just a little update

Hi everyone! How have you been? I trust you are all doing super and enjoying a lovely, blessed Easter season. We certainly have, praise the Lord, though today I got a little tantrum-y with the new girl I'm working on. The eye mech cracked and had to be replaced, then the chips I'd painted were too big to fit, yada yada yada ya. So now while I wait for new blank chips to arrive, my poor little Rila is just stuck like this, twiddling her invisible thumbs.

In the meantime, I've been intrigued by the comings and goings of erstwhile bloggy "friends". Of course I haven't been blogging at all regularly, but those of you who have become close know the reason why, and I truly thank you for your continued presence, friendship and support. I actually do know who disappears from my bloggy list -- having a memory for wordy things like that -- and, having not significantly changed the nature of my posts, I can only conclude they either got tired of my irregular posts, or my irregular visits to theirs, or both. So again, I truly do thank you for your faithfulness, patience and support.

But on to more cheerful things (i.e. a trip to Dollyland)! Here are a couple of recent little girls I was working on. This is Rowan, and I think it's obvious why haha (well, in case it isn't, Rowan means "little red one" in Gaelic).

I really love redheads, and felt inspired to do her faceup as flushed and ruddy as possible. As with real-life redheads, I love how the flaming hair complements light-coloured eyes. That's two layers of eyelashes per eye there, by the way -- lush!

I actually treated Rowan's blonde hair to become the flaming red it is now, and there's a lot of it too -- it's right down to her feet! Rowan has already been adopted -- thank you so much new mommy!

And this is Scout! She actually had fairly long hair, but I felt a short bob would suit her cute little face better, so I cut it. Here she is with Flossey the cat.

The super fun thing about Blythes, or dolls in general, of course, is dressing them up. There are so many amazing, talented Blythe clothes and accessories designers from all over the world. Here's Scout showing her handpainted left-facing eyes, and wearing a linen dress by one of my favourite Japanese designers.

And here she is wearing her kitty helmet and a wool dress by a designer from Spain -- it's completely hand-knitted, wow! I actually find Scout really adorable, but the poor little thing has been waiting in the shop for over a week now -- I guess her mommy has yet to find her. Whenever I take her out for photos though, I find myself really taken with her -- I just might, maybe, possibly, actually keep her!!

Have a wonderful new week everyone! See you again soon!

when to laugh

I don't know much about Ricky Gervais beyond whatever I've seen of him on Graham Norton. There, he's funny, but not excessively provocative, and so I'd shrug and laugh along. But then some friends ("friends") on Facebook posted some FB posts of his, and they were funny too, so I popped over to his page to have a look.

I was scrolling happily along and chuckling to myself, when I came upon a post showing a picture of some men in front of a huge painting of Christ on the cross. I won't go into too much detail (lest I be guilty of sharing the joke!), but suffice to say that the caption at the bottom read, "Blasphemy -- A ticket to hell has never been funnier".

And you want to know the truth? I giggled. In fact, I think I did one of those snorting sort of laughs. I mean, it really was quite funny. And looking at it again now, I'm laughing again. But the thing is, I'm really bothered by the fact that I'm finding it funny. Well, I think I know why I find it funny -- I'm tickled by the fact that those men could actually think of such a thing, and actually pose like that, and then put it all together like a motivational poster.

But whether I should find it funny -- there's the rub. I mean, it's clearly sacrilegious -- that was Jesus, the son of God, dying on the cross. But the three fellows were being so shamelessly inane! I felt so troubled by my amusement that I actually prayed about it, and I did feel God reassuring me that I was not doomed for being unable to help my sense of humour. The Christian life is meant to be joyful, not dull and humourless.

At the same time, however, I did feel Him cautioning me against indulging too much in that sort of thing -- there is a fine line between good humour, and irreverence and mockery. Something that gets laughed at often enough gradually loses its value, its importance, its dignity -- one easily becomes flippant and disrespectful.

It's like the blonde jokes, you know? I don't like them. Some of them aren't too bad, but some really are, perpetuating terrible, belittling stereotypes which do great injustice to blondes everywhere, including millions of little blonde girls who will have to grow up under such an insulting stigma. So I try not to encourage such jokes, by listening to them, sharing them, or laughing with others.

I decided to see what other, wiser heads than mine had to say on the subject. I didn't know how to look such a thing up, and in the end Googled, "Is sacrilegious humour a sin?" Oddly enough, there wasn't much on the topic. I did find this (which, yes, made me chuckle), but it didn't strike me as being really downright SACRILEGIOUS. I did find a couple of the comments below it relevant though, such as this one by Fatima: "I don't think there is anything wrong with this. It is okay to laugh. God is not being mocked. It's people that are being mocked. and It's FUNNY!!! Lighten up guys lol".

That's the key I guess -- how mocking is the joke? Whether about blondes or almighty God, how scornful or contemptuous is it making me when I laugh? As Paul writes to the Galatians: "Do not be deceived and deluded and misled; God will not allow Himself to be sneered at (scorned, disdained, or mocked by mere pretensions or professions, or by His precepts being set aside.) [He inevitably deludes himself who attempts to delude God]".

While on the topic, I decided to find out exactly what Ricky Gervais' stand on religion is. And this was the first thing I came upon. Now, this isn't a post about atheism, or bigotry, or fundamentalist anything, but I do object strongly to anyone mocking Christ publicly, on the cover of a magazine, knowing perfectly well that their celebrity would make it widely circulated. People don't need to see this sort of jeering and insult, our young people especially, who are trying to grow and find their way in an increasingly profane, immoral world.

Don't get me wrong -- I don't object to a person's atheism, but I do question the wisdom of treating godly or moral values with scorn; however idiotically the human followers of a particular religion behave, the principles to which they theoretically hold should be universally upheld -- principles such as love, peace, patience, kindness, self-control and so forth.

For Christians, the cross in part represents the theoretical upholding of such values, values which surely are in dire shortage in this fallen world of ours. Why mock or denigrate it? Make fun of some of its followers, maybe; sneer at them even if you must, but steer clear of what is inherently good, pure and holy. I believe this applies to all religions. Certainly, human failings might be deprecated and disaparaged, but not the ethics or credo which makes those humans strive to reach higher and overcome those failings.

So, I think giggling at my mom's comic on the fridge is okaaay (Moses is leading the Israelites through the Red Sea and rolling his eyes because they're saying things like, "Are we there yet?" and "I should have used the bathroom before we left"), but laughing at three immature fellows having fun with the crucifixion -- not so ok. (Also not ok -- What do you call an intelligent blonde? ...).

Trust you're all having a happy, lighthearted week!