted TV shows like Melrose Place continued the trend, and eventually reality television entered the fray.
In 2002, The Bachelor premiered, something I would consider a cultural game-changer. I can’t think of another instance when TV producers put women in direct, weeks-long competition with each other for the affection of a man. That’s why, in my opinion, The Bachelor signaled that all bets for civility were off. The metaphorical gloves were off, too. Because, if I may paraphrase the late-’90s hip-hop legend Coolio: “Ain’t no catty like some Bachelor girls’ catty ’cause the Bachelor girls’ catty don’t stop.”
And please hear me: I’m not talking about all of this from some lofty, holier-than-thou tower. I think I’ve established that I LOVE ME SOME TV. I’ve watched all of these shows. I’ve even blogged about them. I thought I broke up with The Bachelor a couple of years ago, but apparently, thanks to this current season, we are most definitely “on” again. I can tell you that Bravo is channel 1181 in our cable system, and I can list every single one of the Real Housewives franchises. To a certain extent, I guess, I’m fascinated by how terrible women can be to each other because it’s mercifully foreign to me. I’ve never been in a fight, I’ve never had a falling out with another girl, and I’ve never had someone verbally pummel me with a stream of expletives—which, by the way, WOULD BE A ROCK-SOLID CLUE THAT SOMEONE WAS NOT IN FACT MY FRIEND.
So, given that current culture isn’t terribly supportive or instructive in terms of healthy relationships between women—and given a pervasive mentality that somehow more for me means less for you and more for you means less for me—how do we know what healthy, life-giving friendship looks like between two women?
You probably won’t be surprised if I tell you that there’s a pretty good example in Luke 1.
Because Elizabeth and Mary? They knew a better way.
I recognize that this is a bit of an understatement, but Elizabeth waited a long time to get pregnant. And whether we’ve personally struggled with difficulty conceiving a child or not, we can at least imagine how shocked Elizabeth must have been when she found out that she was finally going to have a baby.
In her sixties.
That’s a bit of a curve ball, you know?
Obviously most women during Elizabeth’s time started their families much earlier than we typically do now, so it wouldn’t have been outside the realm of possibility for Elizabeth to have already been a great-great grandmother once she hit her sixties. Instead, though, God saw fit to make her a first-time mama on a slightly delayed schedule, and my guess is that she soaked up every second of the wonder of her pregnancy.
In fact, since we know that Elizabeth “kept herself in seclusion for five months” (v. 24 hcsb), it stands to reason that she was keenly aware of the physical and emotional changes that accompany pregnancy. Some uninterrupted time at home will do that for a person, you know. Plus, waiting for a child to arrive brings its own brand of expectancy—something that goes way beyond the anticipation of motherhood—and for that reason I imagine those five months must have been unsettling and surreal and extraordinary. After her initial realization that yes, she was going to have a child, there was the progression from morning sickness to a baby bump to baby flutters to baby kicks and baby flips.
I know it didn’t actually happen, but it wouldn’t have surprised me a bit if there were a verse tucked away in Luke 1 where Elizabeth stroked her growing belly and said, oh-so-sweetly, “THIS. IS. AWESOME.”
The promise of new life always is.
So when Mary showed up at Elizabeth’s house, Elizabeth was about two-thirds of the way through her own gloriously unexpected pregnancy. And I can’t help but think that by modern standards—or at the very least by modern television standards—Elizabeth had every reason in the world to be TICKED OFF.
Seriously.
After all, she’d waited all of her adult life to be pregnant—she had wanted a baby for decades—and before she even had a chance to give birth, her young whippersnapper of a cousin showed up at her door, and she was pregnant, too.
I can’t help think that if this whole scenario were to play out on television—or, you know, just in real life right now—there might be a moment where Elizabeth looks at Mary, rolls her eyes, and says, “Hey. Can I maybe just have A MINUTE to enjoy this pregnancy thing and feel, I don’t know, SPECIAL? Because here I am, IN MY SIXTIES, feeling like a miracle because I’m finally having a baby, and then you walk up here all BOOM. JESUS. SAVIOR OF THE WORLD? That’s a well-played trump card, sister. Good thing I enjoyed the spotlight before you snatched it right off of me.”
Fortunately, though, Elizabeth set a way higher standard for people in general and women in particular. Because after she rejoiced with Mary in verse 42, she said the sweetest thing in verse 44: “For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy.”
Do you see that? It’s not just Elizabeth that’s over-the-moon excited for Mary; we also know that her baby—John, the forerunner of Jesus, the one who was filled with the Holy Spirit even in the womb—celebrated Mary’s news, too.
And just as John no doubt kicked in Elizabeth’s womb, here’s the kick in our twenty-first-century pants: Elizabeth didn’t feel competitive with Mary, she didn’t think that more for Mary meant less for her, she didn’t get down in the dumps because while yes, she was finally pregnant with a baby who Gabriel said would be very special, Mary got to be Jesus’ mama, of all things.
Maybe Elizabeth was just super-selfless. Maybe she lived free from the pettiness and competition that binds up so many of us these days. Or maybe—just maybe—Elizabeth’s contentment and confidence in her own calling left her feeling free to, as my mama would say, bless the fire out of her young cousin.
Elizabeth was FOR Mary. She didn’t seem to feel like Mary was stealing her thunder; she didn’t roll her eyes because she finally got her mama moment, and along came a teenage cousin who one-upped her. Elizabeth could have compared in that moment, because as excited as she was to be pregnant, Mary was pregnant with THE SAVIOR OF THE WORLD.
Elizabeth wasn’t having any of that, though. She honored and rejoiced. She confirmed and blessed. Comparison and competition weren’t anywhere on her radar.
Really, if you think about it, why would she react any differently? Why wouldn’t she be thrilled to pieces?
And why are we not equally elated to see our sisters in Christ walk out whatever the Lord has called them to do?
Seriously—what is up with our imagined (and meaningless) competitions? Why do we wear ourselves out with comparison? Why do we create hierarchies in our heads? Why the generation gaps? Why do we tend so passionately to the ground surrounding our same-age, same-stage ministry silos?
What on earth?
We should be cheering for each other. Slapping each other on the back (gently, my friends—GENTLY). Encouraging each other to run hard and finish strong.
All too often, though, we’re giving each other the side-eye. Calling out one another on social media under the guise of “concern.” Making pointed comments about how someone better be careful that she doesn’t get too big for her ministry britches.
We’re made for more than that, y’all.
And by the grace of our very good God, we can do better.
Last year singer / songwriter / entertainer extraordinaire Taylor Swift (though I think I’ve made it clear that I like to refer to her as T. Swift when I’m in the privacy of my home) went on a massive world tour. I don’t know the exact figures, but I think she had upwards of two hundred people at EVERY. SINGLE. SHOW.
Okay. Maybe it was more like fifty thousand.
And make no mistake: Tay-Tay (my second favorite nickname) is legit, y’all. Over one million people saw her 1989 concert tour (real talk: I totally got that info from Wikipedia, so GRAIN-O-SALT, my friends), and while I personally have not seen her in concert, by all accounts she puts on a phenomenal show.
Well, one recurring bit on the 1989 tour was that Tay-Tay brought out a group of her friends to “walk the runway” when she’d perform her hit song “Style.” That rotating crew of musicians, models, actors, and other awesome folks became known as Taylor’s “squad.” Naturally, then, #squad became a favorite for group pictures on Instagram, though we probably need to acknowledge that if I, a forty-something mama, am writing about it, the #squad trend has more than likely begun its cultural descent. I am still going to talk about it, though, because I think it points to something bigger in terms of our girls Mary and Elizabeth.
Now I cannot presume to speak for a generation, but ultimately I think Taylor’s #squad has resonated so much with young women because unlike so much of what they see in the media these days, T. Swift is for her people. On social media, at least (and let’s face it—that’s a mighty loud voice in the lives of teenagers and twenty-somethings), she seems to support folks wholeheartedly. She celebrates people’s accomplishments. She’s not afraid to share the spotlight or even step away from it so that someone else can shine.
If “a rising tide lifts all boats,” as the famous saying goes, then Taylor is a gravitational force.
She could absolutely compete with the folks who share her sizeable stage every night. She could make up her mind that every one of those women is a threat, and she could feed her own insecurity and selfishness by staking out her territory and erecting “NO TRESPASSING” signs around the perimeter.
However, it seems, at least from my admittedly distant perspective, that she opens her arms, she welcomes, she includes, and she encourages.
So you know what this makes me think, don’t you?
Elizabeth and Mary may very well have been our first New Testament #squad, y’all.
Which means that when we look at how they treat one another? When we look at how Elizabeth blesses her younger friend and Mary trusts her older one?
#SquadGoals.
For real.
It’s easy to talk about all of this “don’t compete / don’t compare / everybody be sweet” stuff in theory.
I’ll be the first to admit that it gets a whole lot trickier in real life.
Just last night, in fact, I was visiting with a friend at one of my son’s football games, and she mentioned that she was fasting from social media. That whole concept is obviously a little foreign to me (hello, blogger), so I asked her why.
“It sounds weird, I know,” she answered. “But I get on Instagram and see all the fun things other moms are doing with their kids, and I start comparing like crazy. I feel like I’m not doing enough or not planning enough or not engaging enough with my children. And honestly? It sends me to a little bit of a dark place. I start to feel terrible.”
I knew exactly what she meant. Social media might not be my weak spot, but there are about forty-two others. I can hardly read a book, for crying out loud, without thinking of a thousand different reasons why I’m not as good a writer, why I have no business stringing sentences together for a living, why I should never open a new Microsoft Word document for the rest of all time ever.
And there is not world enough and time to discuss how intimidated I can be by people who are consistently achieving #FitnessGoals.
But that is precisely why we need each other, isn’t it? It’s precisely why it made perfect sense for Mary to go with haste to her older cousin’s house—because it serves us well to listen to an actual voice instead of the one that can sometimes scream so loudly inside our heads.
All of this reminds me of a Bob Goff quote I saw one time on Twitter: “We keep pushing people off roofs that we should be lowering them through.”9
People are hurting, and they’re questioning, and they’re beating themselves up. They’re wondering if God really is calling to something that is miles from their comfort zone. They’re doubting if they have what it takes to (fill-in-the-blank), and this current day seems like as good a time as any to ask the Lord to help us speak an encouraging word, to bless the other women in our lives, and to lay down the vast assortment of weaponry that we like to wield against each other in pointless, imaginary battles that no one ever wins.
Beth Moore wrote this (also on Twitter, and you’re welcome for all of my super-academic sources, by the way): “This thing we’re doing here necessitates a fight. If we drain all our energy fighting people, we’ll have nothing left to battle darkness.”10
Culture tells us to compete. To look out for ourselves.
Scripture tells us to bless. To look out for each other.
The sister in Christ who is standing ahead of us or behind us or even at our own front door is not a threat. She neither hinders nor diminishes the assignment the Lord has given us. But if we let ourselves get sidetracked by pettiness or, heaven forbid, some good, old-fashioned paranoia, we may miss the wonder of seeing how intricately the Lord has woven our stories together, how intentionally He has intersected our paths, and how beautifully our callings complement each other.
Mary and Elizabeth knew a little something about that.
So did Jesus and John the Baptist, for that matter.
It makes me think of Hebrews 10:22–25:
So let’s do it—full of belief, confident that we’re presentable inside and out. Let’s keep a firm grip on the promises that keep us going. He always keeps his word. Let’s see how inventive we can be in encouraging love and helping out, not avoiding worshiping together as some do but spurring each other on, especially as we see the big Day approaching. (msg)
As believers and as women, we have no business throwing each other in the Carringtons’ lily pond.
Especially when we could be walking the runway together while T. Swift sings “Style.”
#SquadGoals, everybody.