Never Say Never To Your Traveling Self

Who Will We Meet?

2007-06-12T17:27:00.000-07:00

The RSS feed thingie isn't done yet - so until then, here's a link to a new post: Who Will We Meet?

Never Say Never Has Moved!

2007-06-11T16:48:00.000-07:00

This blog is now moved to WordPress and my own domain: lareinacobre.net.

Congrats for Joseph!

2007-03-24T18:47:00.000-07:00

Hooray to my friend, Joseph Santos-Lyons (aka Radical Hapa), on passing his MFC today!!!

Women in Sparta

2007-03-13T22:00:00.000-07:00

Late Friday night, the DH and I tagged along with my brother and his wife to see 300. The DH was excited because he loved Sin City, and is fascinated by the warrior codes and battle formations of ancient societies. I strongly disliked Sin City (though I do understand its appeal to so many men), but I share his interest in ancient cultures and mythology.

So anyway, we talked for a long while about it the next day. He and I both had some prior knowledge of the Spartan way of life, but spent some time reading up on the Battle of Thermopylae in particular. Truth truly is stranger than fiction. I was quite impressed at how basically every over-the-top aspect of Spartan life depicted in the movie was strongly rooted in historical record (I cannot say the same for the depiction of Xerxes; I don't know anything about him being pierced everywhere and made up like a drag queen).

What most intrigued me in my readings, however, was the way in which Spartan women were virtually equals in their societies. I found it very curious that Sparta - as militaristic and pragmatic as it was - was the only place in Greece where women had a great deal of personal freedom and power. The women of those Greek states that were rich in philosophy and the arts were really viewed as inferior. So why was Sparta different? Was it precisely their pragmatism that caused them to have such progressive views about women? Not to say that they were well informed about all things - they practiced infanticide, too.

Any thoughts or information about this? I'll have to look more into this later - I'll put that on my list of "Someday" activities.

Surreal Television

2007-03-12T12:41:00.000-07:00

Daytime television is just weird. A lousy "thriller" called American Crime - although it stars the stunning Annabella Sciorra - has some of the worst pacing and one of the most unsatisfying movie endings I've ever seen. Maury Povich (still) has on mothers who want to subject their 13 and 15 year old daughters to lie detector tests to "prove" they've had multiple sex partners. And the DA boss dude from Law & Order might be running for president?

I'm not sure what I think about all of that.

Why the Internet is a better place:

I learned that Maggie Gyllenhaal will be replacing Katie Holmes in the new Batman movie. Whoo hoo!
I received an email informing me of two discussions being held in my area about the film, The Mystery of Love. Unfortunately, I can't make either of the two discussion meetings (damn, damn, damn!), but at least now I know about Mystery of Love, and The Fetzer Institute for Love Forgiveness. These are both interesting - take a look!

Also, I'm reading a really good book called The 12 Secrets of Highly Creative Women which, interestingly enough, references Robert Fritz, whose book, The Path of Least Resistance, transformed a lot of my thinking. I'll probably write more about 12 Secrets later.

Yes, We Have No Bananas

2007-03-06T22:05:00.001-08:00

The first shock was seeing the General Assembly photos that Rev. Clyde posted on his blog last summer. My immediate reaction was, literally, OH MY GOD! I had no idea I looked like that! A few months later my mother sent me photographs from my 30th birthday party in September. By this time, I'd reached new territory because there was absolutely no way for me to camouflage my chubbiness anymore. Even a sun-dress told all.

When I was down to about five outfits that I felt even remotely comfortable in, feeling sick all the time from symptoms of IBS, and frequently waking up with mysterious back pain, I decided to do something. The grandmother whose body type I inherited spent most of her adult life coping with an extra 100 pounds, and she ruined her health in desperate attempts to lose them. Genetics were definitely not on my side in this regard, so it was really just a matter of me deciding how many trips to the doctor it was going to take before I took some action.

Two months ago, the DH was joking about how much we US Americans desire instant gratification. In the midst of listening to him it dawned on me that I'd been harboring the unconscious belief that if I liked a particular food and it was available to me, I needed to eat it. Not only that, but I had the right to eat it, and it was wrong and unfair that there could be negative consequences (such as gaining weight or feeling sick).

But now ... I finally understood what millions of other people (like my "naturally" thin brothers and mother) already knew: It's okay to love the foods I do (breads and pastas), and not eat them every day. Imagine that! My whole "relationship" with food changed. Basically, I stopped seeing myself as having a relationship with food. Relationships occur between people, and perhaps other animals. That slice of sweet bread over there is neither my friend nor my enemy; it's just flour and water. It's indifferent to me, so why get so riled up about it? When I think of the range of emotions I'd feel about eating - anxiety, excitement, guilt, self-indulgence, regret ... what a soap opera!

A while back there was talk of a campaign to lose weight by General Assembly 2007. I don't know how that is going, but after seeing Clyde's pics from last year, I knew I didn't want a repeat of OH MY GOD! Now I just have to get over the inevitable photo of me with black pepper stuck in my teeth, or my eyes in mid-blink.

September 2006 March 2007

Nice Stereotypes

2007-03-06T16:22:00.000-08:00

I still can't respond to Blogger postings .... ChaliceChick asks, Is it Racist that I think Jews are Cool? I thought that was an interesting question, because I used to think Jews were cool, too. I don't know where that came from; maybe because as a group they've been persecuted and oppressed quite a bit and therefore I could relate to them as a descendant of American slaves; or because they've produced an astonishing number of musical maestros, movie producers, comedians and social thinkers. I have no idea what the actual statistics are - and am doubtful there are any - but it seemed like per capita, they were contributing quite a bit to the world.

But at some point, my thinking on Jews being especially cool just sort of evaporated. Again, I don't know why. Maybe it was Jerry Seinfeld, or the Hasidim in Crown Heights, or the State of Israel or just a shift to realizing the contributions of my own "peoples." So this question isn't really an issue for me any more.

Is it racist to attribute positive qualities to a people? I don't know ... how important a question that is. I think what matters most is how one's expectations color the way one relates to another person. For example, many years ago the DH's grandmother said to his other grandmother, "I thought you people were supposed to be smart!"

Hey, that doesn't sound so bad. Asians = Smart - where's the harm in that? Except that she followed it up by asking, "Well if you're so smart, why are you so poor?!"

The bottom line is that while some people revel in what they perceive as positive stereotypes - and even claim them -they are ultimately objectifying. I bristle every time someone comments that I must be able to dance well or be really "spicy" because of my ethnicity. What does that even mean? Anyone expecting me to be a great dancer or super sexy and hot tempered obviously has no clue of who I am.

But worst of all, it often leads to me wondering, "If this person thinks I have this quality - what else do they think about me - that's not so nice?" Unfortunately, those are the types of thoughts that can make it hard to build trusting relationships.

What is Conservative?

2007-03-06T15:33:00.000-08:00

I am curious about something in Joel Monka's recent post, A Conservative in a Liberal Faith. In one paragraph he describes conservatism (note: PP stands for Principles & Purposes):

None of the general principles of a classic (not a religious right) conservative, things like fiscal responsibility, personal responsibility and personal action, that rights reside within the citizen and are only loaned to the government, not vice-versa, least government possible, and even that as local as possible, etc., are in conflict with the PPs- with one possible exception: Conservatives recognize that government is rarely the right vehicle to address the basic issues, that either the marketplace or other citizen organizations (like churches) are far more effective in issues where hearts and minds must be changed. This is in direct opposition to the current mindset of the majority of the UUA, who seem to believe that social justice comes only from the pages of a sternly-worded fax to a congressman.

The thing is, I can agree with all of those statements, and yet I'm not a conservative. And I don't think I'm deluding myself; I can't think of any other person who would call me conservative, either.

Surely, there's got to be something more to being a conservative than is mentioned here? Is it a difference of values - or one of methods? I have a hard time even calling myself "a liberal." While I'm "liberal" at times, I have a hard time accepting that label when it's used to describe someone like John Kerry. We're not even in the same book, never mind on the same page. (For Bush, I'd have to say we're in two completely different libraries.)

Isn't the nature of conservatism defined as resistance to change? I associate it with the supporting of the status quo. Is this inaccurate?

Some time ago the DH and I were having a conversation about power in our society. The DH posited that there are three major powers in the US: government; private industry; and the people. I'm interested in ways that the power of the people can be expressed and fulfilled. I feel as though conservatives are interested in bolstering the power of industry, and liberals want to increase the power of the government. (Noam Chomsky points out that it's in the best interest of industry that the people distrust their government, because the government is the only force powerful enough to restrict industry).

So I'm left with the question of ... who is interested in increasing the power of the people? At every turn I see private corporations encroaching on the rights and freedoms of people - whether it's Clear Channel suing cities for allowing public murals (citing them as "unfair competition" with billboard ads), or the very current issue of Net Neutrality. And government is dominated by a fairly homogenous group of people who are constantly being pressured by private interests (and in some cases, being run by high profile representatives of private interests).

Any advice on the subject would be much appreciated.

Can't Comment, So Here are Comments

2007-03-04T18:17:00.000-08:00

For some reason - I don't have time to investigate this right now - I'm unable to comment on the blogs of other Bloggers because the anti spam verification code isn't visible to me; I can't even get the audio to work.

So here are a few comments I intended to post, but haven't been able to ...

Oh, but first -- thanks to all the kind words re my engagement. I hadn't thought about a GA wedding at all, but that would have been clever with enough notice! The wedding will be in summer of 2008, however. I want my youngest brother to be present and he won't be available until then.

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Lizard Eater responds to Peacebang's post, Theological Reflection on Fat, Skinny, and Image - and asks, "how do we get folks out of their ruts, and persuade them to not save nice attire for weddings and funerals? Encourage them to dress up for parties and -- dare I propose it? -- church?"

My comment: The best way to encourage folks to dress up is to dress up, too. When the DH had a meeting in Seattle with representatives of a well known, European company, I insisted he wear a suit and tie. He obliged willingly. When he returned I asked him if he'd worn the suit; he said that he had - and was grossly overdressed. Even the reps from the corporation were in polo shirts and tees. He was teased a little, and came off looking kind of stuffy and/or a little clueless. In this case, wearing a suit didn't impress anyone, and he drew unwanted attention to himself. Had there been several other guys there in suits, his clothing choice probably would have been a non-event.

Most people dress according to what is considered acceptable and normal in whatever circles they travel in. When people plan their outfits for parties or what-have-you, they usually ask themselves, "What is everyone else going to be wearing?" Most aren't going for the fanciest outfit award. But ... if they can trust that so-and-so will be looking great in a suit and tie, or a sequined dress, they might be willing to take a few chances.

I dress however I please, wherever I am, regardless of the weather or situation. But I get a LOT of feedback about it, and one has to be willing to accept that if you're going to depart from the norm.

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Will Shetterly writes about a pathetic practice of Best Buy in his post capitalism promotes innovation.

My comment: Best Buy sucks!

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Stentor Danielson offers his thoughts on How Whites Shaped Black-Indian Relations; one result being the Cherokee vote to determine whether black descendants of the "freedmen" (slaves owned by Cherokee) will continue to be considered members of the Cherokee nation.

My comment: Thank you, thank you, thank you. I sent your post to a lot of folks who asked me what I thought of this issue!

Big World

2007-02-28T01:08:00.000-08:00

February is ending; it’s been a month of opportunities and stress. I’ve started a new business, accepted a marriage proposal, and lots of changes in my work. I am physically exhausted, with a sinus headache going on day three. This is truly one of those times when a universal “pause” button would be nice to have. I know that what’s on my plate right now is nothing compared to what others are dealing with; nonetheless, I’m feeling overwhelmed.

The other night I was at a friend’s house watching the Oscars, and there was one segment in particular that I liked for sentimental reasons: a montage of renowned foreign language films from the last 50 years. I'd seen many of the featured films, and was suddenly reminded of how satisfying they were, and how few foreign films I've seen in the last year, and how much films used to be a part of my life. These days, I'm too busy doing other things, and have far less "alone" time. It used to be that I'd go to the cinema three or four times a week, and watch whatever sounded interesting from the film journals. There were no apologies or explanations or negotiations. There was never a need to find that "common denominator" movie that everyone was willing to see. And I never had to defend my opinion of a movie when it was over.

I miss that. Back in the day I wanted desperately to have more friends, or a sweetheart to go to the movies with. But it was a real gift to be able to develop my taste in cinema on my own.

Maybe it's because of all that's been going on in my life lately, but in those few minutes of watching that montage, I longed for my world to be so small again; for the ability to escape my life so completely just by settling down in front of an art-house drama.

Circumstances have changed dramatically - which is exciting! And I'm learning many things. Nevertheless, I want to reintroduce a few of my old habits, like watching really deep movies by myself. While that was something I started doing out of necessity, at some point it became something I need to do (once in a while) to feel like me.

Valentine's Day Reflection

2007-02-15T01:19:00.000-08:00

Last night, my Donut Husband proposed to me for real! I said yes. I'm engaged!

Vision in the Children, Labyrinth

2007-02-04T19:57:00.001-08:00

Not so often, while watching a movie, the thought will pass through my mind that I am lucky to be alive, to have been born in this time, in this country, with the means to see this film. This happened when I saw Pan's Labyrinth. It demonstrates the latin literary tendency to bring together the living and the dead. I went in only having a few clues as to its subject matter ... little girl ... Spanish Civil War ... otherworldly creatures. That's probably all anyone needs to know about the plot before they see it.

A lot of movies are like the coupons you get in the Sunday paper. They take up a lot of space, and you won't have much use for them unless you consume large quantities of stuff. But once in a while there's a story like Pan's Labyrinth that actually feels necessary; it couldn't have been told any other way except through film.

There are several scenes of terrible violence and pain; my response to this was to close my eyes and cover my ears. My tolerance for on-screen gore steadily decreases, and I have no idea why, but I won't fight it. Don't let this deter you from seeing the movie - you can always tell when the violence is about to happen. The film isn't perfect, but it is exquisite, even when depicting the grotesque. Guillermo del Toro's vision is strongly evident. No one else could have made this film.

I have to contrast this with my disappointment about Children of Men. The premise captured my attention: a world in which children are no longer being conceived. What would such a world look like? I love questions like this, so I was puzzled at how the movie turned out. I know that it was adapted from a novel, but something felt ... missing. Eventually I realized that what I didn't like was how the focus turned away from the characters to become extremely plot-driven. While that's not typically viewed as a problem by most people, I saw it as a problem for this story. It became an action movie. Kind of like how Saving Private Ryan was basically an action flick set in WWII. One by one, supporting characters are picked off; the only real question is, how many people will have to die before the protagonist accomplishes his mission?

This is appropriate in horror movies and true action movies (e.g. Predator, a personal favorite), but I've got no need for it in dramas. It's even worse when it's imposed on a really original idea, because a really original idea should exceed the limitations of this formula. I have no idea how it all goes down in the novel, but ultimately Children of Men didn't feel like an Alfonso Cuarón film. It felt like any competent director could have put it together, calmly placing one frame after another. I don't know what happened. I've been a fan of Cuarón since A Little Princess, so this was a real bummer. All that being said, it was a decent movie - it just fell short of its potential.

Right now I'm most interested in films that bear the unmistakable mark of the visionaries who make them.

Random comment:
Notes on a Scandal was not so great to me as it was to others. Yes, Judi Dench offers an amazing performance, but when does she not? As a character study, it was successful, but in the end I left the theater wondering if I should have seen Babel instead. The Prestige was far more engaging mentally, and I actually enjoyed it just as much the second time around.

(Studio photo: Scene from Pan's Labyrinth. Almost every shot in the film is worthy of framing.)

Thanks and Best Blogs

2007-02-04T10:08:00.000-08:00

I'd like to say thanks to the folks who nominated and voted for me in this year's UU Blog Awards. My blog only averages 22 visitors a day, so it was very unexpected to be in the top five in six categories. In the end, I received the most votes for Best Commenter and Best Non-UU Themed Blog . I was second for Best Lay Blog, and Best single entry Anecdote or Narrative. I had no idea that Choosing to Love was so well-received - only one person has ever commented on it, and it's not one of my most visited posts. I guess you just never know! I'm most pleased about the Best Commenter final numbers because I do spend far, far more time reading and commenting on others' blogs than I do posting to my own.

On that note, I want to give a shout out to two of my favorite blogs - debitage and it's all one thing.

In debitage, Stentor Danielson offers insightful cultural analysis (not just commentary); Stentor bucks the blogging trend of knee-jerk responses to political problems.

Will Shetterly's it's all one thing is the only blog listed in my Bookmark Toolbar. I frequently use his "search" function to find posts he's written in the past - because there's so much good information in them. It's hard to choose just one of his posts to highlight because the sum of his blog is much greater than its individual parts. If I were to rate blogs based on their measure of influence on my daily life, it's all one thing (along with Rev. Clyde's A People So Bold!), ranks highest.

The other blogs I read the most are Joseph Lyons' Radical Hapa (busy UUA seminarian), Peacebang's Beauty Tips for Ministers (fashion-opinionated minister), Philocrites (the gateway drug to UU blogging), and the new Fat Girl Slim Chronicles, which I think deserves a prize for best name!

Congrats to all of the winners and nominees in the UU Blog Awards. Big thanks are due to the UUpdater (who I still don't know the name of) and more thanks to all the people who took the time to vote. It looks like participation was up this year, and I hopefully the 4th Annuals will be even bigger.

Easy to Please

2007-01-31T00:02:00.000-08:00

Some days just feel really good. There's nothing special in particular that happens - just little things going right, one after another; and none of the usual upsets matter at all.

This morning I spent some time copying a poem in long-hand to mail to one of my brothers. I kept making small errors, and so kept starting over. I've almost memorized the poem now. It was written by the late Leopold Staff, a Polish writer. I don't know the title; I read it in a book a year or so ago (I think it was The Art of Peace).

I didn't believe,
Standing on the bank of a river
Which was wide and swift,
That I would cross that bridge
Plaited from thin, fragile reeds
Fastened with bast.
I walked delicately as a butterfly
And heavily as an elephant;
I walked surely as a dancer
And wavered as a blind man.
I didn't believe that I would cross that bridge,
And now that I am standing on the other side
I don't believe I crossed it.

I like poems like this. When the voice sounds as surprised as I do by the ending. A good poem can really set the day up right.

I went to studio class today and we did some directing. I thought I hated directing, but turns out this was wrong. The instructor suggested that I direct the final project. First, the idea surprised me, and then I wanted to be nervous about it. Then it occurred to me: "But I don't feel nervous about it at all. It'll be fun!" My new motto for a while is: "Screw it up and learn!" I feel that much closer to my dream of being a producer. I don't remember who it was that said it, but they were right: You learn to create by creating.

Yesterday, Oprah had a show on about families. She featured 14 families from Charlotte, North Carolina, that had adopted over 30 Liberian orphans. It started with one Christian woman attending an African boys' choir fundraiser; she said God spoke to her and told her that two of those boys were hers. She adopted them, and even though her friends thought she was crazy, they eventually adopted kids, too. So now all of these black, Christian Liberian orphans are living with these white, middle class, Christian American families, and it all seems fairly strange and powerful. Following this, Oprah introduced a gay couple and five of their six children. The two men had taken in 21 foster kids over the years, and adopted the ones who eventually had nowhere else to go. I wondered if the Christian adoptive parents would have taken issue with the gay adoptive couple, and I appreciated that Oprah never posed that question. She just celebrated the generosity they were all practicing, and she said - without saying - all of these are people putting love into the world; all of these people are families.

When my brain settles on thoughts like these, I don't need the day to end; I'm not tired.

New Site Going Live?

2007-01-22T22:24:00.001-08:00

Well, the new blog site is finally Internet Explorer compatible. *rolling eyes* I'm still working out appearance and formatting kinks, but this is where it's at right now. New blog.

A Wretched, Saving Grace

2007-01-20T10:17:00.000-08:00

The DH tells me a story about his mother, and the Christian proselytizers who knock on her door from time to time, inviting her to Jesus. First, they testify about how they were once homeless, desperate, drug-addicted, abusive and unhappy people - but after they found Jesus they were healed. He said his mother's response - before shutting the door in their face - was, "Well, that's great for you, but I don't have any of those problems."

This morning I read "The Radical Christian Right is Built on Suburban Despair" by Chris Hedges - at the suggestion of the Lively Tradition - and it made me think about how many people have religion because they feel weak and lost without it. If I were not a UU, I wouldn't feel weak or lost. When I was Muslim, I thought I needed Islam to be a good person - to keep me on the path of doing good and being a good person. But since leaving the religion, I haven't been strangling small animals or setting people on fire. I play poker once in a while, average about two alcoholic drinks per month, and have had exactly one boyfriend, who I am still with. So much for the big "fall."

One afternoon a few months ago, I returned to the office from my lunch break feeling really upset. I'd just heard a report on National Public Radio about Lydia Cacho, a Mexican journalist, who was living under threats of death and facing a prison sentence because she'd written a book about child sex slavery, and the wealthy businessmen who supported it. I sat down at my desk and lamented to my coworker, a friendly Christian of the Southern Baptist persuasion. "Who - who are the people buying these children? And who are the people selling them? And how can so many people do such evil things?! What is wrong with the world?!"

I don't usually get worked up about things in public, but in those moments, I felt outraged, devastated, and powerless. My coworker - an active church leader who had attended biblical college 30 years ago - made an apologetic face, raised his hands and said, "Well, I don't know what the Koran says about this, but I can tell you what the Bible says." I blinked at him, and said "Okay."

"... And the Bible says that what holds Man back from committing these kinds of evils is the Holy Spirit. Without the Holy Spirit, this is what Man does."

I blinked again a number of times. I heard myself saying, "Well, I guess ..." as I turned back to my computer. But in the next moment I was thinking, "What the hell?! I don't have the Holy Spirit, and I'm not involved in child sex slavery or pornography - nor will I ever be!"

The DH had informed me a few weeks before that the reason why the religious right are so adamant against gays "advertising" themselves is because they truly believe that they, too, have the capacity to be gay; and it's only God keeping them from descending into heathen barbarianism. I was a little dubious, and thought he was just being anti-Christianity again, but here was the exact same sentiment, coming from a devout Christian!

I tend to have a tolerant attitude towards religious followers because 1) I was one once so I understand what it's like 2) most of my family is religious 3) I'm part of a religious community now (note: not a "follower"), 4) many religious people have been inspired by their faith to create wonderful things, 5) I believe in a spiritual element in life, and religion is one tool people use to explore that.

But ... wow - what a terrible disappointment to hear my co-worker say this. Not only is it a claim easily disproved by the examples of billions of non-saved people who do NOT engage in such despicable acts, but it's frightening that people believe we're all just a few steps away from being monsters.

It's obvious to me that we're each capable of committing evil or good (however you choose to define these terms), but the Holy Spirit is not what guides us. Rather, it is our own conscience and will. I'm deeply disturbed by this preoccupation with believing and publicly declaring oneself to be a "sinner." If you see the God-Up-There as Perfection, then you're setting yourself up to feel inferior. Where is the good in that? Here on earth, no one is perfect. Do we need to believe in a God-Up-There to acknowledge our flaws and errors? To be humble? To have perspective about our place in the world? I say no.

Some people, however, have convinced themselves that, without the saving grace of the God-Up-There, they would be hopeless, lost to the world, and the lowest of the low. I know that feeling because I clasped tight to it for many years. I remember that sense of being filled with the breath of God (Allah), of scrambling to avoid being swallowed up in the chaos of the world, and of teetering on the line dividing Paradise from Hellfire. I remember this, and I think, "But I felt this way even when I was ten years old!" It was just an illusion.

(photo by friend of HSA; Together, they will rotate on the spits of Hellfire. 2006)

Most Popular Posts

2007-01-16T18:36:00.000-08:00

When I look at my hit stats, I'm amazed at how people are still finding my old post on a bell hooks lecture. Quite a few people are running google searches such as: +"bell hooks" +"on Crash." In fact, one out of every ten visitors to my site is coming to check out that particular post.

It would seem the combination of +"popular academic" +"mainstream movie" is drawing out all my fellow disciples of cultural studies.

I just figured out how, with my site meter software, to see what my most popular posts have been. Some of them are not surprises because I've been seeing them show up on my hit results for months after they were written. Others, I wonder about.

For example, the second most popular post is What's In My Name? This was a post that was simply about how I like my name and wish people would spell it correctly! Explain that one to me. The Meat-Eating and Spiritual Practice post is the 3rd most popular, followed by part two of the report-back on the bell hooks lecture, and my big old rant about "church as entertainment." Rounding out the top 7 (after this, the hits fall below 1% of the total visitors) are my random posts on the angel of death and looking for love (aka, how I would never have given my sweetie the time of day for a whole bunch of dumb-ass reasons).

So the most popular topics for me to write about - I guess - are movies, vegetarianism, angels (or death?), dating, showbiz worships, and the meanings of Arabic names. I'm not seeing any patterns there, so this data is unlikely to have any bearing on what I blog about in the coming year.

p.s. I still hate Internet Explorer for not adhering to standards. My new blog is still in limbo for this reason.

"Listen to Yourself!"

2007-01-13T12:30:00.000-08:00

Last night I stayed up til four a.m. talking to the DH and our roommate about the inanity of public education. What follows is a rant, hastily written.

It occurred to me only a month ago that the three of us all had unconventional schooling (unschooling/homeschooling). I left school two months into the 7th grade, and later attended one year of high school. The DH dropped out of the 9th grade to write software, and didn't even bother to get his GED until years later. The roommate went to high school but was homeschooled by conservative Christian parents for most of his life; he later served in the Navy for four or six years, and is about as anti-establishment and anti-religion as one can be without actually being an activist.

I thought I had radical ideas about schooling, but these two put me to shame. The DH believes that the traditional public and private education system is not simply flawed, but actually harms children.

A few months ago, when the school year began, I was hanging out at the house of the DH's parents. His little sister is in 6th grade (middle school). I was disturbed to discover that the students at her school are not permitted to carry their backpacks in the hallways. This is because the school administrators are fearful of guns being toted around. Lockers have also been eliminated, so that students cannot stash guns or drugs in them. Hats and black nail polish are forbidden to discourage kids from engaging in subversive behavior. What on earth kind of nonsense is this? This is a school in a rural/suburban town where there is no history of school shootings! But is it really any surprise? Look at how the adults in our society are so indifferent about sacrificing their constitutional rights in the name of national security.

One of the things that positively disgusted me was reading some of the arguments during the Planet Pluto debate. I couldn't believe there were educators and scientists in the media arguing that we couldn't withdraw Pluto's planet status because then the children would be confused, and question everything they'd been taught in school. Regardless of my opinion of what Pluto should be classified as, that type of reasoning just makes me say WHAT?!

The other day I actually saw a commercial on television: several couples (strangely enough, all people of color) were depicted in the ads talking about how educational some children's network or program was. One "mother" actually said, "It's like having a preschool right in your living room." WHAT?

I once had a customer interrupt me as I was reviewing her electric consumption with her. Her voice dripped with condescension: "Listen to yourself ! How could I have used 74 kilowatt hours in a DAY, when there are only 24 hours in a day?" It remains the only time I have been rendered speechless in my work. This woman was in her 30s. And she had a job that required a college degree.

I feel as though I'm far too young for this to be having these thoughts. I know a young woman who graduated from high school three years ago and did not know (until last week, when she asked someone) who had won the American Civil War. She is not a stupid person; she is actually quite intelligent. But what on earth was going on for those twelve years of suburban public schooling that she so dutifully completed?

The more I think about it, the more I realize how public schools are like corporations. And I have sympathy for all the disaffected, bored adolescents out there whose parents are forcing them to attend school because they don't know what else to do with them. Surely, these kids must feel as frustrated as the middle aged, middle-class corporate drones and peons most of them are destined to become.

I'm reminded of that wonderful Soderbergh film, Kafka, when one character says to Kafka, "It's not too bad working here, though." And Kafka replies, "You've never felt it was a horrible double life, from which there was probably no escape but insanity?"

(cover of Grace Llewellyn's, The Teenage Liberation Handbook: How to Quit School and Get a Real Life and Education. Note: Back when this book came out, I was friends with the girl on the cover - she, her mom, her brother, and her goats were awesome.)

New Year, New Haircut

2007-01-12T22:02:00.000-08:00

After years of lamenting and dreading hair stylists the way some people dread the dentist, I finally got a haircut that I felt happy with. And it cost me $22, and was at the MALL, of all places.

This was me earlier in 2006:

And this is me today:

No more messing with twists, frizz, and headbands. Whoo hoo! Plus, I've lost ten pounds and counting. Yay!

Strong Words by William Stafford

2007-01-06T19:38:00.000-08:00

Strange but life isn’t serious anymore. Oh, people get incensed about issues, about atrocities that flare in the news, about the long, grinding subjugation of women. We are alert for such topics. But the more we perceive, the more we destroy our sense of the immediate value of living. Now we tell each other that death is better than oppression. Then, we value life too much for such frivolous opinions.

Today popular magazines pour consumer solaces endlessly, but their articles and stories are about lives that are shallow, desperate, banal, blighted. And the public wander from one distraction to another, carrying their emptiness within them: “I acquiesce in the deterrent of terror. I am preserved by my readiness to kill them all.”

The Radio and Spinoza

2007-01-05T22:54:00.000-08:00

Tonight on the radio, I was listening to "To the Best of Our Knowledge," a public radio program. I was fortunate enough to catch Segments 1 and 2 of their "Science vs. Religion" piece. Fascinating. My favorite piece was the interview with Rebecca Goldstein, who wrote Betraying Spinoza: the Renegade Jew Who Gave Us Modernity. I enjoyed everything she had to say, especially as she recounted her Orthodox Jewish upbringing and how she was first introduced to Spinoza. He was presented as a brilliant man who was led astray by asking dangerous questions.

I'm interested in questions that a religion would say are dangerous. Goldstein said that religion is not about the pursuit of truth, and shouldn't be perceived as such. She is pretty big on being rational.

Then there was Francis Collins, who was formerly an atheist but was converted to evangelical Christianity after reading Mere Christianity. The DH got really pissed off by this guy because Collins set up a couple of straw men (e.g. claiming that scientists like to state "There is no God."). I don't know what Collins' deal was, but I was a little bored by the idea that if you decide to believe in God, it must be the Christian God. He also strongly suggested that people who didn't believe in God were demonstrating "hubris" and were children. He worked on the human genome project and recorded a strange song about it.

Lastly, there was a piece on paganism. I know so little about "paganism and witchcraft" (as it was put forth in this segment), and wanted to know how some pagans felt that their belief in magic didn't contradict science at all. Some points were made about following nature, the laws of physics. What most intrigued me though, was when one of those interviewed talked about how at their pagan place of worship, people come in with different beliefs about gods/goddesses, and that this is all right. The impression I was left with is that paganism bears some similarity to UUism in that it doesn't have a dogma, and those who practice it are free to interpret different aspects of it in the way that makes most sense to them.

At this point I began to wonder if the questions about whether UUism is really a "religion" are asked about paganism?

In any case, it was an hour well spent. You can listen to this program here. (There is a Real Audio stream).

Progress (?) for the Islamic Society of North America

2006-12-18T08:33:00.000-08:00

I read today that in August of 2006, Dr. Ingrid Mattson was the first woman elected as President of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA). But what really took me by surprise - but not really - was that she is also the first native-born North American, and the first Muslim convert to hold that position.

ISNA was established in 1963, so it's been a long time coming! I have to say that even ten years ago, it didn't seem like this was about to happen anytime in the foreseeable future. While I think it's a step in the right direction, I also shake my head at the fact that it's taken 43 years.

When is a Holiday Not a UU Holiday?

2006-12-17T00:09:00.000-08:00

I'm not really big on holidays. I just procrastinate too much. I can barely get my friends' birthday cards out on time. A few years ago I decided to start celebrating Kwanzaa because I no longer felt qualified to celebrate the two Islamic holidays. Adopting Christmas was still a strange notion. So I thought, "Well, I can do Kwanzaa; my religion may change, but I'll always be black." However, my laziness prevailed and I only managed to read up on it and send out Kwanzaa cards eleven months later.

This year I've been preoccupied, and haven't been home for days at a time, so Kwanzaa is on hold again. In fact, I'll be spending Christmas Eve with friends, and the Big Day with my Catholic grandmother and the DH's non-religious family. I'm just going where the people I like are.

Jess writes on her blog that she's pleased her home congregation is no longer doing a Kwanzaa service. Although it may be for different reasons, I agree with her that it doesn't make sense for most UU churches to put on Kwanzaa services.

From what I know, most of the Kwanzaa celebration takes place within the home. And since the purpose is essentially for African descended folks to remember their roots and remain in community with each other, it just seems weird that white people would be the ones to "put it on" for their mostly white congregations.

I'd feel the same way about UU congregations putting on a Chinese New Year service. It's really a lot more than just a dancing dragon and a couple of firecrackers. It's one thing to recognize or acknowledge that these are holidays some folks in the congregation might be celebrating, but picking a day to "celebrate" either Kwanzaa or Chinese New Year via sermon + black candles or sermon + a CD somebody picked up in Chinatown is just really awful.

If I went to my church and found they were holding an Eid al-Fitr Sunday I'd be alarmed and really want to know what was going on. And I'm not even Muslim anymore! It's not that I don't think non Muslims can't learn anything from the Islamic holidays, but seeing as how Islam is hardly mentioned the other 51 weeks of the year, what exactly is being celebrated?

Airport Security?

2006-12-10T15:30:00.000-08:00

True story that took place in 2006: A young woman in her 20s is flying within the United States. She intends to carry on her luggage, as usual, but after boarding the plane, she discovers there is no room in the overhead compartments for her bag. A flight attendant collects the bag for last-minute checking. The young woman completes the first leg of her flight, but the plane is late. Very late. So late that the young woman has to run to the gate of her connecting flight. When she arrives, everyone else has boarded, but the two desk attendants assure her they can still put her on the plane. As one calls the plane to notify the crew of one more passenger, the other says, "Just give us your boarding pass, please."

The young woman reaches for her boarding pass - then remembers: it's in the outside pocket of the bag she had to check in! "Oh! Well, that's okay. I'll just print you a new one. Can you give me your ID?" says one of the attendants. The young woman smacks herself in the forehead. Her driver's license is WITH the boarding pass in the outside pocket of her bag - which is on the plane that is about to depart! The sudden implications of being stuck in an airport, 1500 miles from home, with no plane ticket or photo identification begins to dawn on her, but before she can say anything -

"Well, what's your name, hon'?" The attendant types in the young woman's last name. "Here you go - don't worry about it!" And to her great surprise, the young woman is provided with a new boarding pass, printed at the last minute for a flight that is already boarded and minutes from door , although she has shown no proof of who she is or that she has even purchased a ticket.

Two desk agents (one white, the other possibly so) in Texas enthusiastically usher a young woman of color with an Arabic name onboard a flight under such circumstances? Maybe she really does have "an honest face!"

(photo by HSA: Okay!)

Books

2006-12-10T13:08:00.000-08:00

As I'm in the process of moving into a smaller space, the one thing I dreaded most was trimming down my personal library. I love books! I've always loved books! And I clung to this notion of the more books, the better.

This morning it dawned on me that I don't love books anymore. The fluttering in my stomach that occurs when I'm walking past floor-to-ceiling stacks in the library? Not so much about the books.

The good news for me today is that what books contain can be found in many places.

Religious Conversations

2006-12-08T16:47:00.000-08:00

My ideas about religion seem to be changing. It is less and less something I need, and becoming more of a conscious choice. Nearly every day, the DH and I have at least one conversation about religion. He speaks about it from the perspective of one who sees religion as causing more harm than good. The great sin, in his mind, is that people turn over their intellect and submit their reason to a church, a cleric - or any ideology. The mindset of "I don't know what's good for myself, so I'm going to listen to him" gives people permission to accept injustices against others. Of course they will, he says. They've been given the "okay" to do so by a "higher authority." If their President says, "These people need to die so that they can have a better life," they say, "We trust him." If their religious leaders tell them that God hates these people so we need to kill or persecute them, their response is, "Father knows best."

My tendency is to be more forgiving of people with strong religious belief. I look at my parents, for example. They are people of faith, and they do not preoccupy themselves with identifying the hell-bound vs the heaven-bound. They know that there are Muslims who are terrible people and non Muslims who are wonderful people. However, I must admit, that my parents utilize their reason quite a bit. They don't blindly follow others' interpretations of Islam. As a child I frequently heard them say things along the lines of, "Does that make sense?" "God gave us brains so we would think," and "What do you think." They had Muslim friends who went to what they considered extremes - cutting off relations with their own parents because of religion; trying to marry off their teenage daughters and sons "to protect them from sin," and spending all day in prayer instead of getting a job to support their families.

All of this makes me wonder: is a "moderate" or "liberal" religious person one who, ultimately, uses their intellect to decide what is right and wrong from within the parameters of their chosen faith? And if so, is the difference between a moderate religious person and a non-religious person simply a matter of parameters?

(photo by HSA: pier in Lappeeranta. 2006)

Anniversary

2006-12-05T06:17:00.000-08:00

Today is the one year anniversary of meeting my donut husband. Yay! Unfortunately he is in Lappeenranta still, while I'm in Helsinki, but he should be here later tonight.

Since we can't go out to dinner, I'm ordering room service!

(photo by HSA: lifesaver in Finland, 2006)

Prager's Response to Ellison Controversy

2006-12-05T01:39:00.000-08:00

I wrote a brief letter in response to Prager's column. My letter said that I disagreed with his argument, pointed out that his initial column had inaccuracies, and asked who determines what is traditionally American behavior? Not once did I use profanity or resort to name calling. I got a mass response email today. Wow. Just wow. In response, I now have to insult him (a little bit) by borrowing a line from Jake Gittes: "You're dumber than you think I think you are."

The Fountain, and A General Complaint

2006-12-04T06:50:00.000-08:00

Something terrible must be infecting the popular critics of today to make them call The Fountain "out there." What movies have these people been watching?

I went to see The Fountain with expectations of something bizarre and phony. Instead, it is a metaphysical love story/rumination on mortality that stretches the imagination in the way that a film like Hero did. It's a bit of dream-like fantasy mixed so well with familiar reality that our general understanding of human existence seems up for question. This was not a conventional Hollywood movie, but neither was it an Ashes of Time or Last Year in Marienbad, two movies which made a lot of really intelligent people think, "This is brilliant, but someone tell me what the hell is going on!"

On the contrary, The Fountain was very accessible, and Hugh Jackman delivered a very difficult performance (never have I seen a male character cry so much, and in so many scenes). Maybe the problem is that the film did not give any definitive answers. It's a looping, potentially infinite, time-traveling type of movie - and that is one of its strengths. But for critics - presumably educated people - to be "confused" by this makes me wonder about the state of film criticism and education today. It doesn't matter to me if a person doesn't like the movie, but how on earth can you not understand what is happening on the screen (Leslie Felperin of Variety says it is "incoherent")? There were similar complaints about Syriana - some people had a hard time "figuring out" who was who and what was happening when they were watching the movie. I went to see it, thinking I needed to be wide awake and paying strict attention lest I be completely lost. Not so much. I only went to high school for one year and I had no problem following the story. Did I know the whole plot within the first fiften minutes? No, but that's not a requisite for good films.

Well, some critics did seem to appreciate The Fountain. One reviewer, Gabriel Shanks, of ModFab wrote, "I'm happy to report that Aronofsky's labor of love is as gorgeous and emotionally cathartic as you've heard; it is also as overwrought, trite and overbaked. Whether you can accept the naivete of the premise is up to you; this is a film of images and thought, not plot. What is astonishing, however, is its singleminded certainty of its own virtue -- you have to look back to Malick or Kubrick to find an American filmmaker offering up such a challenging vision to a mainstream audience without apology."

I feel about The Fountain the way I did about Gangs of New York. A lot of people hated GoNY because of its over-the-top-ness. I agree that it was messy and a little out of control, but it was also so sincere and passionate that sitting in the theater watching it on a giant screen filled me with some hope for the creative process. We cannot always achieve perfection, but something must be said for breaking free of the box-office-calculating/tested-to-death-by-
audiences style of film-making. The Fountain struck me as more restrained than GoNY, but it's a powerful story that demonstrates a genuine talent.

And its theme was meaningful to me. A movie it reminded me of (also mentioned in Shanks' review) was Soderbergh's Solaris. There is something really exquisite about Solaris, though it also received mixed/bad reviews (often described as "dull" - have any of them watched an Antonioni film?). Maybe it's that it has the intimate feel of a movie that was made by a director who was able to make the film he wanted.

In a nutshell, I'm disappointed by a lot of critics. Maybe their brains are made numb by being forced to review movies like Dumb & Dumber. I take in a goofy comedy or romance once in a while, but I'm not going to waste my time repeatedly writing about them and trying to measure their artistic quality. This is like a food critic having to write about every hot dog and bag of chips they eat. No mortal mind would be able to endure this without injury.

Bad Floors in Lappeenranta

2006-12-04T06:31:00.000-08:00

I'm in Finland, but yesterday I didn't go out much. I left the hotel for a few hours to have tea in a coffee shop, visit a bookstore, and meander.

Unlike the day before, it was quite cloudy. It wasn't too cold - the weather was very much like Portland in the winter: misty drizzle, ten degrees above freezing, and days that never quite open their eyes.

Earlier in the day I'd read Rev. Clyde's latest blog entry and learned a little more about his wife's situation. She is not doing well. I feel love for Rev. Marjorie even though I've never met her. And I am sorry for Rev. Clyde, who I am so fond of. I told my DH the news right away; expressing frustration that this could be happening. He said, "Well, you know, God's a jerk."

This didn't make me feel any better. Not like when I was a kid and, if one of the little ones fell down and started crying, my mother would hold them and say, "Bad floor!" and slap the floor. Little kids loved this. They would stop crying and copy her, "Bad floor. Bad floor!" They would smack the floor a few times, laugh, and go back to playing.

During my afternoon walk I found the Sankarihautausmaa, or Soldier's Cemetery, in the center of town. There are two thousand dead soldiers buried there, from the Winter and Continuation Wars. As a kid I loved visiting cemeteries, looking at the tombs and making up lives for the names etched in stone. Yesterday, however, was a wholly different experience. There was nothing whimsical or imaginary about death. After reading some dozen markers and seeing that all of the men were between 22 and 35 years old, I started crying. Isn't it enough that illness and accidents strike - we have to resort to killing each other, too? What is this? The Finns lost nearly 30,000 soldiers trying to fend off the Russians. Finland today is a country of only five million people. The Russian dead from this four month war was between 300 and 400 thousand soldiers. All sacrificed for greed and someone else's quest for power. We all have to die, but who would volunteer to do so for these reasons?

It was a little bit melancholy for me, yesterday afternoon. Somewhere in the middle of it, it became apparent that I needed to do something. Once, in the company of friends, the DH asked us, "Do you believe you can change the world?" The question deeply flustered me. My answer was somewhere along the lines of, "Well, sure ... in some small way." His next question was, "If you knew you could change the world, would you do it?" Our unanimous answer was, "Of course!" Then he told us that Ghandi knew he could change the world, and "I believe this is why he lived as he did."

(photo by HSA: Top half of Lappee Church in Lappeenranta, Finland. 2006)

Ellison Controversy & Religion in General

2006-12-03T19:17:00.000-08:00

Smijer at Tete-a-Tete and Tariq Nelson - two bloggers I read - have recently written about the controversy over Congressman-elect Keith Ellison's request to take his oath on the Qur'an instead of the Bible.

Columnist Dennis Prager wrote a controversial and inaccurate commentary, stating that Ellison was practicing a dangerous "multicultural activism" that will inspire Muslim extremists everywhere to cheer on America's demise.

What's most disappointing about Prager's article is the comments in response to it. People are so ignorant that it is mind-boggling. One person theorizes that Ellison's campaign was funded by Islamic terrorist organizations; another said he hangs out with gangs; another states that if his wife is Christian, she is clearly not a real Christian as no real Christian woman would marry a Muslim man - the same person says that the Qur'an says you can kill infidels so Ellison is going to kill his wife. And these were only in the first 50 of the 1100+ comments.

I shouldn't read things like that, I know. It only succeeds in raising my blood pressure, and increasing my disappointment in people. I want to have faith in others, I really do. I want to believe that we, as human beings, are capable of living in some modicum of peace and justice, but people seem to cherish their hatred as if it were a comfort.

The DH says that you can always tell what the extreme religious right is up to because they will accuse their "enemies" of it first. So when they accuse Muslims of wanting to turn the United States into a theocracy, they are really speaking of their own intentions. H

I've engaged in enough religious debate to know that some people truly do believe they are part of a religious movement that is going to change the world. That eventually everyone in the world will be subject to their religion's will.

I've talked to people who, if not members of AlQaeda, wanted to be, and I've talked to people who think the Bible is God's affirmation of the white man's superiority over all others (and after the race war, we will all know it!). I've talked to Jews who really do believe they are the chosen people and therefore don't have time to meddle with the rest of us, and atheists who say the only way we'll have peace on earth is to kill all the religious people!

Over and over, I've tried to tell myself that these people were just a minority. I don't know, though. Right now I'm thinking the human capacity to despise and abuse is about equal to our ability to love and respect.

Thoughts on Episcopal Situation

2006-12-03T15:18:00.000-08:00

I read the article about the Episcopalian Diocese in California. (This link was from Will Shetterly's blog, it's all one thing). Shocking. This is one type of thing that makes apparent how removed from God religion can be. I feel very badly for US Episcopalians. What a divisive and difficult time. Will the result emerging from this strife be the creation of a new sect/denomination?

I hope the people affected by this situation take heart in this fact: neither God nor Jesus were Episcopalian.

Question about Soldier Deaths in Iraq

2006-11-16T12:13:00.000-08:00

It seems that whenever I read articles about soldiers dying in Iraq, they have always died fairly immediately after the deadly incident. I have never heard any reports of soldiers dying after suffering from injuries for a while. Am I uninformed about military protocol? For example, is there a delay in the reports from Iraq? Do soldiers lie in hospitals for weeks and only after they have passed, are we told that they were killed when their vehicle hit a roadside bomb? I'm puzzled as to why I've yet to see things explained in that way.

Speaking Engagements

2006-11-15T23:07:00.000-08:00

I finally checked my mail today and found a letter informing me that my proposal for the 26th Annual Lewis & Clark Gender Studies Symposium had been accepted. I wonder if they accept all proposals because the acceptance letter came very quickly. I presented there once before, in 2004, with other students from a class at Marylhurst University. In that case, my professor had submitted the proposal so it was a slightly foreign process to me this time around.

I had to look it up, but the name of the panel session from 2004 was Writing Our Other(ness): Memoir as Response to Intersections of Race and Gender in African-American Autobiography! I'm always amused at how academics have such long explanations for what they're talking about; that one is no exception, and yet it really was a good description of what our papers were about. My piece was called The Title Goes Right Here, because I really didn't know what to call it at the time the proposal went in. I meant to change it later but forgot, and that's how it was printed up.

The title of the piece I'm going to write for this upcoming Symposium is The Only Sane One in the House, and it's a personal essay about how my grandmother, my mother and I have each come to find our "voices" within our families and respective communities.

It will be interesting to check in mid-December to see who I am grouped with for the moderated panel discussion. The major speakers for the Symposium this year are very exciting and I'm looking forward to attending as much of the conference as possible.

**
I'm scheduled to present a sermon at a UU church in Seattle this January, and have been bouncing around ideas for some time now. This is very hard. I've never written a sermon before, and have no interest in being a minister. What's more, this is a congregation I don't know. What do I even have to say to these, particular people? I agreed to do this because it frightened me, and I wanted to do more things that induced fear in me. Now I'm not afraid of being awful or offending anyone - but of being irrelevant. Fortunately, I have a contact from there so I can probably work with him to get a better sense of the congregation's sensibilities.

All of that was to say that I want to write something about voices for that event, too. What does it mean to come to something with your whole heart, for example? How can we stop being afraid? How do we derive our own truths and speak them? I'm not a wise person, or very learned, so I hope I don't come off as telling people what to do. The Sunday I will be delivering this topic is during the weekend of Martin Luther King, Jr's birthday, so it goes without saying that he will be part of the sermon. This whole issue of speaking up, and holding yourself responsible for living in accordance with your beliefs is at the forefront of my mind these days. Well, we shall see.

Taking the Blog in New Directions

2006-11-15T22:33:00.000-08:00

Several months ago I came across the blog of an older, UU gentleman that had the exact same template as my own. It was disconcerting. I can only imagine it must be like meeting someone who has the exact same name as you, but I've never experienced that either. In any case, I felt uncomfortable and decided at that moment that I would switch to a template customized for me.

This became a bigger project than I'd anticipated. Quickly, my plan became to have three blogs - one for film, art and cultural event reviews; one for Never Say Never to Your Traveling Self, and one chronicling my single, city-girl attempts at becoming a homemaker. I followed this path for a while, and ultimately came to the conclusion that it would be easier for me to have just one blog that included all of the above. Would my film reviews really be so separate from my spiritual life? Unlikely. And besides, I'd only confuse myself. I'm attempting to simplify my life right now, so it didn't make sense to have three blogs where one could do as well. My main concern had been that straying too far from spiritual discussion would alienate my handful of readers, but after checking up on what my most popular posts have been, I no longer think this will be an issue.

So ... after my transition to a new host (likely to be DreamHost), I'll be posting on a wider variety of topics. I still want to approach everything I post here from a spiritual perspective, because that is also how I desire to live my life. One of the reasons I blog under my actual name is to keep myself accountable for everything I say here. I can't guarantee my opinions will never change, but whatever I put down in this blog will be true to me at the time I post it.

Not Such a Mixed Bag

2006-11-13T11:44:00.000-08:00

My job is a big source of stress for me recently. I've been severely disillusioned and disheartened by the actions of people I used to respect. Some days I am literally sick from being there.

I'm starting the process of moving in with my sweetheart. It will be a serious transition - especially as there will be four of us living in his house. But I'm looking forward to paring down to the essentials and having less material "noise."

Have started video classes at the community media center. Good stuff. Field lighting class was awesome. Later this month I begin my studio producer certification project.

I love, love, love my women's group. I'm the youngest and the only woman of color, and it is fabulous. I learn so much from these women; it's a real source of support for me. Most of them are/were married and have children (some of them my age). A few of them are even more liberal than I am! I love my girlfriends who are my peers, and I also love spending time with women who, on the outset, I would appear to have little in common with.

I started a health program a few days ago. I am halfway through day 4, and it is going all right. I have to eat six times a day, and consume a lot of these 100-calorie specially formulated meals. It's not bad. This is a healthy way to lose fat (not muscle), and since the meals are so easy to prepare, I don't have to spend so much time or energy wondering what I'm going to cook next and when. I'm really busy right now.

The week after Thanksgiving I'm going to Finland for a week. I need to buy some longjohns and some really warm shoes! I've never been to that part of Europe - I know it will be freezing, but I'm just hoping it's dry. This month Portland has had 590% more rain than last year!

I have many ideas for writing projects; it's very exciting. The upside of all the stress and pain at work is that it's spurred my creativity. I also settled on a topic for the sermon I'm to deliver in January.

Some recent conversations with the DH have helped me clarify what it is that is special about UUism, and in what direction I need to develop my religious values.

All in all, work-related anxieties aside, life is mercifully kind to me. I have so much to be grateful for: loving friends, a supportive and affectionate family, an inspiring and openhearted sweetheart, a debt-free existence, relatively good health, and a bright future. The last few weeks I've been in perilously low moods, but I have faith that what saves me - every day - is gratitude.

Church as Conscience

2006-11-06T22:44:00.000-08:00

The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state. It must be the guide and the critic of the state, and never its tool. If the church does not recapture its prophetic zeal, it will become an irrelevant social club without moral or spiritual authority. If the church does not participate actively in the struggle for peace and for economic and racial justice, it will forfeit the loyalty of millions and cause men everywhere to say that it has atrophied its will. But if the church will free itself from the shackles of a deadening status quo, and, recovering its great historic mission, will speak and act fearlessly and insistently in terms of justice and peace, it will enkindle the imagination of mankind and fire the souls of men, imbuing them with a glowing and ardent love for truth, justice, and peace. Men far and near will know the church as a great fellowship of love that provides light and bread for lonely travelers at midnight.

~Martin Luther King, Jr. from his sermon, "A Knock at Midnight."

BOoo!

2006-11-01T19:03:00.000-08:00

I'm thinking of that scene from The Princess Bride, when Buttercup dreams that on the day she is to be publicly married to Prince Humperdink, an old lady approaches her and starts yelling, "Booo! Boooo to the queen of refuse, to the queen of GARBAGE."

That pretty well sums up how I feel about Micro$oft right now. I am not a programmer. I never wanted to be! I can't get the book Philocrites mentioned just yet in the previous post, and so right now it just feels that in order for me to get my new blog looking right on IE, it will take the rest of my life. This must be why so many people use ready-made themes. But ever since I came across the blog of a man who had the exact same theme that I have for this blog, I just had to make my own! Or at least modify one to be more distinctly my own.

Boooooo! Hoooo hooo hoo.

Oh well.

How can such a popular program $tink so much? I am truly puzzled by this.

Internet Explorer Woes

2006-10-28T11:16:00.000-07:00

I use Firefox as a web browser, with Safari as a back-up. I viewed my new website from a computer utilizing Internet Explorer, and there are some annoying differences. I talked to the DH (a programmer) about it, and he explained that there were websites and forums devoted to coming up with hacks for IE recognition of CSS. But I don't want to have to implement hacks just to get my website to look correct in IE! I don't even use IE. No one should use IE. Everyone should download Mozilla Firefox - it's free. Or Opera, which is good for CSS. Or Netscape (my 2nd back up browser). Or Safari, of course, which comes with Macs.

I asked the DH why the big corporate websites, like imdB, car manufacturers, and movie studios weren't putting pressure on Microsoft to have their IE follow the CSS standard more closely. His opinion was that the people who develop and support those big-time sites get paid to solve these kinds of problems. So they may complain about it, but finding ways to work around problems with Micro$oft software is a significant part of their income stream.

I checked my stats for the last year and 41% of the people who visited my site were on IE. Another 40% were using Mozilla (bless you, people!). Another 10% were Safari and the rest were Netscape, Opera and KDE.

So I think I need to figure out a few hacks. Except that IE 7 is coming out very soon (everyone who upgrades to MS's new operating system) will automatically get IE 7, and the hacks I bother learning to get around the current version of IE might not even work on the IE 7.

M$ $uck$.

*sad face*

Soon: A New Home + Little Things

2006-10-27T02:08:00.000-07:00

My new website and blog will be up this weekend - hooray! I am very pleased with myself seeing as how I knew zero CSS before I attempted to do this. *happy wiggle*

Other things -

1. Watching people fight and be angry on the Internet can be as distressing as watching people fight and be angry in real life.
2. I feel more in conversation with God these days, and more comfortable with asking myself tough questions about what I believe about the nature of goodness, and the ability of people to change, and who or what really controls the universe (if anyone/thing). Sometimes I think I have less faith in people, however. We can be so stupid ... and then there are those who, by virtue of their character and courage, make me believe that God is not out there, but in here.
3. I need to spend more time with my family. I love them very much.
4. Talk of good things and making life better makes me happier than complaints.
5. I am practically addicted to the garlic bread made by the San Francisco Bread Company (and sold by Costco). Toasted with butter/Earth Balance, it is like heaven on a stick - err, minus the stick.
6. Fireplaces are a real blessing.
7. Gandhi believed he could change the world. What do you believe about yourself?

Added: I didn't see this or my last (now deleted) post in UUpdates - is anyone else seeing it in UUpdates?

Samson

2006-10-08T15:46:00.000-07:00

I just read the wikipedia file on the Biblical figure, Samson. All I can really say about it is, WHAT?!

One Thing Leads to Another ...

2006-10-02T22:34:00.000-07:00

Last night the DH and I were talking about ...

Fiona Apple ...
Fiona with Quentin Tarantino in the upcoming Sundance Channel series Iconoclasts ...
Google-ing Fiona photos ...
The questionable, alleged "similarities" between Fiona, Regina (Spektor) and Tori Amos ...
Appreciating Regina's thick and distinctly Eastern European features ...
What is Regina's vocal range? Fiona's? ...
Loving on Joni Mitchell ...
Who has the highest octave range? ...
Impressive female sopranos ...
Joanna Newsom comes up on a Regina vocal range google search ...
Raging online controversy: is Joanna a bewitching Appalachian elf - or shrieking demon cat? ...
Sampling Joanna on iTunes ...
We are terrified and horror-stricken ...
Online Joanna lovers insist she must be given a chance ...
We torture ourselves into giggles by listening to her creepy-ass voice ...
Increasing the bass on the speakers helps ...
Her voice isn't so bad, I say ...
DH says the lyrics of Book of Right-On are "quirky" ....
I buy Joanna's album, The Milk-Eyed Mender ...
DH says he'll listen to it ...
Customers who purchased Joanna Newsom also liked ...
CocoRosie ...
One of the best iMixes ever: Harry Potter for Indie Rockers: A Tutorial.

What's so wrong with Attention Deficit "Disorder?"

(Image: Regina Spektor)

Cult of Positivity

2006-09-14T22:33:00.000-07:00

I turned 30 years old this week and it truly feels like a new phase of life. On the GeoQuiz podcast for Monday, I learned that September 11 is New Year's Day in Ethiopia. According to the GeoQuiz site, "It's a day to dance and sing and rejoice at the arrival of mild weather and a green spring. It's said that this day has been celebrated every year since the Queen of Sheba returned home after visiting King Solomon in Jerusalem."

I like thinking of September 11 as New Year's Day and so from now on I will.

I've been a little absent recently, I know, but my time away has been (mostly) well-spent. I've been on a real self-help kick, assessing where I'm at and what I need to do to live a more challenging, rewarding and productive life. I have thought and thought and thought and thought, and now it's clear to me that there's nothing to do but the doing (or however that goes). Oh, and that attitude is everything.

If you have sound, check out this inspiring story from National Public Radio about twin, violinist brothers in Brazil who, with the support and encouragement of their parents, breached all kinds of odds.

Exiles

2006-09-03T17:13:00.000-07:00

Surely, it is an irony that the Miami-Dade School Board, motivated by the interests of Cuban exiles who despise the post-Batista government, is attempting to ban a 32-page children's book titled "Vamos a Cuba." Why? Because its description of Cuba is too "positive." The book is part of a series designed to introduce kindergarten through 2nd grade students to other countries of the world.

Miami Herald article.

The Angel of Death

2006-08-27T16:05:00.000-07:00

Growing up I read many old, Islamic tales of dubious origin about the Angel of Death, who, long ago, used to come upon people in a familiar-like manner. Nowadays of course, when the Angel of Death comes, you don't even see him. You're minding your own business jaywalking cross the street when out of nowhere a Coca Cola delivery truck mows you down. But back in the days of yore, when God glanced at his Giant Dayplanner and recalled that this was your last day on earth, he'd send the Angel of Death, named Izra'il, to you. Izra'il, a mighty creation made of pure light, and therefore too tremendous for our human minds to comprehend, would approach you in the form of a man. And he would say to you, "Your time is up," and then remove your soul from your body. No sneaking up on a person and taking them by surprise.

Naturally, many people would resist, debate or argue with the Angel of Death as soon as they saw him. "Give me time to settle my accounts/make arrangements for my family" was a common refrain, at least among men. There is that famous story of the wealthy man who bumped into the Angel of Death in the marketplace, and begged a short stay of Izra'il's purpose on the pretence of readying his estate, but instead bought a flying carpet and made himself off to Damascus (or some such place). Upon arriving there he was quivering with relief and quite pleased at his quick thinking. Meanwhile, Izra'il mentions to a dinner companion that he'd been startled to see the rich man in the marketplace that afternoon, as he had orders to take his soul in Damascus the next morning. The moral, of course, is: Don't bother trying to reschedule your appointed time; God does not use a pencil.

As you're probably well aware, many years ago Izra'il pretty much stopped making his presence known at the time of soul-taking. I don't know the official story, but my dad used to say it was because the Angel of Death went to God with a complaint about all the harassment he got from people who didn't want to die. While he was accustomed to dealing with aggravated individuals, the last straw apparently came when he got punched in the face by Moses. God agreed that enough was enough, and rescinded the courtesy of Izra'il making himself known to healthy bodies.

If the Angel of Death came to me tonight, I'd be acutely dissatisfied with my life's accomplishments. More than that, I'd be embarrassed for all my unrecycled mail piled up in the Den, not to mention the layer of dust up top my kitchen cabinets. I'd need a lot longer than a day to get my affairs in order.

Does the World Grow Larger or Smaller?

2006-08-27T15:32:00.000-07:00

The question on my mind today is this: can I expect my personal world to grow larger or smaller? Of course, when we're small children those things that occupy our thoughts are limited in scope. The first I recall having any significant thoughts about people who were neither characters in media/books nor folks I had some interactions with, I was eight years old and in the third grade. As I aged, naturally my thoughts progressed further to imagine, examine, inquire into, and feel empathy towards many sorts of things beyond the tiny radius of my even tinier existence.

Over the years I've heard the occasional adult - much older than me in every case - remark that they purposefully restricted both their number of friends and their sources of information. To them it seemed that being young meant exploring options and going out into the world, and getting older meant having made most of one's choices and coming home to live with them.

What I'm wondering today is whether this will happen to me? Is it inevitable that I stop seeking and searching after a point, or is that, too, a choice?

What does this mean for my life? Will I stop the effort of trying to make new friends just for the sake of having them, or on the hope that they'll bring something new and necessary to my existence? Is this why, for example, the young adult group doesn't interest me so much anymore - I have made my friends, and established my life (to some degree), and it just takes so much energy to always be meeting new people, and adjusting myself to them, and trying to make them feel good about themselves? Is this why the blogosphere, with its 100 million voices and ten times as many conversations, doesn't entice me so much as sitting with my eyes closed in my bedroom, with the shades half drawn on a hot day, listening to the chipmunks counsel each other in my yard?

Something is happening to me. Things that used to interest me don't. I want less of so many things and more of just a few others, and it doesn't matter too much to me what anyone thinks. Not too much.

A Secret Reservoir of Courage

2006-08-17T23:59:00.000-07:00

This seems to be the season for birthday parties, weekend day-trips and walking the long way home. I've been having a hard time keeping up with all the discussions going on lately, but I'm enjoying what I can. Finished reading The Things They Carried, and I would recommend this to anyone. Still reading Etty Hillesum's journals; reading her words is like looking into a mirror sometimes. I want to know where she goes, spiritually.

These days I'm living less in my head. My feelings about this are mixed. Once in a while I'm not sure I even recognize this irreverent, uncomplicated person.

Health means so much. I've been to a lot of doctors recently and have more to see in the coming months. Almost daily I ask myself, how can people live without health insurance? And why does the medical system seem like a scam?

People are talking about summer like it's ending, but for me it can't be yet. It's only mid-August; summer doesn't end here till end of September, weather-wise. Still so much to do: outdoor concerts, the corn maze, picking peaches, clearing the yard, a visit to Mt. Hood's Trillium Lake, that yet undone Spring (?) Cleaning .... And in September I have my big 3-0 birthday party, a weekend in Las Vegas, and a trip to North Carolina. There's barely enough time for everything.

Recent, real life conversations have revolved around: the death penalty, the legal system, the devastating book Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, ending friendships, getting second opinions, real estate, being fearless, Stan Lee's reality show, illogical op-ed pieces. The DH is urging me toward artistic pursuits, and I am tentative. There are still no words, but I'm beginning to wonder if that isn't the best time to be creative - when there are no words.

Every day I've thought about the-God-I-don't-believe-in, trying to understand what my feelings are about him, and why I talk about him like he's real. After many weeks or months of considering this, an image quite suddenly came to mind tonight: a profile of myself facing an opaque gap of nothing, talking to an empty space. Maybe there could be an echo, but mostly it is silence. Mine is the only voice. In this image, I see myself raise a hand toward this shapelessness, although I expect nothing. Nothing happens. After several long moments, I bring the hand back. But I don't feel alone, bereft or afraid. Sometimes I'm even looking away, still talking to it. There is nothing there.

At this moment, that is all I have to say about God. And - seemingly unrelated - my favorite passage from On the Rainy River, a chapter of Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried.

All of us, I suppose, like to believe that in a moral emergency we will behave like the heroes of our youth, bravely and forthrightly, without thought of personal loss or discredit .... If the stakes ever became high enough - if the evil were evil enough, if the good were good enough - I would simply tap a secret reservoir of courage that had been accumulating inside me over the years. Courage, I seemed to think, comes to us in finite quantities, like an inheritance, and by being frugal and stashing it away and letting it earn interest, we steadily increase our moral capital in preparation for that day when the account must be drawn down. It was a comforting theory. It dispensed with all those bothersome little acts of daily courage; it offered hope and grace to the repetitive coward; it justified the past while amortizing the future.

(photo by HSA: from May 2006, Elk Reserve near Reedsport on the Oregon Coast.)

Looking for Love?

2006-08-08T23:28:00.000-07:00

Reading Peacebang's dating-related post on Men Not Marrying prompted me to reflect on how I ended up with my sweetheart.

After 29 years, I finally found someone and I know for a fact that I'd never have chosen him for myself had I met him through my typical dating channels. Let me count the many ways he would have failed the Hafidha Compatability Test.

Age
First of all, he is younger than I am - not by one or two years, but by four (okay, sometimes five) years! Everyone knows men don't mature as quickly as women do! When you're in your 30s or 40s, five years is nothing, but when you're in your 20s? Come on! That's just asking for trouble. Men in their 20s are too busy getting drunk with their buddies to be interested in a committed relationship. Right? (Note: eHarmony would never have matched us up because of our age difference.)

Totally Not Chic Location
Problem Number Two: He lives in a suburb that is 35 minutes away from my house by car, and I don't own a vehicle. Logistically, how could I date someone like that? During my online personal ad searches, I immediately nixed any guy living in his neck of the woods, for a) not having the urban sensibility to live in Portland proper, b) residing in a town that has a gun store and feed store within 1/4 mile of it's "Welcome to" sign, and c) blissfully residing in a cardboard cut-out house in a neighborhood that has no public transportation! Of course, I had no way of knowing that my sweetie would enthusiastically drive to my house three and four nights a week to take me out. It was only six months later, after I happened to declare, "I love driving!" that he sheepishly confessed, "I really don't."

Uneducated
Oh yes. And he's never been to college. In fact, he never even graduated high school. (Note: I didn't graduate high school, either, but have been to college.) While I made an exception for myself and other home/unschooled people who I knew to be intelligent, everyone else had to be formally educated because that's how you measure brains and success in the world.

And if I don't sound like a total brat just yet, let's move on to the multitude of more personal prejudices:

While he is actually of Asian and Mexican descent, from the looks of him, most people would assume he is "just" East Asian. I had an internalized racist belief that East Asian men simply weren't interested in dating black/latina girls. I had bought into lots of stereotypes about Asians being prejudiced against black folks, and decided to protect myself by being wary of dating them. By the way, I should mention that I call this a prejudice in large part because it defied evidence to the contrary. Fact A: I was engaged to an Asian man 10 years ago. Fact B: Prior to him, another Asian man asked me to marry him. Most Pathetic Fact C: in online personal ads, I would often get responses from Asian men, but I'd ignore them because they were too "nerdy."

Additional stupid reasons I would have rejected the man I now love:

1) He is a computer programmer. That, and being half-Asian, immediately made him "too boring, geeky and square" for creative and imaginative, romantic and fabulous ME.
2) His favorite musicians: Tori Amos, Tool, Rage Against the Machine, Nine Inch Nails, Fiona Apple? I would have summed up all of this as "screaming music." (Note: Tori Amos really is good.)
3) His favorite movies are way too low brow and ridiculous for my art-house film sensibilities. He likes science fiction, anime and bad horror movies. I subscribed to Film Comment and American Cinematographer for years, and still read Film-Philosophy. He actually wanted to see Nacho Libre. He cannot wait for Snakes on a Plane. I could wait. I could wait forever.
4) His diet is terrible. I think it's important to eat healthy foods, buy organic, not cook with sugar, and make food from whole ingredients. When I asked him how he got to be so tall despite having short(er) parents, his response was, "Bovine Growth Hormones" from the fast food patties he's devoured all his life. Note to all: I will never eat anything called a "patty." This is worse than fruit "drink" and cheese "product."
5) I am interested in anti-racism and social justice. He's interested in intellectual property laws, and racial humor!

I would have read into any and all of these things as the death knell for Any Possible Hope of a Life Together. Being the deep and thoughtful person that I was, I knew these things were important. In fact, I was so deep, I could read hearts and predict the future.

Like every other single woman, I'd heard the same, tired cliches: "It'll happen when you're not looking." "When you least expect it." "You're just not ready yet; the universe will let you know," (that is the worst). These are annoying-to-hear-even-if-they-are-true. But you know, the reason I would never have found him had I been looking was because I was never looking for him. If I had come across his personal ad - or seen him on the street - there is little chance I'd have given him more than a moment's notice. Why was I so picky? I'm not sure. It's easier to be picky than to fail?

Fortunately, it was my mother who set us up, and she happened to do so during a week in which I had absolutely zero pride. Self-respect, yes (always), but I had recently been humbled by unrequited adoration. When I went out with the DH for the first time, I had no expectations. I'd often tried to not have expectations, but this was one of the few times it actually happened.

Despite our differences, it's hard for me to imagine anyone could love me more or as well as my DH does. We talk with each other about the things we care about (though I do sometimes zone out when he's talking database theory). We learn from and encourage each other. What happens with us remains to be seen, but what holds us together has a lot less to do with appearance, income, education, race, age, occupation, hobbies, and location than I expected. These are the things we may use to identify ourselves, but I believe they cannot be the basis for identifying who will love you or who you will love. For us, the things we have in common are things that are - to use a role-playing term - "Soulbound." A passion for analysis, a history of unconventional schooling, a love of books, a tempered admiration for academia, excitement for ideas that are outside the box, a generous attitude about money, socialistic tendencies, appreciation of the arts, a deep need to laugh and communicate, a loving and supportive family life, and very few "scars" from past romantic experiences. And so many other things. Most importantly, at this moment, his way of being and my way of being happen to be congruous - that mysterious chemistry!

Had I known last year what I know now, I'd have put all of that in a personal ad, but I doubt it would have made any difference. I'd have deleted his email or tossed his phone number as soon as dude told me that he ate Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, or was a fan of the Muppets, or sent me a goofy photo of himself (Me: "Stop squinting!" Him: "I'm not squinting; I'm Asian!"). Oh yes; because I knew exactly what I was looking for.

He jokes that our pairing is "proof of intelligent design." Well, I don't know, but it certainly wasn't my idea.

(Note: This post was approved by the doughnut husband.)

Claiming Beliefs

2006-08-06T20:59:00.000-07:00

One of the reasons I left Islam was because there were important beliefs within it to which I could not say, "I hold this to be true."

It's my opinion that I need to be this way about all things. Now, I try not to get into partisan politics, because I think it's generally just a way to divide people with common interests (kind of like racism), but I just read the Oregon Republican Party platform, and, while there are some items that I would say are reasonable and that I agree with, there are a lot of parts that strike me as illogical, appealing to a particular "special interest" group, and self-contradicting. I read the Texas Republican Party platform recently, and it's quite similar.

The Oregon Republican Party came into news recently because last month it passed a resolution (without debate) that would deny citizenship to US-born children of legal and illegal immigrants who were not citizens.

Is this what Republicans believe? Do they hold these points to be true? Or is this just something on paper that people kind of believe, maybe (kind of like the idea of that everyone will go to Hell except those who accept their God) but wouldn't really want to claim in public?

A few highlights that gave me cause for concern.

First of all ... from the section on Crime and Punishment -

Oregon has a rich heritage crafted by our pioneer founders to include progress, liberty, and freedom under God.
[Whose Oregon are they talking about? Surely, this is not the same Oregon that had dozens of racial exclusion laws, such as the one that promised 600 acres to every married man and woman who came to homestead - unless they were black. What offends me about things like this is that they are dismissive, exclusionary, and false.]

From The Preamble
We honor such, as well as believe in equal justice, rights, and opportunity for ALL.
[See all notes about "homosexuals" below.)

We believe that free enterprise and individual initiative have brought this nation the opportunity, economic growth and prosperity that we currently enjoy.
[Again ... not representative of reality ... dismissive, exclusionary, and false.]

Family Protection
We recognize that there is a severe attack upon the traditional family unit. Therefore we wish to define what we are referring to when we say "family". A family is brought into existence when one man and one woman join in matrimony and includes children (if any) brought into that family. We also recognize the difficulties faced by single parent families. We support and encourage these individuals.

We do not consider so-called “same sex marriage” to be “marriage” nor so-called “civil unions” to have any equivalency nor right to legal standing. Nor do we believe so-called “same sex marriage” or so-called “civil unions” worthy of legal standing for adoption or parenting purposes.

We believe government intervention in matters regarding the family should be kept to an absolute minimum. However, we recognize circumstances under which the government must intervene to protect the physical or mental well-being of individuals.

Individual Rights
1.1. We believe all authority flows from The Creator to the parent and family. Parents have the inalienable right as well as the responsibility to form the character of their children, including but not limited to, correction, religious instruction and expression, general values and education. We believe it is the role of the parent and family to direct topics of education in sexual matters, sex related diseases, birth control, ethics and moral values. Governmental or public agencies shall obtain parental permission before discussing sex-related subjects with minor age children.

1.13. We believe that it is an inalienable God-given right of a child to have a loving, permanent family of his or her own. We support adoption as a loving solution to unwanted pregnancies and encourage streamlining of the adoption process.

[But wait!]

1.19. We oppose the Children and Families Division practice of adoption and foster parenting by homosexuals as a moral transgression against the child.

1.30. Tax dollars are a precious resource of government. We oppose the use of revenues to fund programs which promote homosexuality. We believe all forms of homosexuality and the so-called homosexual agenda are morally wrong and damaging to society in the long term. We believe that the practice of homosexuality is a matter of personal choice; and efforts to teach, promote or present homosexuality in public schools are inappropriate. Laws which grant minority status, create special consideration or protection based upon a behavior are equally inappropriate and thus opposed.

1.31. Laws promoting, condoning or establishing legal status for same-sex marriages or establishing benefits normally attributed to heterosexual marriages shall be opposed. We support the exclusion of homosexuals from the military service in order to maintain an effective fighting force and preserving the morale and dignity of the Armed Forces.

[How ironic that all of these are listed under "Individual Rights."]

Education
Republican Assumptions For the Rebuilding of a Sound Educational System

Authority: All authority flows from our Creator and is delegated to parents who may in turn delegate, at their discretion, education to a professional educator.

Economic: Education is a matter of choice, the more diversified the choice, the greater the chance for a thriving competitive marketplace of ideas ensuring excellence in education.

Morals: Inculcation of United States of America cultural values including natural law and Judeo-Christian values must be basic to curriculum, legislation and institutional policy.

2.5.c. Science shall include scientific creationism.

2.5.d. U.S. History shall include a thorough mandatory study of the U.S. Constitution, and the inclusion of our religious heritage. Emphasis should be placed on teaching from original historical documents and quotes of historical figures not just editorialized commentaries about those events or figures.

2.9. Mindful of our country's rich Judeo-Christian heritage, we believe that this heritage, this culture, should be given its just and rightful place in our public educational establishments. 76% of all Americans are of Christian persuasion and should have, at least, equal representation.

2.9.a. When a curriculum of multiculturalism and diversity is presented, we believe that Judeo-Christian American Culture should be included, truthful and historically (not re-written history) along with the myriad of other cultures that are being presented.

2.12. We support the abolition of the United States Department of Education and the Oregon Department of Education. Education is best administered at the local level.

2.18.c. The government should permit public schools to be independent of school districts

2.24. The Ten Commandments are recognized as accepted by the people of Judeo-Christian faith as well as many other faiths. They are as much a part of our moral values and civil law as they are part of any specific church or religious doctrine. Therefore the Republican Party believes the Ten Commandments should be on display along with other great documents of our society wherever appropriate in schools, courtrooms, and public places. We support the public display of the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, Bill of Rights and the Pledge of Allegiance in our public schools.

Health Care
[3.14. Republicans oppose:]

3.14.h. any interference of state government in the pricing or provision of medical goods and services;
3.14.i. any mandated insurance coverage such as forcing companies to offer mental health benefits or forcing continued coverage when an employee changes jobs. Medical savings accounts provide individually selected forms of medical care and complete portability and eliminate the need and justification for misguided and counterproductive collectivist mandates.

3.16. Barry Goldwater, explaining his vote against "Medicare" (Senate, 1960): "We have learned that socialism can be sneaked over, against the wishes of the majority, through the simple device of expropriation by taxation and the creation of an all-embracing welfare program which effectively robs the individual of all control over his more basic and fundamental human freedoms and the right to regulate his own personal affairs as he may see fit."

3.20. We support a "cap" on medical malpractice claims to help reduce the cost of medical care in Oregon.

3.21. We reaffirm our conviction that life begins at conception and ends at death, that any deliberate taking of an innocent human life between these two events amounts to killing. The Oregon Republican party reaffirms and applauds President Ronald Wilson Reagan's Personhood Proclamation of January 14, 1988 in which he declares: "the inalienable personhood of every American from the moment of conception until death." We further urge the Congress of the United States to use the powers granted to them by the United States Constitution to enforce this proclamation.
[I do not like abortion, but what evidence do they have that "life" begins at conception? The same evidence of "scientific" creationism?]

4.33. We strongly support actions based on environmental science. We oppose political environmentalism which only serves to reduce the rights and privileges of people and expands the role of government.

4.35. The Endangered Species Act should not be used to prevent beneficial use of our waters.
[Could this be more vague?]

4.43. Minimum building density should not be mandated by governmental agencies.
[Who should it be mandated by? No one?]

And there is more ... but I do not have the space here to go into all of it.

You see, I don't mind that these things are in here. It's good to know what Republicans in Oregon actually believe. My question is, to each and every Republican in Oregon, are these the things that you actually believe? The resolution passed last month is drawing negative attention to the Republican Gubernatorial candidate, Ron Saxton, and he is distancing himself from the resolution. But it seems that it's only because he needs the Russian and Hispanic vote. Even ultra-conservative Kevin Mannix is saying it's dumb - not because it's unconstitutional - but because it makes the Republicans look bad to moderates, and it's not a smart political move to pass resolutions "against babies."

Other Ways

2006-08-06T20:42:00.000-07:00

Today at his blog, Rev. Thom Belote posted his sermon, Universalism Today & Tomorrow: What I Learned from the feminist Muslims, and it got me thinking again about what is going on in the Middle East right now and how I feel about it as a former Muslim who is American. On the one hand, there are good reasons I chose to leave Islam, and on the other hand I feel extremely uncomfortable with many of the things being said about Muslims, such as this posting at Shadow of Diogenes that really shocked me, seeing as how it's coming from another UU. (My response to it was petty; I don't really have any excuse for myself. And note: SoD replied to me privately to say he was talking about the terroristic Muslims).

In any case, the whole thing just makes me feel conflicted. The familiar arguments for the hijab recounted in Rev. Thom's sermon reminded me of my old life, and I appreciate this point he made: that in talking with four feminist Muslim women, he was confronted with a religion that "answered questions about life in society very, very differently than I answered those questions," and yet also "encouraged equality and wanted justice."

Despite having supposedly crossed to "the other side" in terms of conservatism vs. liberalism, I am wary of non-Muslims who criticize Muslims seemingly to no end. Maybe it's because they always seem to be the same types of people, who criticize not just Muslims as a whole, but a number of other identities that I've claimed, relentlessly propogating what they want: their vision of the world, their solutions to what they've deemed are the problems, and ultimately the right to remain the decision-makers over other people.

Sometimes it seems that the number of people who genuinely believe in tolerance and plurality is like, 12. But that's just my waning faith talking. It will surge back tomorrow.

The Worship Show

2006-08-03T16:53:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking a lot about the recent, online, post-General Assembly discussions surrounding UU worship and cultural appropriation. As a side note, I saw very little (possibly zero) public commentary from UU people of color.

A few weeks prior to GA, a friend of mine - who participated in the closing ceremony - called to ask my thoughts about the planned use of a South African "freedom" or anti-apartheid song. I believe my first question for him was something along the lines of, "Why?"

Eventually, I told him that so long as credit was given, the meaning was shared, yadda yadda, it was oh-kay. But not before asking him again, "Why?" And yet it was something of a useless question. He wasn't planning the worship, and it seemed to me - perhaps I assumed too much?- that whoever was planning the worship wasn't asking IF they should use the song, but how to make the use of the song acceptable.

The larger question my friend could not answer for me was, what was the relationship of the song to the worship service and the worshippers? That speaks to a larger concern I have about UU worships in general. What I've seen is worships put together in the way one would put together a skit or play or musical production. Sometimes I confusedly wonder, is this worship - or is this entertainment? Let's see ... the congregants enter a big room containing a stage; they are handed programs by ushers; they sit down quietly to wait for the show to begin. And at my church, at least, the worship proceeds like a scripted performance.

Well, as I told my friend on the phone, when worship is comprised of predetermined slots to fill, it is inevitable that well-intentioned planners will say, "Hey! I know a great [insert "ethnic" programmatic piece] that would fit in perfectly there!"

And of course, as I mentioned to another, very excellent friend of mine more recently - even when the worship planner does have a personal relationship to a piece of "programming," our audiences - ahem, congregants - may not necessarily share that experience of respect and/or collaboration. Glaring example: the long conga line that formed at the end of closing ceremony. The African song played was beautiful and rousing, and immediately I wanted to stand up and clap. I felt uneasy and annoyed not knowing what the lyrics meant (I missed the first part of the service so perhaps it was explained then), but I stood up nonetheless and clapped. However my joy was completely overtaken by dismay when I saw the audience's reaction. What I felt from the crowd was not a vibe of "We shall overcome!" or even "We are one people!" but one that looked like, "All right! African music is on, permission to PAAAAAAR-TAY." I saw lots of wiggling butts. I saw people bumping hips like it was a 1970s disco event. Then there was the mortifying embarrassment of the conga line. In these moments it was completely irrelevant what the relationship between the song and the music-choosers might have been. And at that point I just sighed and cringed inside because I knew that a spate of conversations and reprimands would ensue, all resulting in a lot of (mostly white) people still not understanding that horrible sinking feeling that I had felt; and asking themselves how on earth those black/brown folks can think some music is theirs.

But anyway. That cultural appropration is a recurring issue in our community doesn't surprise me at all because I tend to experience our worships as being more about performance, than spirit or love. This isn't to say that the people who put them together aren't acting out of spirit or love, but the final product is often lesser than the parts. And this kind of 'presentation' creates a HUGE opportunity for cultural and religious goofs, gaffes and offenses. Is this because we're tied to formats? Because we're unsure of our spiritual heritage and traditions? I don't know. I attend church to be in relationship with my fellow church members and to keep up on the church news. I do not actually worship anything when I am there.

Another note about my biases: I personally loathe to plan worships. You must know that I have never known Muslims to "plan" worships; we got together and we prayed, basta! Earlier this year I had no choice but to plan worships during an anti-racism conference I co-faciliated. Now, I'm a strong believer in spirituality, but I hate the idea of telling people that it's time to feel holy now. My co-trainer, Toph, felt the same way I did, yet we managed to put together two very decent worships, one of which actually made me cry. But what?! We didn't do anything! The youth and the sponsors present brought their spirits into that space and made it powerful and worshipful. I was in awe that first night - of them and the community they created. I do not think we would have had the same conference without that.

I also remember Toph and I fretting about the "services" initially, and we half-jokingly said, "Hey, if we can plan a 15-hour conference, we can plan a worship, right?" !!! Exactly. Not.

Got to Wake Up!

2006-07-20T19:53:00.000-07:00

The other day I wrote about being bored by some UU sermons and speeches, describing them as "carefully selected ... community wallpaper." Today, Lively Tradition published a blog post that identified exactly the problem that I have with all these "words." It isn't the words themselves, but what the words are not saying. After relating the tendency of UU worships to be places of "refuge" from the rest of the world, LT offers the notion of "preaching for a decision," a phrase ze* picked up from Methodist co-seminarians.

Instead of using the language of refuge and comfort, we might want to
use the language of decision and commitment. Every week, we are preaching
toward a decision, that individuals will commit themselves, maybe for the first
time, and maybe for the 100th time, to live out their sense of the most ultimate
next week.

God bless LT. When I've written before about "Reader's Digest" sermons, it's been with a sense of puzzled frustration because what was being said was nice and true, but often lacking in a direct challenge to my own spirit. Quite honestly, the only sermons and speeches I ever remember are the ones that have either exposed me to an entirely new idea, or have passionately called on me to stretch myself into new territories. I'm naturally inclined towards complacency; I'm counting on my faith community to help me from that.
Read the rest of Lively Tradition's post, Mission and Worship.

*Ze is a gender neutral pronoun.

Follow Up to Meat-Eating and Spiritual Practice

2006-07-15T10:56:00.000-07:00

It's been a little over a month since I determined to stop eating factory farmed meat in this post. It has not been difficult at all. Only once have I strayed, and that was unintentional. At the UU bloggers' dinner I ordered moros y cristianos (beans and rice) and it contained little bits of bacon. I had thought they were over/under cooked pieces of rice until I really paid attention.

But overall the change has been very easy. A few times I've been tempted, but never seriously. As a result I've been eating a lot more shrimp, fish and mushrooms as they are the common protein- rich alternatives to meat on restaurant menus. (I keep my intake of soy to a minimum because it often disagrees with me).

The switch to free-range, hormone-free, vegetarian fed meat has been so uneventful that I feel compelled to stretch more. It doesn't seem right to avoid the steak and then eat the french fries brushed with animal fat - fat that I'm pretty certain came from a factory farmed animal. So I want to lean more toward the way I used to be - avoiding all food and goods with dead animal by-products unless I know how the animal was treated. This requires more vigilance when purchasing goods that contain things like gelatin, pectin, tallow, and rennet. From experience I know this is a lot more challenging. Although I already purchase "cruelty-free" skin care products, I might need to switch shampoos, and definitely need to find an alternative to my dryer sheets. This also means eating out a lot less and avoiding many refined and boxed foods. Worst of all, I don't get that gorgeous, leather, Hobo International handbag I saw in an airport store on the way to GA and am still coveting!

People's responses when they find out about the distinction I'm making between factory farmed meat and free-range, etc. meat has been positive across the board. Of course, I live in Portland, Oregon where organic, free-range, hormone-free, etc. products are so prevalent that even those who don't seek them know what they are.

The experience has helped me to realized that committing to something as a spiritual practice is not the same thing as committing to something for any other reason. This is why it's not been hard to resist factory farmed meat. This is why I used to be able to fast as a child and adolescent with relative ease compared to skipping more than two meals in a row as an adult. A spiritual practice enriches, whereas "diets" are about what we aren't allowed to have.

So naturally, I'm trying to devise an argument of spiritual discipline to present to myself that will cause me to lose weight. If I can be convinced that to eat less and exercise regularly is a spiritual imperative, that will be better than trying to ignore that tasty, buttery croissant "just" because it will make me fat(ter). The most difficult part is changing the motivating factor. When I chose not to eat factory farmed meat, I was inspired by a desire to express my compassion for other animals in a very real way. There was nothing in it for me, per se. Losing weight has a great deal of obvious benefit to me, so it's hard not to keep going back to "fitting into my clothes better!" as a motivation. And such a reason isn't enough, I've found, to help me stay the weight I want to be. Because that reason is all about me, just like gobbling up food when I'm already full is all about me.

Last summer I weighed 30 pounds less than I do now, and I have a handsome, brilliant, donut husband who loves me, deeper friendships, less debt and a generally better life. I have no God to please and no health problems related to my size. What does what I look like have to do with the rest of the world? The answer is nothing.

Gradually, an argument and approach to more healthful eating habits have been formulating in my mind. I am forcing myself to turn away from the idea of how I look to face instead the reality of how I live in relation to others. When I cannot refute it - in the way I could not refute some of the arguments pertaining to factory farmed meat - I will commit to it. For the time being, I will leave on this anticipatory note from the Sahih Bukhari (a collection of Islamic traditions:

There was a companion of the Prophet Muhammad named Ibn Omar, who never took a meal unless a poor person was eating with him.

Can't Speak

2006-07-13T18:04:00.000-07:00

A professor of mine once related in class a definition of sublime: That (experience) which cannot be articulated.

Sometimes I become melancholy when I sense the weight of things we cannot say to each other. Words can't express it. Everywhere I go it seems people are trying to explain, trying to explain themselves to each other. Sometimes I strive to be known, but that's not what I really want. I really want you to hold me up - to have you accept that on any given day I am grappling with this or that crucial thing. I suppose you need that from me, too.

One of the things on my mind the last few days is words, and how much we fall in love with them. I got a little restless about some UU sermons, speeches, summaries and responses during and about General Assembly because they felt so predictable. I've not been a UU for long and yet already I found myself falling right in, repeating some of the same, pleasant buzzwords and phrases. These highly literate, carefully selected words were not dispensed insincerely by any means, they were just ... a kind of community wallpaper. I did experience brief flashes of boredom.

Well, I didn't become a UU to be bored.

So I need to feel my way around a bit. Figure out why I'm appreciative but restless. Revolt for a while against pretty words and pretty writing and the whole pretty-nice aesthetic. The community isn't the only body that needs to take more chances.

******
Yesterday, the DH was geeking out about some video game compression technique, and it dawned on me that his speech and mannerisms were changing right before my eyes. I have never seen him when he is fully geeked out, but he was reaching for that place. There was a moment of terror within me - I didn't want him to be SO "out there." I wanted him to stay right with me on the inner rim of social normality. I wanted to bolt him down. The feeling passed. Today I thought on it some more. He needs to be able to unveil and construct himself without fear of what I would think. I can't be worried when he downloads Pat Buchanan speeches and says, "I actually agreed with him on a lot of things ...." No, I have to be curious and engaged; to find out what I had not guessed at before. It has to be okay with me that those to whom I have attached myself are still free.

It's so easy to fall into patterns. They are useful abbreviations when we don't have the time, energy or ability to explain ourselves, but they are not the way of living.

Stranger Fears

2006-07-13T10:40:00.000-07:00

Earlier this week:

When I sat next to him I noticed he had a can of Coke between his legs, and in his hand was a paper bag. It was 6 o'clock in the afternoon and already he smelled like whiskey. I felt a little uneasy. Few things make me more nervous than a strange, drunken man. But we were on a crowded bus, in the broad daylight, so what could happen?

For a few minutes we were both silent. I was listening to an iPod Nano, which hung from its lanyard around my neck. From the corner of my eye, I could see him take quick peeks at me. I thought to myself, "Oh boy, what's his problem?" Then - suddenly - he was speaking to me. I looked at him and he repeated what he'd said. "Is that an iPod?" I nodded. "Do you think maybe I could listen to it? I've never heard one of those before." I blinked at him a few times. My first thought was that sharing earplugs with a total stranger was unsanitary. My response, however, was baffling: "But the earplugs are in my ears."

He said softly, "Oh, okay. Some other time then, that's cool." I nodded. Then I realized how foolish my words must have sounded to him. "But the earplugs are in my ears"? How could he possibly interpret that? The bus continued to move. My head felt like it was burning. He seemed polite, but he was taking another swig of his whiskey and following it up with a sip of Coke right on a public bus! He was clean, around my age, fairly attractive and his clothes were in good repair - but surely he was some kind of alcoholic? He'd turned himself slightly to look out the window, and I'd felt his body tense up. He still looked over at the Nano occasionally.

A hundred thoughts passed through my mind. Was he angry? Was I being a totally defensive so-called "middle-class" snob? Was I being classist in this moment? Was I more suspicious of him because he was white? Was he trying to make trouble with me? What if he yanked the Nano off of my neck? What if he was just released on parole and had anger problems and I was just one more person rejecting him for no apparently good reason and he would throttle me on a crowded bus because he just couldn't take it anymore? What if I let him listen to my iPod and he tossed it out the window? What recourse would I have? Wouldn't I be laughed at if I talked to him, and he ended up doing something bad to me? Would it be my fault for being naive? What would Jesus do? What would Muhammad do? What would my mother do? Goddammit, I shouldn't feel guilty or question myself because I didn't want to engage in conversation with this STRANGER. He could be ANYBODY! But what if he was just a nice person attempting to connect with another nice person on a bus? Maybe he just wasn't socialized enough to know this wasn't normal behavior in big cities. What if I was part of the problem of lovelessness and unfriendliness that we keep talking about in this country? How UU to torture myself in this way; I should just ignore him. Who did he think he was, bothering me?! No one would think I was wrong for not giving him the time of day. But ... what if I were a missionary - and my message was love? How could I preach love if I didn't even talk to him? If I really had a message to give him, I'd have to talk to him first. What if I've hurt his feelings? What if he's just a predator taking advantage of women's tendencies to want to please others? What if he is feeling sad because I gave him a stupid response to a genuine question? Will he remember this?

Finally, I couldn't take it anymore. My face felt so hot I thought it would burst into ash. As we got nearer to my house, I took the iPod off and tapped him on the shoulder. "I'm getting off the bus soon, if you want to take a listen." I held the iPod out to him. He put his whiskey bag between his legs along with the Coke, and said, "Really? Are you serious?" I said, "Sure; I'm getting off the bus soon, though." He was really appreciative. I watched him put one of the plugs into his ear and he listened to India Arie's remix of I Am Not My Hair. He started moving to the music. "Oh man, this is great." I showed him how to forward to the next song. It was Nina Simone. "Oh, man," he said again, swaying his head. After a minute or two, he returned the Nano to me. "Wow, thanks so much. I've been reading about these things for years, but never listened to one before. I wanted to know how they sounded."

We chatted for a while. He told me that for the past few years he'd been really poor, but now he had some income coming in, and he was going to get himself a car. He was really excited. We talked about iPods. He used to subscribe to Car and Driver. He recently got through a rough time, and things were getting better. When the bus arrived at my stop, I took my leave of him with my usual, "Enjoy the rest of your day." He said, "Hey, thanks. You too - this was beautiful."

I felt relieved and proud of myself for a few minutes. Although, to be honest, the deciding factor was that I realized I could just disinfect the earplug when I got home. But by the time I reached my front door I'd forgotten the whole thing - including the disinfection; it wasn't till this morning that the event came back to me.

A Life in Books

2006-07-05T15:43:00.000-07:00

Today is cloudy and cooler than it has been for a while. Almost as though the sun got tired after the long holiday weekend and needed a break. It's been a strange day for me. I've holed myself up since Monday and don't feel well at all. It feels like October.

I've been cataloguing my books at The LibraryThing and the process has brought up a lot of memories. My family moved a lot when I was a child - in 1992 my mother and I counted the number of apartments and houses we'd lived in since I was born: 25. So naturally I don't have many things from when I was a kid, but I was permitted to bring a select number of books with me when the family made the big move from New York. The books I chose are all about writing and poetry. No novels at all, but an old textbook anthology that my grandfather gave me, a "synonym finder," some grammar texts, and so on. This makes a lot of sense because at the time my biggest dream in life was to become a writer. Even though I shelved that notion more than a decade ago, I've somehow managed to keep some of these books - through eight additional house moves.

I also came across several math textbooks, the highly useful and recommendable "Practical Mathematics" series put out by the National Educational Alliance. These books are phenomenal in the way they teach math. I also have some books by Francis Schaeffer, the Christian theologian and L'Abri community founder. The math texts and Schaeffer books were lent to me by a co-worker about six years ago. M- was such a strange and sensitive man: deeply religious, childlike (and at times childish), allergic to everything, and a natural tinkerer obsessed with computers. He was in his 40s, and before the home computer era, his thing was ham radios. His social skills left much to be desired, but he could be a very sensitive and generous person. I think he was desperately unhappy much of the time, but he tried to live in the way he thought Christ would want, and he avoided all vices, like sex, drugs, alcohol, smoking, and violence. He was extremely intelligent. The reason I still have his books is because he died in the Phillippines while doing missionary work. He and his fiancee - whom he met there - and two of her nieces/nephews were drowned one day at the beach. They'd made a special trip (they were extremely poor), but when they got there they were warned not to go in the ocean; conditions were too treacherous. M- could be terribly headstrong, I'd witnessed it at the office many times. He disregarded the warnings and went in the water anyway, followed by the fiancee and her young relatives. I think about him a lot; I've never met anyone else like him.

I have some other books here that are about Islam. My first trip abroad was to Great Britain. I'd already begun having doubts about the Islam I was seeing practiced and preached. Before heading to the UK (on my own), I'd been in Internet contact with some alternatives who believed in using the Qur'an only as a source of God's law (most Muslims base their religious practices on the traditions of Muhammad in addition to the Qur'an). Turns out an important little network of these alternatives lived in England, and when I got there I met up with one of them. We talked for hours and hours. I took him to see The Thin Red Line, and his response was highly appreciative. We took the train to Birmingham where we met up with a university student who was writing reinterpretations of important Islamic concepts. The first fellow, K- was highly secretive; he went by several aliases and never revealed his real name to me! His life had been threatened numerous times by fundamentalists. I don't know if they were genuine threats, but he took them seriously. The uni student, however, was open about his beliefs and identity, saying that he refused to live in fear. A bunch of sympathetic Muslims came over to the dorm room of the Birmingham student and we had a study session about Islam; he spoke passionately about the need for reformation and returning to the word of Allah as a way of releasing ourselves from the horrors of male chauvinism, capitalism, and other idolatries. His writings were highly interesting and I kept some of his articles.

Later, I followed K to the house of an older, Pakistani couple who lived on the outskirts of London. They were so kind to me! They did not care that I was American, or of African descent or female. It was true Muslim hospitality. We were joined by some likeminded Muslims friends of theirs and we talked about religion (they talked; I listened) and dreams of Islam returning to its true roots after 1000+ years of human-based innovations and oppressions. They gave me many little books and pamphlets to take home with me. They warned me to be careful of who I revealed my religious intentions to, and wished me well. While I can't recall names or faces, I'll never forget the earnest good-heartedness of those progressive, yet pious Muslims. Their path is not an easy one.

Reflecting on it now I can't believe that really happened! The intrigue! If my parents had known I was meeting up with strange, radical Muslims in another country they probably would have never let me travel again. Well, it's been seven years; I don't suppose it hurts anything to spill the beans of those three or four "lost" days now. I don't think I've ever talked about it to anyone.

Time to get back to life.

UU Schools for Kids?

2006-07-04T20:10:00.000-07:00

Peacebang recently remarked on the practice of some UU churches closing for the summer, and in responding to her, I mentioned church schools for kids. Now by this I don't mean Sunday school, but private elementary schools operated by churches or other religious institutions. Catholics have them, Muslims have them, Lutherans, 7th Day Adventists, and so on. When I worked for the local Muslim organization, one of the things we did was start up a school. It was one of the top priorities, and took several years, huge amounts of (volunteered) work, and lots of donations, but it finally happened. It's been operating now for over five years.

This got me thinking: is there any place in North America where UUs have established and are running an elementary school?

Church of Anime

2006-07-03T13:55:00.000-07:00

I just got off the phone with the DH. He is in Anaheim right now, attending an anime expo. He's been sending me photos with his camera phone of attendees dressed up as their favorite anime characters. ::::::GEEK GEEK GEEK GEEK:::::: Fortunately, the DH is not that kind of a fan. But I asked him, "How many people are there at the convention?" And he said, "Oh, a lot. Like 40,000."

40,000 people showing up from all over the world to attend a convention for animated/cartoon characters?!!??! I mean, I have no problem with anime, but whoa!

The expo he is at was only started in 1992 and is run largely by volunteers. In 1992 there were less than 2000 attendees. The average growth per year is 29%.

Man. Maybe the UUA needs to start funding anime projects. Or perhaps we could have a UU fellowship that features anime instead of sermons. Or animated sermons. SOMETHING. My GOODNESS.

To the anime expo's credit, four day registration for an adult is only $55. That doesn't include tickets to some special events* (DH is currently in line for tix to the "Masquerade"), but that's a very nice price.

I'm telling you. Anime. 40,000 people. $55. Someone call the GA Planning Committee!

Edit: Clarified with the DH that all of the expo events are free, including the masquerade show and the masquerade ball. You just have to stand in line for entry tickets because they can't let everyone in at the same time.

(photo: enthusiastic attendees from last year's Anime Expo, courtesy of anime-cons.com)

What's in My Name?

2006-07-01T15:00:00.000-07:00

No, I am not going to add another post to the God/Lord/YHWH discussion. This is about my name. After almost 30 years, it's at the point where I take notice when a person spells my name correctly. Not surprisingly, my name is often mispronounced, as well. I can count on two (maybe three) hands, the number of friends and acquaintances who say it the way I do.

One friend, whom I do love, informed me that she WAS pronouncing my name right (she was not), and that I just wasn't hearing properly - and if she did so happen to be saying it wrong, it was "just too bad." That hurt my feelings for a very long time, and made me feel a little wary of those who repeatedly mispronounced my name. Deep down, was that their attitude, too? Did it just not matter to them?

Yes, I have an unusual name. Both my first and last names are very uncommon, even among their respective cultures. When I chose the middle name of Sofía it was partly to mediate the foreign-ness of the first and last names. I don't expect folks to get them on the first try. Heck, I don't even really expect folks to try anymore, but it sure does make me feel special when they do.

There are some folks who regularly read my blog yet misspell my name a lot. I keep wondering why that is. Is it just a typo? It's easy to mistype; I often have to attempt it twice before getting it right. What would help people remember to type it/spell it correctly? Is it just too foreign? Would having some context be beneficial?

If so, here is some background. Hafidha is the feminine form of the name Hafidh, also known as Hafiz. In Arabic, there is a letter called "dha" or "za" that is like a very tough sounding version of the hard "th" (e.g. moTHer). This is a hard sound to make and has no equivalent in English. Often Persians and people from the Indian subcontinent like to pronounce "dh" as "z" because it is easier for them. Sometimes it will be a "z" with a dot underneath it to be distinguished from an Arabic letter that actually is pronounced like "z." It's quite common to see Hafidh transliterated as Hafiz and the most famous human being with a form of this name is the poet Hafiz.

But my name is Hafidha and it is spelled with a dh.

The root (verb) of my name means to guard and to preserve. My name is Islamic in addition to being Arabic. This means that my name has some relevance within the Islamic religion. A Hafidh is a title - it is someone who has memorized the entire Qur'an, and by doing so, preserves the word of God. A hafidh is also a record, or an account, and in the Qur'an, for example, (chapter 6, verse 61), it is written that Allah sets hafadha (pl.) over us; these are interpreted as guardian angels, or perhaps those angels that take account of all that we do. Other forms of my name's root have to do with remembrance and mindfulness.

As I've tried to demonstrate here, Hafidha is a name with a great deal of meaning. I should also mention that Al-Hafidh (Al-Hafiz) is one of the 99 attributes or "Names" of Allah. One might meet a man named Abdul-Hafidh or Abdul-Hafiz; if a man wants the name of one of Allah's attributes he should always precede it with Abdul (servant of).

Okay, Arabic lesson over. When I was a kid and struggling with the fact that so few people seemed to be able to say or spell my name properly, I wanted to hate it. I wanted a name that was shorter, or "prettier" sounding, or more exotic. I resented my parents for not naming me something more familiar to white American ears - like Layla or Yasmeen. My name just sounded awkward, clerical, nerdy.

Coincedentally, that is pretty much how I turned out!

Eventually I came around to loving the name. I was sitting in College Prep English one morning with my classmates when a substitute teacher entered the room. As she read through the roster, she first got stuck on my name, then that of a soccer player named Sonead. When she stumbled over the name of a girl of Asian descent, the teacher threw up her hands and let out a big Prrrhhuhh! "Geez," she said. "Whatever happened to the good old days when people named their kids Mary, Susan and Joe?" She chuckled at her own joke, but we, the students, exchanged looks of total disbelief. Of course, the three people with "funny" names were also the three not-white people in the room. This was a really uncomfortable moment for everyone on so many levels, but in that moment I felt solidarity with all the other kids, and I took some pride in my name. Like in the way you feel protective of your bratty younger brother after someone else makes fun of him.

I decided to view my name as a challenge - as something to live up to. It's arbitrary, I know. I could have been named Layla, and then I'd have to figure out how to be like the "dark night." Instead, I strive to think of how I can be a guardian and what can I preserve, how I can be mindful and watch over others. I've certainly not mastered this yet, but it's a lifelong endeavor, I suppose.

In any case, I hope all of this rambling helps even just one person remember that it's h-a-f-i-d-h-a. If not, I'll love you anyway. Or you could call me Sofía, another name I am striving towards.

Living Without ... a Sacrament

2006-07-01T13:52:00.000-07:00

So yesterday I was reading some online articles from Living Without, a magazine for people with food allergies, and I come across this piece titled "Wheat-Free Worship." When I came to the following section, my eyes about popped out of my head.

The Richardson family faced a difficult decision when their Roman Catholic Church in Boston would not allow a rice communion wafer to be used for daughter Jenny's First Holy Communion. The youngster is on a strict gluten-free diet. The church's Code of Canon Law states that hosts must be made of wheat, and therefore, a rice wafer wasn't permissible.

"Bread is traditionally made of wheat," explains Joanne Novarro, spokeswoman for the Rockville Centre Diocese in New York, one of the largest dioceses in the country. "A rice wafer would not be a valid sacrament. It must be unleavened bread made out of wheat. It's what Jesus ate at the Last Supper, and we're re-creating that meal at communion."

Eh? The Richardson family ended up switching to a Methodist church that offers gluten free wafers. This strikes me as yet another missed opportunity ....

But maybe this sheds some light on something that used to happen to me quite a bit when I was Muslim. People would hear my explanation for why I wasn't eating their meat or pork or drinking their alcohol, and they'd ask me, "What would happen to you if you accidentally ate something that had lard in it and you didn't find out until later?" Or, another very popular question I received was, "What would happen to you if your scarf flew off your head/was snagged in a tree/pulled off by a total stranger?"

What odd questions! "Well, nothing would happen to me," I'd say. Often the question would come up again, rephrased. Eventually I realized that people wanted to know if God was going to punish me for "slipping up." But as far as I knew (and know), there is no punishment for accidentally eating pork. I don't even know what the punishment is for intentionally eating pork. But the notion that one could be punished by God for accidentally eating the wrong meat or having the wind blow your scarf up over your head was very foreign to me. Why on earth would God do that?

The Qur'an itself allows for extreme situations: if one is driven to hunger, and there's a pig squabbling around in your face, eat the pig! Allah would rather you ate the pig and lived, than see you die of starvation! "... but if one is forced by necessity without willful disobedience, not transgressing due limits, then is guilt-less. For Allah is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful" (Chapter 2, Verse 172). Later in the same chapter (verse 225) we can read that "Allah will not call you to account for thoughtlessness in your oaths, but for the intention in your hearts; and he is Oft-Forgiving, Most Forbearing."

Even the obligatory daily prayers have exceptions. The standard prayer requires lots of moving: standing, bending, prostrating, sitting on one's knees, repeat, repeat, repeat. This is fine and good for the majority of people who are able bodied . But if one cannot stand due to long term or temporary health problems, there is a seated version of the daily prayer; and if one cannot sit up, one may perform the prayer lying down on one's side; and if lying on one's side is not possible, then perform the prayer on one's back (from the book of law derived from traditions, Fiqh us Sunnah). Allah isn't trying to deprive of us fellowship and worship based on our disabilities. And there is no danger in "cheating" God - the Qur'an reminds us repeatedly that Allah is "well-acquainted" with all that we do.

There are so many examples of Muhammad demonstrating the flexibility of "rules" when the occasion called for it, that I find it hard to understand how people (Muslim and otherwise) can stand so firmly on a technicality to the point of excluding their own fellow worshippers. Now a Catholic family is Methodist because their church refused to use rice crackers in communion for a child that likely has celiac disease. Is that what Jesus would have wanted? Is that what Jesus would have done?

The "Openly Gay" Priest

2006-07-01T12:28:00.000-07:00

I am really confused here. I've been reading this article, this blog and other news on the web about the strife going on within the Episcopalian church, and several times an "openly gay" bishop has been mentioned as one of the dividing issues. I'm not familiar enough with Protestant churches to know: are clergy expected to be celibate if not married? Is the problem with Gene Robinson, the bishop of New Hampshire, that he is gay or that he is having sexual relations outside of marriage? Are all clergy - regardless of sexual orientation - held to the same standards?

An Invocation, and a Cretan

2006-06-30T10:36:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite "prayers" or invocations (in which I call on whatever strength there is in the universe - be it ancestral, internal, living, earthly) is from Nietzsche, printed in The Gay Science (one of my favorite books):

I want to learn more and more to see as beautiful what is necessary in
things:—then I shall be one of those who make things beautiful. Amor fati [Love
of fate.]: let that be my love henceforth! I do not want to wage war
against what is ugly. I do not want to accuse, I do not even want to accuse
those who accuse. Looking away shall be my only negation! And all in all and on
the whole: some day I wish to be only a Yes-sayer!

One of the things that draws me to this piece is that it often feels insufficient; it can be a challenge to believe it. When I see destructive lies and injustice, I want to wage war. "Looking away" does not seem to be a strong enough statement! And yet, what I believe in more than physical, verbal, emotional and academic wars is the demonstration of a better way. One of the many powers that oppressors hold is the ability to direct the energy flow of the afflicted. And so the oppressed spend most of their time responding instead of leading. This, more than anything, causes me to despair. But even a glimpse of what is possible can bring hope back.

Speaking of tragic optimism, I've become curious about this novelist, Nikos Kazantzakis. When I finish Etty Hillesum's diaries and letters, I will read his work. An excerpt from the Spike Magazine article:

Although many people may have heard of the novels Zorba the Greek and The Last Temptation of Christ, both of which have been adapted into films, it appears that few are so familiar with the name of the author, Nikos Kazantzakis. Although a national hero in his beloved homeland of Crete, Kazantzakis has failed to achieve the recognition in England that he so richly deserves. Novelist, playwright and journalist; disciple of Nietzsche, Bergson and Buddha; admirer of Christ and Lenin; praised by Thomas Mann, Albert Schweitzer and Albert Camus, his works are the external expression of an inward cry that seeks answers to the most profound questions of existence.

The Lord and the Church

2006-06-29T11:44:00.000-07:00

My favorite post on the discussion of the use of the word, God, is over at Reignite UK, written by Stephen Lingwood, a Christian UU about to study for the ministry. An excerpt:

Our worship needs to become centred on praise and prayer, rather than readings and sermons. You can say God as many times as you want in a sermon but I'm only going to experience God directly if you shut the hell up and give me some silence so that I can have some time with God.

Unrelated, but also on the subject of religion, I was telling a coworker yesterday that although there are numerous things about the Catholic faith that I feel connected to, I cannot bear to throw my hat into the Catholic ring. Theological differences aside, I could possibly even become a Catholic and strive to accept Jesus as my savior, but for the Church. There are just too many examples of things such as the condom ban that convey to me that the Pope and the Church are more concerned about preserving the institution (and the authority of the church) than preserving their own people. My heart could not abide by that. It already hurts me and I'm not even a member. When I think about how the Evangelicals supported Ríos Montt of Guatemala (because he was Evangelical), it makes me sick. Sometimes life appears to be one missed opportunity to practice justice after another.

Some Post-GA Thoughts

2006-06-28T16:03:00.000-07:00

I got a lot out of my GA experience this year. I was able to meet many people, deepen relationships, learn much about myself and this movement, and experience a wide range of emotions. One of my standing goals for self-development has been to allow myself to feel more in my heart - to feel sadness and happiness, anger and grief, and other things that seem to come so naturally to other people. Over the last ten months I've been making great strides in this area. I cried at least three times during GA and I laughed much, and I let myself feel frustrated with some people who were getting on my nerves. It felt good. It felt good to let the tears out, to vent a few times, to just be with people who were feeling strong emotions. I've definitely been able to explore my emotional life within the UU community, and for this I am grateful.

I practiced a lot of self care - I never let myself get too exhausted (except for the night I was up till 7:30 am, which could not be helped). I always made time - 30 minutes to an hour - every day to be by myself. I usually took lunch alone and ate it in silence, with no music or books to keep me occupied. It was just a time to reflect and even have no reflection - no nothing. Just silence and unencroached space. This all resulted in me staying healthy, mostly rested, able to engage with people - even strangers! and really enjoying myself pretty much every step of the way.

Some not-so-good things happened with several friendships, and I'm not sure what the next phases will be. On the other hand, I was able to express my (platonic) affection with others more openly than I ever have in my life. I spent more time with some powerful women in our faith community - women who are powerful not by virtue of how well known they are, but by their faith and perserverance and the way they embrace others. I saw so many potential mentors; I did cry to think about it, but they were happy tears.

I got to meet many of the bloggers I read: Philocrites, Peacebang, ChaliceChick, her Linguist Friend, Errant Frogs, Progressive Church Planter, Lo-Fi Tribe and others. I spent some one-on-one time with Reverend Clyde, who was very kind to me.

I faced off with a very rude and dominating man and was not intimidated by him; I wanted to talk to him more and understand what he was saying, but he ended our conversation by shouting that one day I would understand. Not helpful, but it was his choice to end this way. I spoke at plenary, which I'd forgotten I was going to do. At first I was afraid when I saw the Jumbo-tron screens and thousands of people, but just as I approached the microphone I thought, "I am not that important; I will try to convey what it is in my heart -in less than 60 seconds - and nothing else really matters." I felt the same way during the Special Review Commission workshop. I didn't get to say some of the most serious things in my heart (it always takes me a while to warm up when speaking), but I don't think I embarrassed myself.

On the way to the conference I read several articles in the latest issue of Shambhala Sun, a Buddhist publication, and was reminded that being self-conscious is not the way to be at all. In fact, it hinders me from being. It hinders me from becoming.

I had my awkward moments, as usual, but I cared less and less about them. Life moves so quickly. I went to the Hokiah Mounds interpretative center with several other people of color on Sunday and it was such a good thing to do. A good thing to get away from the terribly cold air conditioning, the convention center, the hotel, the nametags, the loudspeakers and the microphones, and to be outside and try to imagine another time and way of life. It was good to know that a different people had been there. It made me feel like I was less important. Not that the work I can do is unimportant, but that I mattered less. As Miguel de Unamuno wrote in a poem, "The only thing that lasts is the work/Start then, turn to the work."

These words of my mother came to my mind repeatedly, too; she told me this once when I was agonized by self-consciousness: "Hafidha: No one else is thinking about you as much as you are thinking about you." How liberating it has been to believe and accept and be grateful for this!

UUGA06: The UU cadence

2006-06-26T08:31:00.000-07:00

Hearing so many speakers this General Assembly it occurred to me that there might be a standard UU way of addressing a large group. Whether the person is reciting a poem, delivering a sermon, or making a benediction, there is a popular cadence among those at the mic and in church leadership. It is pleasant enough, but boring, too. Even the young adult seminarians/ministers adopt this manner of speaking.

Does anyone know what I am talking about? Where did it come from?

UUGA06: Day 1 Summary

2006-06-22T16:18:00.000-07:00

As Day #2 of General Assembly draws to a close I thought I'd summarize what I did yesterday.

Wednesday
9 am - DRUUMM booth set-up
9:30 - Youth Caucus staff meeting
12 pm - Meeting with GA Chaplains
1:30 - Youth Caucus Chaplains meeting
2:30 - Youth Caucus Orientation prep
3-5 - Youth Caucus Orientation and Sponsor Orientation
5-6 - Prayer and rest
6-7:30 - Commit 2 Community adult supporter meeting
7:30 - 8 - Youth Caucus Chaplains meeting #2
8-10 - Opening Ceremony
10:30-11:15 - Bloggers' Reception
11:15-midnight - some sort of intergenerational dance

The day went pretty smoothly. The biggest challenge so far has been clashes between roommates. They are all my friends and I am getting along with each of them, but it's not easy, I guess, for four grown and independent women to share a common space.

I only spent $7 on food yesterday. =) The bloggers I met during the reception were all very like their online personas. The conversation was very interesting, though a few folks didn't say anything the whole time I was there.

Today has been busy but not overwhelming. I had the nervewracking experience of addressing plenary with the other four members of the special review commission. I didn't say anything particularly powerful, but I didn't embarrass the commission, either. There will be a workshop about the report we issued; we'll meet in Room 264 on Saturday, from 11-12:15.

Spent $20 on food today.

Tonight I want to do some reading in my room, but one of my roommates is sleeping there with the Do Not Disturb sign on the door. I am getting to be a little tired and I could really use a nap before it gets too late.

UUGA06: Charity Begins at Home

2006-06-19T09:51:00.000-07:00

Well, the UU blogosphere is replete with posts about General Assembly. Some folks are already in St. Louis for pre-GA events. I arrive there tomorrow evening, if all goes according to plan. The Holiday Inn Express (where all of Youth Caucus staff will be staying) offers free wireless Internet in every room, so I'll attempt to keep up with the UU blogs. I might even post a few entries.

I'm still concerned about maintaining my equilibrium while there. The long days, the meetings, the inevitable conflicts and the busy schedule all lend themselves to a situation in which I seem to lose time. Hopefully, setting aside time for prayer will help, but it takes so much vigilance to remain on course throughout the day. Sometimes at conferences it feels as though you're living by the minute.

In the final of pages of the Special Review Commission's report on last year's General Assembly, it is written that "we would re-envision GA as a prime venue to practice our Principles." Of course, we should practice our principles every day, and in our congregations, at work, at home, etc. But this really should be an inspiring time. This should be a spiritual time. It's not just a business meeting.

My personal challenge is to rise above my introversion, and connect with people I don't know. There will be a lot of people there, but size is hardly the issue (the Muslim convention I attended almost 10 years ago had 20,000 attendees). The issue is making the effort, risking rejection, drawing more out of myself than I realized was available because this is my religious family. When I see people wearing GA nametags I should not think of them as strangers. I cannot get out of my head the tradition of the Prophet Muhammad, "To smile when you meet your brother is sadaqah." Sadaqah is often translated simply as an act of "charity," but it comes from the word that means sincere, or truthful. So we could reinterpret this as "To smile when you meet your brother is an act of sincerity, or truthfulness."

Edited with UUGA06 tag.

If You See Me Praying at GA ....

2006-06-15T18:41:00.000-07:00

I'm creating a personalized GA schedule for myself, and there are currently 38 items on the calendar. I haven't even read the GA program yet.

As tempting as it is to masochistically fantasize about how busy I'll be, and how nuts GA will be, and how exhausting the whole ordeal will be, I am determined to stay focused on having a healthy and happy GA experience. I don't have the luxury of driving myself into the ground so that I can beatify myself later. That's not why the Youth Office is sending me there.

So how to achieve equilibrium at General Assembly? I keep thinking about the five prayers a day thing and how useful that could be in an environment like GA. When I attended the Islamic Society of North America's annual convention some years ago, you could only race around so much when you had to stop three times in the middle of the day to pray. If you were staying up late and gossiping with your friends and then had to interrupt yourself to pray before bed, you might feel sheepish praising God for his mercy when you'd just been pretty merciless to your own siblings in the faith. Some people did try to get around the salah by doing the abbreviated "traveler's prayer" for the whole conference - a dubious act I'm still suspicious of. Using the traveler's prayer in the airport or on the side of the road is one thing; I don't think it was intended to be made on the plush, carpeted floor of one's Hilton hotel suite four four days in a row! Hmph! I suppose in every religion there are those who follow the letter of the law.

At any rate, while I consider taking up some form of modified salah (the five prescribed prayers) in the long term, for the time being I will make use of dhikr, which are the remembrances of Allah. To do dhikr is to keep oneself mindful of the grace of God. It could be perceived as a form of meditation, I suppose. Bear in mind that I've never been good at meditation, but I have made dhikr for hours at a time. An important second piece to this is that I will need to establish times at which I do dhikr. The advantage of the salah is that the times are fairly fixed so you can't put off your prayers for long. I want to do that for my dhikr, too, otherwise it will end up like my exercise regimen: put off ... put off until the end of the day when I am too tired.

Now I just have to determine what to say in my dhikr. I am not sure if Alhamdulillah, Subhanallah and Allahu Akbar* are appropriate for this possible ignostic. But if I don't come up with anything new, they are good standbys.

Sudden thought: I wonder if dhikr will still work for me?! Hm.

*These are all glorifications of God.

Let's Be Precise

2006-06-14T09:42:00.000-07:00

My DH is one of those people who takes direction very well - he will do precisely what he is asked or instructed to do. Unfortunately, I am one of those people who does not give direction very well. For example, in telling him how to prepare the rice for dinner, I said, "Put two cups of rice in the cooker and then four cups of water. Then push down the lever." He did exactly that. Fabulous! A few minutes later, I asked him, "Did you stir the rice?" and he replied, "No.You didn't tell me to stir the rice." This kind of exchange was puzzling me for a while and I almost got annoyed about it: "Why doesn't he know to do blah-blah-blah; do I have to tell him every little thing? Yada yada."

Whoa ... this isn't even how I really felt, but those words spelled themselves out in my mind so easily. It's very easy to fall into "role-playing" emotions that are not my own. Where does this stuff come from?! In any case, I decided not to be irritated and just told him what was on my mind (see first two sentences of post). His response was, "This is true!" And we both had a good laugh about it. Now I know that I need to be more precise when giving him directions and he needs to be a little more intuitive when taking direction from me. Maybe we will never be exactly on the same page, but it is not that serious.

Random Ness
Last night I was reminded of the time when my braces were removed. I had to wear a retainer 24/7 for six months. My work involves being on the phone much of the day so it was a challenge just to speak. I sounded "thick" in the tongue. I am quite fond of verbal communication so I fretted about not being able to speak with my typical speed and precision. An unexpected consequence was that the customers I spoke to were exceedingly gentle with me! They would speak very slowly, "You've been sooo great, Ha-fee-dha." "Wow; you've done such terrific job." "Tell your manager that I think you're wonderful." By the end of the first day of wearing the retainer, I was thinking, "What's wrong with these people? Why is everybody talking to me like I'm a child?" Then it dawned on me: Because of my slurred/thick speech they thought I was "challenged." Appreciation for my job performance was greatly enhanced because of my perceived "deficits." After three days I couldn't bear the patronizing treatment any longer and stopped wearing my retainer to work.

A question
The DH poked fun at me because I referred to a group of people as "the vast minority." He thought this was hilarious. Is that gramatically incorrect? I realize that it sounds like an oxymoron, but I don't think it really is.

Well, It's New to Me

2006-06-09T23:56:00.000-07:00

One of the upsides of having been pop-musically illiterate as an adolescent is that I get to "discover" all of this great music now. For example, I was born in 1976; I didn't know Prince was a musical artist until 1990. When the girls in my elementary school class were talking about how they wanted to marry him when they grew up, I was wondering who this dude was, and how had another country's royalty become so popular among young black girls in the United States?

This is the kind of oblivion you might experience when you are the oldest child and don't have any cousins.

In any case, I downloaded the One video of Mary J Blige and U2 from iTunes today, and I was, as usual, completely fascinated with The Edge. I know Bono is supposed to be the hot stuff in that band, but my eyes always seek out The Edge. I think The Edge is stunning.

Anyway, dubious hearththrob status aside (he's only a few years younger than my mother, eek) aside, I listened to Achtung Baby this evening. I never really listened to it the way I'm listening to it now. It's a great album. I have to put this in my Nano.

This album was released about 15 years ago, and although I knew who U2 was, their music had absolutely no cultural signifance for me. All music - be it classical, standards, pop, R&B, whatever - was just pleasant sound played in the background while I daydreamed or did chores. It wasn't till I heard Harry Chapin's Cat's in the Cradle that it began to dawn on me that songs/music could have meaning. Around this time, I borrowed a Joan Baez album from the library and sang about the lady who came from Baltimore, and the dove and lonely people till the cassette almost wore out. My family was like, "Whose child is this?" but left me to my own devices. At the time I was also trying to teach myself Irish Gaelic, so Joan Baez wasn't so odd by comparison. At 18 I became hooked on Tracy Chapman - and folk music is still my favorite genre.

But this rock album is quite good. Last year I learned about INXS, but I think U2 is a lot better. U2 is socially conscious, too. I don't know if it makes their music any better, but it makes their fame more tolerable. I share the sentiments of my favorite actress, Sarah Polley, who is quoted as once having said that the only point to being famous is the ability to redirect people's attention to things that are actually important.

(photo from u2world.com; the Edge and wife Morleigh Steinberg at Pavarotti's wedding.)

More on Net Neutrality

2006-06-09T10:00:00.000-07:00

I like this summary at the Wild Hunt Blog. The aforementioned Lawrence Lessig is quoted:

Without net neutrality, the Internet would start to look like cable TV. A handful of massive companies would control access and distribution of content, deciding what you get to see and how much it costs. Major industries such as health care, finance, retailing and gambling would face huge tariffs for fast, secure Internet use -- all subject to discriminatory and exclusive dealmaking with telephone and cable giants.

Net Neutrality & Free Culture

2006-06-08T23:21:00.000-07:00

It only takes a few minutes to send that email and to make that call, and to let a few of your friends know about it as well.

After you've done that, if you still have more time on your hands, take a listen (and click along with the slideshow; hit forward arrow) to Lawrence Lessig offer an abridged version of copyright history, and how that relates to our ability to create in community. This is highly interesting stuff, but long.

I first truly became aware of corporate ~~bullying~~ domination just last fall when I learned about some ridiculous business concerning Clear Channel (the company of 775,000 US billboards) suing my city to prevent it from giving public murals "preference" over advertisement signs (imagine that!). The city has been in courts since 1998 because of numerous lawsuits that CC has brought against it. First I was outraged that CC was sucking up city tax dollars via these lawsuits. Then I was mad that murals were being taken down as a consequence. I could go on, but on to the next ....

Then I attended a UU young adult conference in November where some folks from First Unitarian's End Corporate Personhood group came and led a Tapestry of the Commons workshop. I don't often use profanity in my blog, but I have to say: this shit is for real. It's difficult with so much going on in our individual lives, but we have to be vigilant. This is something I would like to become far more informed and active about in the coming year.

Meat-Eating and Spiritual Practice

2006-06-08T19:45:00.000-07:00

The ongoing discussion at Philocrites’ blog about the UU response to animal abuse has spurred me into making the commitment to not eat factory farmed meat.

This was just the push I needed. I can’t claim ignorance to what happens to animals in our nation’s 'slaughterhouses', as my parents were telling me these things from the time I was in grade school. We did not eat very much meat when I was growing up for two reasons. First, our observance of Islamic dietary laws meant that we only ate meat that had been killed in God’s name*, and with mercy. Secondly, my mother did not think it was healthy to eat meat daily, and my parents had read works like Diet for a Better Planet and took some of those messages to heart. My mom had never been a big meat eater anyway, so it was easy for her, but even my father, a self-described “carnivore” was willing and able to dramatically reduce his consumption under my mother’s influence.

Ever since reading The Spiral Staircase, wherein Armstrong writes about the distinction between belief and practice in religion, I’ve been wondering what it would mean to re-adopt some Islamic traditions. In my very first blog entry here, I wrote that there were “many things I miss about my old faith.” I miss waking up early in the morning for the first prayer, for example. I miss structuring my day around prayer, even though I don’t pray very much anymore (only for my friends). I miss the discipline of fasting, too. I did it every year, and now not eating or drinking for a whole day seems practically impossible!

So I began to think, what would it look like if I resumed praying five times a day? To what place would I make pilgrimage? How could I fast as a spiritual practice? And so on. One of the ideas that sprang to mind was adhering to some of the dietary laws. Would I give up alcohol (which, admittedly, I don’t drink often)? How about meat that wasn’t kosher or halal?

With all this in mind, I read those comments at Philocrites and was very moved. I felt ashamed of myself for ignoring what my parents had tried to teach me. I knew well enough the horrors of the meat industry to only purchase fresh meat and eggs that are raised hormone free and free-range. And the one time I attempted to buy "regular" meat at the grocery store, I became physically ill. But I easily eat meat at restaurants and friends' homes with little thought.

Islam exhorts us to be mindful. For me, that mindfulness became distorted into constant fear of God and Death, and constant self-reproach. I’ve pretty much healed myself of those excesses, and now I want to be mindful again. Taking care with what I put into my body, and expressing compassion for the other animals on this earth is a good place to start.

From time to time I think of something told to me by a young adult within the continental community. He told me that before he eats, he always takes time to think about the food in front of him. Where did it come from. The people who might have grown it. The workers who picked it (he was a vegetarian), the drivers who transported it, the folks who cleaned it and sorted it, wrapped it or stored it, and lastly, the people who prepared it for him to eat. At the time I was impressed, but that seemed too time consuming for me! And who would I think about when I ate a Tootsie Roll? I don't even know what they're made of! Yet I was someone who had grown up saying a Muslim "grace" before meals. How quickly that practice was just dropped, wholesale! Looking at myself now and seeing how I’ll devour something before I even have a chance to think about what it is, nevermind where it came from – it seems perverse, really. If I might dare to sound like a sappy religionist, I would say that I’ve joined millions of other US Americans in counting calories and carbs instead of blessings.

This is a good opportunity for me to renew a spiritual practice in my life. When my non Muslim friends would ask me why I couldn’t eat this or that, I would tell them, “it helps me to remember that I am Muslim.” The prayers, the fasting, the ablutions, the restrictions, the hijab, the hundred “superstitions” – even my name – all of these served to reinforce, in every minute of my day, that I was a Muslim. What am I today? How do I remember my spiritual self in a way that is healthy, practical and respectful of other beings? These are the thoughts I am occupied with today. I will start with animals.

What I know I can do is this: eat only meat and eggs I know are from animals that were raised “cruelty free.” This likely means restricting my meat intake to what I purchase personally. And I will take care in buying only products not tested on animals or containing animal byproducts. I know I can do these things because I've done them before. But it will be a challenge. The hardest thing in the world, I fear, will be cheese. Am I ready to go practically vegan? Mmm. That is new territory for me, but I will truly offer my best.

This has been an exciting day!

*As usual, there is disagreement about what the Islamic dietary laws are. My parents adhered to a strict practice that included seeking out cheeses with no animal rennet, and purchasing only those skin care products that did not contain animal by-products.

(photos by HSA, 2005. Two llamas in Oregon. I nicknamed them Bunny and Boots. The second photo is just Boots.)

I Am Innocent!

2006-06-07T20:38:00.000-07:00

I've been called a lot of names in my life, including Athena, Anita, Hadifa, Hafeela, the oftspoken Fajita, and even - my favorite - Hacienda. The most recent mixup of my name was pronounced by the eight year old daughter of one of my girlfriends. K- was watching the news with her little girl a few nights ago, when a report came on about the latest mess in Iraq. "In Haditha, 24 Iraqi civilians were allegedly shot ...." K's daughter's eyes grew large. "Oooh, that's your friend, Mama! That's your friend, Haditha - she killed somebody?!! She was just at our house!!"

*sigh* Well, I did laugh about it.

Church as Religious School?

2006-06-06T17:41:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I was talking to my DH about how I want to get more out of my UU church experience. I told him how in the four years since I've been attending church, I've heard three sermons that have really affected me deeply and spiritually. Why am I going to church, I asked him, with some exasperation. I like to go, and the sermons are pleasant and agreeable, but they are not transforming me. He, not being the church-going type at all, shook his head in that way he does to express that he finds something ridiculous.

He stated that he saw no use in going to a lecture/sermon and being talked at. "Just give it to me in a book! I can stay home and read it." I reiterated my idea of a church as a place of scholarship (I am the bookish type), but he countered that without interaction, even the classroom does not offer much particular benefit. Again, "just put it in a book and I can read it myself," he said. Eventually, we agreed that small "breakout group" styles of highly interactive, dialogue-driven religious study was what we both would like to see. Otherwise, why get up on a Sunday morning?

But I still like the idea of *some* lecture, but with great amounts of time given for interaction after new bits of information are provided. Something like Bible study or halaqah.

Is there a UU congregation with Sunday services like this somewhere? And I wonder if I can get something like this to happen at my congregation after we've completed our big construction project. When I think of all the reading and research I did that led me to UUism - I had hoped UUism would provide a community where I could continue to do that. But no, I am still doing it on my own, but for the random/occasional book club here and there.

Surely, there are examples of this within the UU world? I'm sure there must be. My church, for example, has a very busy Adult Religious Education program, but 1) they cost money, 2) they do not happen on Sundays, and 3) they last only from 1-6 weeks. There used to be a post Sermon discussion group, but I'm not sure what happened to it. Maybe lack of attendance?

I need to think more about this. What exactly am I looking for? Seminary-lite? When I was Muslim I often led our study circles (halaqahs); I coordinated them. Maybe I should do that again, but for UUs - young adults specifically? Hmm.

Ran dom

2006-06-06T12:53:00.000-07:00

Busy weekend; it was the six month anniversary with my significant other (otherwise known as the "doughnut husband" aka DH). We went to the Rose Festival and rode the Ferris Wheel, and ate kettle corn. I tasted an "elephant ear" for the first time. I also scratched one of my eyes and was pretty out of it yesterday as a result.

Had serious conversations with DH about various things yesterday. I had commented that John Belushi had "killed himself" (he died of a drug overdose, apparently), and DH sought to clarify my criteria for judging whether a person killed him or herself. We spent a couple of hours talking about that. We also talked about Dominionists and Christian Identity groups, and the future of the US.

One really sobering statistic is that there are as many -if not more - Christian Identity members than there are Unitarian Universalists in the world. It really made me wonder what I am doing with my life.

Still reading and thinking about the Holocaust. At the moment I'm re-reading Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning. I hadn't realized how much this book influenced the way I see the world. I don't believe anything happens for a reason; but we can make meaning out of the things that happen to us.

Note: I deleted the entry "Do I Need a Minister?"

In general, I feel very subdued these days. I've been thinking hard and am re-prioritizing. Some goals seem less important than they used to be, and other goals have an increased urgency.

My "Voodoo" Wedding + More

2006-06-03T17:43:00.000-07:00

I've been posting a lot of serious stuff lately, yes. Lest anyone fall under the impression that I am a strictly somber person, I would like to inform you that I was "married" a week ago at a place called Voodoo Doughut. The name alone probably speaks volumes; you don't even need to go to the website. Let's just say that if ever I am married legally, the ceremony is guaranteed to be a classier affair than the one I recently experienced. The photo there is my look of mortification as the "minister" arrived bearing a miniature coffin. Or perhaps I had just realized I was being serenaded by our complimentary band. My voodoo wedding is the wackiest, most culturally appropriated thing I've ever done. Nonetheless, my doughnut husband and I are quite happy.

I would estimate that 70% of my private thoughts are serious. Another 25% are focused on art and the absurd. The rest is things like romance, errands and housework. Hence, why this journal's subtitle is "Selected Thoughts."

This morning I attended the thesis presentation of a very good friend (we met at a UU function four years ago). Her paper is about exceptionalism and American millenarian religious movements. I've been thinking quite a lot about this all afternoon, and will revisit this subject after I've read the thesis. It's helping me to understand where there might be some disconnects in my conversations with people about US history and race.

In the last few hours I've become addicted to Nelly Furtado's as-yet-to-be-released song, Say it Right. Click on the link (keep in mind that another song may play first, so you might have to scroll down and turn it off).

At this moment I am having a seriously pressing need for a scone with clotted cream and jam.

And thank you to Clyde, Christine and Elizabeth for their thoughts and advice on how to relate better with my ministers. I especially appreciate Clyde, who is in the midst of something difficult right now.

Violent Video Games ... for Christians?

2006-05-31T19:37:00.000-07:00

I am utterly gobsmacked. What disgusts me even more than the idea of killing "for Christ" (or playing at being the antiChrist) is the horrendous tint of green washing over the whole thing. Church as an Industry. I have no problem with SAHMs selling stationery out of their homes, Christian bookstores, and the like. What horrifies me is the commodification of Christianity, and the conversion by consumerism approach some people are taking to it. It's more than disappointing; it's grotesque. I wonder how successful this game will be.

Left Behind Games

The comments to the article are worth reading, as well, including the one by Truth999, who offers a rebuttal.

What is Your Good News?

2006-05-31T14:07:00.000-07:00

I was re-reading Stephen's two recent posts on the abysmal state of British Unitarian church membership just now, and thinking once again on "what is the answer?" led me to remember this:

Sitting in a car with a young man I'd met at a bus stop. We became friends. He spoke to me because he wanted to share with me. He was from Florida and his parents were Haitian. He denied that he was observing a "religion"- - he called it history and knowledge. Essentially, he was a black Hebrew, and he wanted me to know that I was one of God's chosen people. He read the Bible vigorously, and pointed out many passages to me. I told him about Unitarian Universalism and explained that I could not accept his religion as I don't believe any one particular people are "chosen."

He told me how he attends Hebrew/Israelite school on weekends, and ministers whenever he can. He abstained from alcohol, drugs, sexual relations, gambling and other vices. As a person, he was honest and open hearted. He and his brothers in faith visited prisons and reservations, forming relationships with black, hispanic and indigenous (mostly) men, who were lacking hope and self-worth - who felt they had no future in this world.

In the midst of spirited debate one day, I had just gone on for five minutes about humanism and UUism. He listened to me intently, but after a pause, he shook his head and said to me, "But I don't understand. What is your Good News?"

I couldn't answer him at the time. He was offering me a communication of salvation and God's love. What was I offering to him as a Unitarian Universalist? Since then I've thought about this often, and I have a better idea of what I'd say today if he were to ask me again. Can UUism be a healing balm to those whose lives are desperate, lonely or underprivileged? How?

By the way, I had to tell my friend that contrary to my physical appearance, I was not among the saved. His beliefs stated that Israelite status was based on one's paternal line (opposite of the Jewish practice). My paternal line goes back to China, not Africa - and Asians are not among the Israelites. Interestingly, he refused to believe me.

Is There a UU Theology?

2006-05-31T13:44:00.000-07:00

"Theology is just not important in Judaism, or in any other [non Christian] religion, really. There's no orthodoxy as you have it in the Catholic Church. No complicated creeds to which everybody must subscribe. No infallible pronouncements by a pope. Nobody can tell Jews what to believe. Within reason, you can believe what you like."

Karen Armstrong quotes Hyam Maccoby in her book, The Spiral Staircase. Help me out here, folks. Is this what UUism is trying to get at? And if so, why is not having a creed such a big deal for us? What are UUs talking about when they refer to a specifically UU theology? The conversation between Karen and Hyam continues. "No official theology?" I repeated stupidly. "None at all? How can you be religious without a set of ideas - about God, salvation, and so on - as a basis?"
"We have orthopraxy instead of orthodoxy," Hyam replied calmly, wiping his mouth and brushing a few crumbs off the table. "'Right practice' rather than 'right belief.' That's all. You Christians make such a fuss about theology, but it's not important in the way you think. It's just poetry, really, ways of talking about the inexpressible. We Jews don't bother much about what we believe. We just do it instead."

I Renounced the Blessed Face

2006-05-30T14:11:00.000-07:00

I am currently reading Karen Armstrong's memoir, The Spiral Staircase (see sidebar for link), and it is deeply moving me. Although this book is about her life after seven years in a Catholic convent, so many details about her transition into the secular world are familiar to me. So many things.

Like so many of Tennyson's people, I too longed to join in the vibrant life that was going on all around me, but found myself compelled to withdraw by forces that I did not understand.

I remember clearly the awkwardness, the loneliness, the dreadful sensation of having nothing to do with the world, mental anguish ... the disembodiment of one's spirit.

Interestingly, I have had spiritual experiences in Catholic sacred spaces, and I do not know why. Armstrong writes that several years after leaving the convent, she had still never had a "consolation" - never heard God speak to her. Does it make sense to say that I don't believe in "God" and yet believe some voice did speak to me more than once in those crumbling churches and empty sanctuaries? What was it that spoke to me?

Yesterday I visited one of my favorite places in Portland, The Grotto. I went with a friend who was visiting from out of town, but normally I go by myself. It is more than just a park. It is a place of devotion.

I've long felt the need for a new devotion. I miss that aspect of being religious; however, I must be careful. I don't want to become some type of A-holic, possessed to endlessly consume and acquire more and more.

(photo by Elandria; statue at the Grotto. 2006)

Jose Saramago

2006-05-28T13:20:00.000-07:00

By the way, courtesy of Wikipedia (a great example of the power of the people), a brief biography of superb writer, Jose Saramago. Despite the article's statement that he is a "self-described pessimist," I find his books to be hopeful! Then again, maybe I am one of those pathetic people who finds joy in the acceptance of (not acquiescence to) life's puzzles and difficulties.

Excerpt:

He was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1998 .... He was in his mid-fifties before he won the acclaim of an international audience. It was the publication in 1988 of his Baltasar and Blimunda that first brought him to the attention of an English-speaking readership. This novel won the Portuguese PEN Club Award. Saramago has been a member of the Portuguese Communist Party since 1969, as well as an atheist and self-described pessimist - his positions have aroused considerable controversy in Portugal, especially after the publication of The Gospel According to Jesus Christ. José Saramago’s novels often deal with fantastic scenarios and situations such as the one in his 1986 novel, The Stone Raft, where the Iberian Peninsula breaks from the rest of Europe and begins sailing around the Atlantic. In his 1995 novel, Blindness, an entire unnamed country is stricken with a mysterious plague, or “white blindess”. In Saramago's 1984 Novel, The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis (which won the PEN Award and the Independent Foreign Fiction Award), Fernando Pessoa’s heteronym survives for a year after the poet himself dies. With these highly imaginative themes, Saramago succinctly deals with the most serious of subject matter with boundless wit and keen insight. He sprinkles many quirky segues and asides into his sparsely punctuated, but richly decorated narrative thread. His greatest asset as an author is his empathy of the human condition and the isolative nature of contemporary urban life. In 2002 he stated "What is happening in Palestine is a crime which we can put on the same plane as what happened at Auschwitz." His characters struggle with their need to connect with one another, form relationships, bond as a community, and their need for individuality, to find meaning and dignity outside of political/economic structures. Harold Bloom has considered José Saramago the "most gifted novelist alive in the world today".

Out of Touch

2006-05-28T11:56:00.000-07:00

When one of my best friends realized I hadn't read The DaVinci Code, she offered to send it to me in the mail. I declined her offer, as I have no interest in reading it. She told me it was good, and I should read it - why didn't I want to? This led to a discussion (lasting hours) about what books we read and whether I'm permitted to be more of an intellectual because, she (an educator and future seminarian) needs to remain grounded in what is popular among the people.

If I look up the definition of the word "intellectual" it appears that I am one. I do think before I feel. I listen to my intuition a fair amount of the time, too. Still, intellectual has a slightly negative connotation to me, so I resist the label anyway. I would rather be a scholar, but have never truly dedicated myself to study or academics. One day, perhaps. I grew up reading Sweet Valley High and Babysitters Club right along with Dickens and Newberry Award winners. In my view, one can love Beethoven's music and still dance to the high energy pop and hip hop songs of today. Isn't it about striking some balance?

Someone who read my article about leaving Islam asked me if there were any beliefs/ideals I kept from my religious upbringing. There are many, but one of the more influential is the idea that everything I put into my body (including my mind, eyes, ears), affects me - that everything affects my very soul. Every word, every thought, every interaction. Nothing goes "unwritten." I also still carry with me the notion of canceling out "bad deeds" with the weight of good ones. So if I grab a People magazine at the airport convenience store, it's only because I know I have a copy of HUUmanist to read, too.

It's probably true that I'm falling more out of touch with the mainstream as I get older. This is not something I'm proud of it. How much good can I do in the world if I don't recognize what makes my contemporaries tick? At the same time, is it possible to learn about those things anyway, in the things I do read? Just because they are not popular does not mean they are irrelevant. It's just when it comes time for chit-chatting - that lubricant of social interaction - I will stick to things like the weather, or occupations, or Macs. Or, that wonderful source of sensationalistic and impersonal gossip: news of bizarre tragedies.

It's very likely that I will end up seeing the DaVinci Code movie with my friend today. I realize it will either entertain me or it will be a waste of my time, but at least it's only two hours. I am a slow reader of books, unlike my friend who reads about 3 pages per minute! I limit my crap intake to American Idol (1 hour a week), junk chain mails sent to me by other friends, rickey.org and the occasional tabloid magazine snagged while on the road. I can't afford the four to 10 hours it takes to read a novel that is neither time-tested nor professor-approved.

(photo from powells.com: cover of Jose Saramago's brilliant novel, Blindness).

Women's Stories of the Holocausts

2006-05-25T17:15:00.000-07:00

Today I'm reading Elie Wiesel's Night. There is a point - not quite halfway into the book - when he mentions a young Frenchwoman who appears Jewish to him but may be "passing" as Aryan. They never talk because she doesn't speak German and he doesn't speak French. Then one day, after he is physically assaulted, she comes to him and wipes his head, speaking to him in German and calling him "little brother" as she consoles (and advises) him.

This made me very curious about her story and that of other female prisoners of concentration camp - are there any narratives I should read? Also, are there any narratives by non Jewish Holocaust survivors?

Note: This afternoon I began relating to a coworker about Elie Wiesel and this book, and she says that Elie Wiesel was on Oprah's show yesterday. What a coincedence! I am sorry to have missed it. Oprah apparently asked for a tour of the Holocaust museum (in DC?). I went there about five years ago. This sticks in my mind.

Split

2006-05-24T20:27:00.000-07:00

I am watching two things in the same hour: the Howard Zinn documentary, You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train - and the finale of American Idol. I watch Zinn during the commercial breaks. And I really did need a break from the frightening spectre that was Meatloaf singing with Katharine McPhee.

In the same moment I am contemplating that 1 out of 3 soldiers who served in the first Gulf War filed claims for disabilities suffered during the war - and whether or not to see that new Superman film.

Beautiful Singers

2006-05-24T15:45:00.000-07:00

A friend and I were talking about Madonna the other day, and I remarked that when Madonna first came on the scene, she wasn't glamorous or considered 'beautiful.' She was kind of chubby in the cheeks and wore bright makeup and her clothes were all torn. But she did have charisma, and her own style, and sang fun (and in some cases, classic) songs. We started naming other famous female singers who couldn't have doubled for models: Pat Benatar, Cindy Lauper, Debbie Gibson, Janet Jackson. Nowadays it seems the most popular female pop stars have to look like this sleek haired, leggy actress/singer/fashionista prototype. Is looking a particular way more important than it used to be? Is there less diversity in the music industry?

I don't know. If so, I can't locate when in time this shift really took place - or what caused it. Music videos? Still, we felt nostalgic for the time when the beauty spectrum ranged from Suzanne Vega to Pebbles to Vesta.

(photo of singer Vesta Williams, courtesy of The Vesta Williams Website. Vesta recently lost 100+ pounds and is now a size 6.)

From Islam to Unitarian Universalism

2006-05-20T10:09:00.000-07:00

My article for the UU World is published! It is about how I left Islam and my (gradual) conversion to UUism. It is also a review of Living Islam Out Loud: American Muslim Women (Beacon Press), which I highly recommend to anyone. As a former Muslim, I found it to be truthful and real. So many of my experiences as a child and adolescent were reflected in those essays.

After reading the book, part of me wondered if I should not try to be a Muslim again. Had I given up too soon? After much thought and soul searching, I realized that culturally, there were some things I will always carry with me from Islam, but theologically there was too little agreement. Also, I did not want to live my life always at odds with the community that should be there as a source of strength for me. While I do not agree on all things with all UUs, there is more room here. If that makes any sense.

I would like to learn more about Sufism, however, as I was raised strictly in the Sunni tradition
It would be interesting to someday see a book of writings by American Muslim men. Also, perhaps I should note that when my significant other read the essay, he remarked to me that my experiences could have happened with a Christian, too. I said yes, that was very true. The one big difference between leaving Islam and leaving Christianity, however, was the lack of resources and support for former Muslims.

Help the South Central Farmers of Los Angeles

2006-05-20T09:11:00.000-07:00

Thanks to ChaliceChick for alerting me to this. I'm spreading the word: please make a donation TODAY. Time is running short. I sent them $20 via PayPal. It took no more than three minutes, and I received an email confirmation immediately after. You have an opportunity to support an empowering community project.

Quick summary: The City of Los Angeles is about to evict the farmers of South Central Farm, which occupies 14 acres of land acquired by the city via eminent domain. This land was set aside as a community garden following the LA riots in 1992. Now the city is selling the land to a real estate developer, and this vital community space that provides food for 350 low income families is in danger of being lost.

Read more background here:

Make your tax deductible donation here. If the Farm is not able to be saved, your money will be refunded to you.

(photo from SCF website. Food grown at the farm.)

War Film Reviews

2006-05-19T19:45:00.000-07:00

Reading Survival in Auschwitz renewed my interest in war and major social trauma. Actually, my main interest is in the psychology of war and other events, and also in the efforts towards reconciliation that can follow. I want to develop my knowledge and understanding in these areas. Any recommendations would be welcomed.

I wrote a bit about The Thin Red Line in my last post, but in general I enjoy war movies that are thoughtful about the nature of people in war. The first war movie I ever watched in full was The Great Escape. Some of my favorites include Das Boot, No Man's Land, Prisoner of the Mountains, and Grand Illusion. Tonight I am set to watch a Netflix arrival called Le Corbeau. Though not about WWII directly, it is apparently a metaphorical story about Germans and the French, refusal to succumb, and so on.

Some time ago I wrote up mini reviews of two of the aforementioned films, and I will share them here. Either of these movies would be worth your time. No Man's Land is about the Bosnian/Serbian conflict, and Grand Illusion is set during the first World War.

No Man's Land - Won the Academy Award for best Foreign Language Film in 2002. It's about two soldiers - one Bosnian, one Serbian - stuck between opposing fronts with a fellow soldier who is trapped on a grenade. It's a dark comedy, and the irreconcilability of the situation, with all its mistrust, cruelty, beauracracy and Public Relations controls, is the subject. The Belgian actor who portrays French UN Peacekeeper Marchand is wonderfully expressive and the dialogue is mostly great: "Do you speak French?" "Pfff!" The media storyline I did not like as much, but they are mocked, too. Everyone is mocked, but in the end you see how the "machine" of war creates countless personal tragedies.

Grand Illusion - A truly great anti-war film. At first glance, this seems to be one of those old B&W movies that airs at 11 a.m. on a Saturday on some cable network, and you just flip right by it because it's 50 different actors - of which only a few look vaguely familiar - making small talk in funny accents. But this is a special movie. So much about class(ism) and humanity, about how people are very different - and yet still able to relate to one another on varying levels. Jean Gabin - such a full, anticipating face! And Pierre Fresnay, the picture of unflappable gentility. Erich von Stroheim's Captain von Rauffestein is a tragic figure, for sure (and I can't help but think that Dr. Evil of Austin Powers was physically modeled after him). Full of so many little moments - such as when Maissonueve dresses up as a woman and all the soldiers look at him, grateful and speechless; Rauffenstein's geranium; Marechal's captor giving him a harmonica; Rosenthal discussing his desire to share his packages; the young translator going into hysterics about his beloved Pindar; and so on. The DVD looks very, very good and comes with the extra features one expects from Criterion. Favorite Quote: "Theatre's too deep for me. I prefer bicycling."

Not so Random feelings On Race

2006-05-19T14:35:00.000-07:00

Earlier this week I was in Princeton, New Jersey, spending a few days with my good friend Nancy after the Anti-Racism Analysis Development Conference in Paramus. I took it easy after the rush of the conference. I read Primo Levi’s Survival in Auschwitz, and watched The Color Purple (1st time), The New World (2nd time), Cronicás, and the documentary on Howard Zinn, You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train.

I also watched The Thin Red Line again - this time with Nancy. She’d never seen it before, whereas I’ve lost count of my viewings. The Thin Red Line is the one film I like to say “changed my life.” It led me over the threshold of fear into an opening realm of self-trust. When I watch it now it is just an excellent movie, but six years ago, it symbolized my right as a human being to “re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book” (Walt Whitman). The Thin Red Line was about questioning. Probably not a day goes by that an image or quote from it doesn’t come to mind.

Earlier today I was reading a discussion about racism at the ChaliceBlog, and I felt that familiar heaviness over my whole self: dull shock. I was reminded of a scene in The Thin Red Line during which Storm (John C Reilly) sits with Welsh (Sean Penn) in a tent at base camp. Storm is telling Welsh that death in war is random; survival is purely a matter of luck. “I look at that boy dying,” he says. “I don’t feel nothing. I don’t care about nothing anymore.” Welsh looks at Storm with envy. “Sounds like bliss.” He hasn’t acquired that numbness yet. He still feels so much.

I feel that way about racism often. Some days I wish for numbness, too. Recently I read an article about black patriotism. That is, the tension that exists in black folks who desire to be patriotic. Not much in that article is new to me, but it captures the distrust many of us have for a duplicitous government. And yet, this country – “America” – is the only country I know. How am I supposed to admire or love the founding fathers, many of whom would not have seen me as fully human had I lived in their time? Do I have to give up some part of myself to do so? How do I take what is useful in what they said, and yet learn from the evil they committed? Why is it still considered radical to call their participation in slavery and the legalized plundering of Indian lands evil - or even racist? And why do people turn a blind eye to the hundreds of laws put in place since those early years - laws enacted specifically to take away the gains that people of color managed to make in this country - despite all odds?

Bliss would be nice, but like Welsh, I’m stuck with feeling. Like him, it’s probably because “I knew what to expect.”

It takes about a day to absorb a new impact to my sensibilities. I don’t tend to react emotionally, so generally it just sort of sits there, sinking and softening into some inner soup. And it becomes a part of me.

(photo by HSA, May 2006. 20 Years Later. Part of a timeline of the region showing the "decline" of a people. At Cape Perpetua visitor's center in Yachats, Oregon.)

YWCA's Mission: Old or New?

2006-05-11T22:44:00.000-07:00

I was walking past the newly renovated YWCA facility in downtown Portland a few weeks ago when I noticed that they had a new sign on the side of the building: orange lettering spelled out "eliminating racism" and "empowering women." Now I've seen this building hundreds of times over the years, and don't recall ever seeing this slogan before. I was taken aback (and impressed) by the straightforward message. In a society where many people deny that racism is even a problem (except for "reverse racism" which is apparently at an all time high!), simply seeing the word "racism" on a large building in a town that is close to 80% white, is very dramatic.

Had the YWCA created a new mission statement? Curious about the new logo, I checked the organization's website, and found information about their history of involvement in women's rights and racial justice. I didn't look through every page, but saw nothing about Christianity at all.

I had always been under the impression (due to the name) that the YWCA was very religious oriented, but it seems I may have been wrong? According to this article - written from a clearly fundamentalist Christian viewpoint - the YWCA has been "taken over" by non Christians and has "abandoned" spreading the Word about the Christian faith. I did a little digging and it looks as though the organization has recently undergone some revisioning or "reaffirming" (as the YWCA literature states) of its core values. There are at least a few folks who seem to be angry at the loss of Christian focus (article about UK president), but it is not clear to me if these folks were ever involved with the YWCA to begin with. They also seem to have a narrow definition of what a Christian is (providing birth control and handing out condoms is apparently a no-no). I have to wonder if the YWCA's dropping of things like Bible study groups is merely a reflection of the direction our Western societies have taken as a whole?

Worth reading: an informative article about the bold decision at the 1970 annual YWCA convention to "thrust our collective power to eliminate racism wherever it exists and by any means necessary." This reminds me of some of the resolutions declared at UUA General Assemblies past.

But what strikes me most about the YWCA situation is how plainly spoken their mission is, and also how it seems to have arisen out of a real consciousness and intentionality. Their work is not random. That is crucial. Institutional racism is no accident; it will not be undone by chance. As such, I'm very interested in how the YWCA made this happen at the organizational level, and how this has trickled down to local chapters. I've gone to a couple of different YWCA chapter sites; some mention the racism piece prominently, and others do not.

Another interesting piece is that in April of 2006, the YWCA-USA voted (70%) to lift the ban on men serving as leaders within the organization. It will be up to individual chapters to decide if they want to adopt this change. I wonder what kind of impact this will have after almost 150 years of being solely run by women?

I'm thinking of many things this morning, as I sit in my hotel room, listening to the thunder claps. I left sunshine and 75 degree temperatures in Portland for the stormy weather of New Jersey. I'm here to co-lead an anti-racism analysis development conference for the Metro NY district, but I have jet lag and am tired but not sleepy. As I rode the subway into the city this morning, a young woman standing in front of me took off her iPod headphones and asked me if the logo on my hoodie sweatshirt was a chalice. The shirt was from a young adult district con I attended last Fall. I said yes, and it turned out that she is an NYU undergrad from Massachussetts. She goes to All Soul's now. It's nice to be recognized by fellow "believers." It happens a lot when I don chalicewear.

(Photo by HSA: Several General Assembly 2006 Youth Caucus staffers in the tunnel of mirrors at the City Museum of St. Louis, April 2006)

Meet You in St. Louis

2006-05-01T17:34:00.000-07:00

Early in April I flew to St. Louis in order to attend a pre-site meeting of the Youth Caucus Staff for General Assembly. I was doubtful of the necessity of a pre-site - mostly because I was tired of traveling. However, the trip ended up being very essential and I can't imagine having shown up at GA as a youth caucus chaplain without the pre-site.

One of the best parts of the weekend was having an Identity (ID) group meeting with the other adults on staff. We had a downright spiritual and deeply thought provoking conversation that made me feel extremely fortunate to be working with such people. People who really think about how to make UU community more inclusive and meaningful for all. Truly inspiring.

I'm looking forward to General Assembly 2006. Oh, and my biased perceptions of the midwest as a cultural wasteland were thankfully ripped apart. St. Louis is cool! And thanks to my new friend Mary, whom I met earlier this year at a chaplain training and again at pre-site, I was introduced to the Cahokia Mounds.

(photo by HSA: Old Courthouse in St. Louis, site of Dred Scott case)

Con Passion

2006-05-01T15:57:00.000-07:00

I returned yesterday from my first youth con(ference). I had volunteered to serve as a chaplain in order to get some experience before General Assembly, where I will be the adult female chaplain for Youth Caucus. (There will be three other youth caucus chaplains: one male adult, a male youth and a female youth).

What struck me most about the youth con was how familiar it all was. I didn’t become a UU until I was 25, so I missed YRUU entirely, but ConPassion had a similar style and energy as young adult district cons I’ve attended. In a meeting with the sponsors I described the youth as being “just like the young adults, only a little smaller.”

The keynote speakers at the youth con were two young adults (28 and 30 years old) who, combined, had attended 40-50 cons in their youth. Some of these were at the Eliot Institute, an intergenerational camp up in Washington and British Columbia, but most were youth events.
The two focused primarily on how their con experiences enabled them to survive their teenage years with their self-esteem intact. Sam, for example, didn’t officially come out until his early 20s, but knew that his con community accepted him and would accept him no matter what his sexual orientation. He was able to explore his fascination with Madonna and play around with gender roles without being ostracized or silenced. His good friend and co-speaker talked about how the UU community was the only place she didn’t have to explain why she had two fathers. The speeches evolved into a forum format, where they asked the youth and sponsors in attendance to offer how cons had enriched their lives. I was amazed at the level and amount of emotion that followed. Cons had seriously impacted the lives of the attendees in a positive way. Adults who had been in LRY (Liberal Religious Youth) back in the 1960s talked about coming back as advisors after they had children because they knew how crucial camps had been for them in their formative years. Youth repeatedly stated that cons were where they felt free to be themselves, where they didn’t feel judged, where they could be with youth of similar values, and where they could receive affection without expectation of sexual favors.

Affection was a huge theme. “Cuddle puddles” (where multiple people snuggle together) are often misinterpreted by outsiders, but they are not necessarily sexual in nature. When I went to my first district conference I was at first startled by and then extremely grateful for the number of hugs I received. In my daily life, I hugged and was hugged by no one. Weeks might go by before I’d exchange a hug. I’d had no idea how much I was missing compassionate human touch until I received 40 to 50 hugs in that weekend. Three or four years later, I hug all my friends and family members on a regular basis. I used to just wave goodbye to my favorite girlfriends, even when my impulse was to hug them goodbye. Cons quickly helped me get over denying that impulse. They helped me to feel comfortable with expressing my heartfelt feelings for others physically and verbally.

Saturday night of the conference there was a “No Talent Show” aka Coffeehouse in which participants from the community got onstage and performed for everyone. Goofy, emotional and sincere presentations ensued. One 18 year old bridger, who I’d already met at a young adult con last fall, broke down into tears as he sang a song of farewell. As he strummed the last note on his guitar, almost all of the 100 or so youth in the gym ran up to embrace him. Several of the adult sponsors who had watched him grow up over the years had tears in their eyes.

On the whole, the weekend was very interesting. I attended a workshop led by a 19 year old youth on Gestalt communication methods. I learned much from this young man and the other (three) folks in attendance. That hour alone made the whole conference worthwhile for me. I also attended the Sponsor meetings, and got to know some great adults who are advocates for youth and believe in supporting them in their transitions into adulthood. The sponsors, by and large, believe that cons are places where youth can try things on and explore their thoughts and feelings safely, with the involvement of supportive adults who are looking out for their best interests. Here in the Pacific NW District (PNWD), youth and adult coordinators work hard to keep the environment safe and healthy. I gleaned a lot of information about the structures of youth programming, and was very inspired to continue attending youth cons as a chaplain and youth ally.

From other young adults who grew up in YRUU, I’ve learned that there is a serious gap between YRUU and adult congregational life. UUism loses a lot of youth who return as adults or who never return. Minding that gap has been on my mind ever since my first young adult con (called “Mind the Gap”). While this experience is not my own, it is heartbreaking to me that bridging young adults lose connection to their faith because of lack of resources and congregational outreach.

For my own part, I have to say that young adult cons are largely responsible for me still being a UU, entering my fifth year. I’m not sure if I would still be one if I had merely attended church. I came into the faith with only a few coworkers as friends. Most of the young adults in my young adult group at the time were converts like me, and were unfamiliar with the spiritualism of con culture. Cons brought me out of my shell, and helped me to learn the songs, games, worship styles, and history of UU con traditions. Spending intense amounts of time with peers from all over was fundamental to my development as a UU.

At this point in my life, I feel I’m beginning to age out of the UU young adult con experience, but there are still events like General Assembly and the conferences at the Eliot Institute to look forward to. And I hope, like many others, to bring some of that con spirit into congregational life and interactions.

(ConPassion logo)

Happy Birthday, Nanny!

2006-04-26T11:04:00.000-07:00

I just want to say that I love my grandmother very much. She turned 75 years old this Easter Sunday. Nanny is a Catholic, a staunch Democrat, a board member of the local NAACP chapter, a retired accountant from the City of New York, and a beloved mom, grandmother, great grandmother, sister and aunt. She is also highly opinionated, and quite busy. She is my favorite grandparent, and one day I imagine I will be very much like her.

2nd Picture: Nanny when she was my age, with her mother.

Life is a Beautiful Struggle

2006-03-19T17:59:00.000-08:00

I never came so close to accepting Jesus as my Personal Savior till 2 o'clock this morning, when I was watching the final church scene of Diary of a Mad Black Woman. I replayed it three times before I went to bed. It is very tempting to surrender to the Lord like the people in this movie do, although I wonder what is on the other side that is not accessible to me from where I currently stand? Two weeks ago, Doug Muder wrote about the secular born again experience, and so it struck me as interesting that, although I'd consider myself already delivered from evil, that I could still be enticed by the gospel music group experience. Christians say to surrender, Muslims say to submit. Taoism says to let go. I'm still attemping to strike a balance between "letting go" and exerting my will. My natural inclination is to let go in surrender. I was quite the submissive servant of Allah for most of my life, but it was not until I took hold of myself and dared to open my eyes that this world began to be real.

I suppose some might say that surrendering only works when it is to Jesus specifically, but I am dubious. One reason I left Islam was that I did not see any evidence that it had an exclusive ability to transform people. Christianity seems the same to me. My biological father, for example, is born again - and a youth pastor at his church in Texas - but he chooses not to communicate with me or my brother, his oldest children. I have not seen him in 25 years, and have spoken with him only once in that time. While I understand that he might be embarrassed about skipping out on us for ten bad years, he's been saved now for at least 15. If the power of Jesus can't spur him to overcome his fears, what would? Perhaps Christ saved him from drugs or alcohol or womanizing, or whatever he was into after my mother divorced him, but so far as his children Before Christ are concerned, he might as well still be lost in the streets.

One of the thoughts that angered me as I was leaving Islam was the sense of betrayal; I had been promised that Islam improved people and made life good. What a broken promise!

'Aisha, daughter of Prophet Muhammad, is reported to have said: "Poetry is both good and bad. Take the good, and leave the bad."

I am like a sparrow
in a boy's hand
the sparrow is dying
but the boy plays on.
~Qays ibn Mulawwah, translated by Ghazi A. AlGosaibi

Pensamientos de Cuba

2006-03-16T14:57:00.000-08:00

I don’t know when I will return to Cuba. The current restrictions make it virtually impossible for me to travel alone. I’d have to go as part of a sanctioned group. While I could easily visit via Jamaica or Mexico, I refuse to have to be a criminal to visit my father’s birthplace.

It would be a very different experience going to Cuba as a non Muslim. When I was there before, most people knew right off the bat that I was not born there because of my Islamic dress. But one day I wore my headscarf tied up into a gelee, and donned a pair of jeans and a white polo shirt. Suddenly, I was incognito – no one stopped me on the street to ask what language I spoke, or for money. I experienced persistent whistling and the annoying “psss psss pssss” call from men passing by, but that was typical. Somewhere not far from the Malecón in Havana, I wandered into a visitor information shop. As I was browsing city maps, the armed soldier stationed inside suddenly began shouting in Spanish. I looked up at him, startled. He approached me and gestured towards the exit. “Get out of here,” he was saying. “You’re not supposed to be in here!” I was so taken off guard that I stumbled backward toward the door, my eyes on his automatic rifle. With the white tourists inside staring at me curiously, I attempted to apologize in broken Spanglish. As the glass door swung close in front of me, I could see the confused look on the guard’s face as it dawned on him that I was not Cuban.

Well, maybe in a year I can visit Panamá and Venezuela.

(photo by Nils; HSA in clogs)

What is the value of young black men in our society?

2006-03-15T18:46:00.000-08:00

Perhaps someone can explain to me how 14 year old Martin Lee Anderson's beating can be on videotape, an expert pathologist can determine from a second autopsy that he died of injuries related to that beating (not a blood disorder as the first coroner claimed), and the boot camp he was sent to (for two hours before he was shipped to hospital) can be closed down, and yet no one has been charged for any crime related to his death?

What if there hadn't been a videotape?

I am not one for many sentimental moments, but this is pretty distressing to me. I'm reminded of the murder of Amadou Diallo, for instance. Zero tolerance.

Random, semi-connected thoughts:

-One of my favorite songs: (lyrics to) Around My Way, by Talib Kweli

-T-shirts I saw for sale in New York City some years back: "I'm black, but I'm not armed!"

-Portland's required police academy training will be increased from 10 weeks to 16. Maybe then we'll have fewer officer involved shootings here. My training to be a customer service rep 9 years ago was five weeks. I do imagine that it's at least twice as difficult to be a cop as it is to answer telephones.

-Oh yeah, and if you haven't already, please go see Dave Chappelle's Block Party. It's uplifting (at least for this person).

Many Visits + Daughters of Africa

2006-03-08T11:02:00.000-08:00

So far today, I've had 131 unique visitors to this blog. On a typical day, I have 15. So ... what on earth is happening?! Most of them seem to be reading the first part of the bell hooks lecture summary. I wonder if Crash winning best movie at the Academy Awards has anything to do with this?

Yesterday I learned that Matt Dillon was the only actor from the movie to be nominated for an Oscar. This may lend support to hooks' statement that he was "the hero" of the movie. While Dillon did a good job, I actually thought Larenz Tate (quieter half of cart thieving duo) and Michael Pena (father of the little girl) offered the best acting - or at least, they portrayed the characters I was most intrigued by.

I found the movie really interesting both times I saw it, and a jumping off point for discussion (used in anti oppression workshop I participated in as a trainer). I thought it depicted the frustration of many black men's experiences with the police better than any other movie I've seen. And yet, an online pal, Ben Chan, sums up for me what I've come to believe is Crash's major flaw:
In the real world, the majority of racism and most other prejudices are
subtle. For every "chink" thrown out there, there are ten instances of people
asking some Asian American "where are you really from?". I'd argue that "where
are you from" attitude is more pervasive and leads to the "Fuck you chink!" ...
Ultimately, that is the crime of racism- it dehumanizes. But in the movie
"Crash" nobody comes off as human- they're all caricatures and so instead of
racism being a human problem, it is a mere character flaw, a plot device in the
movie.

This reminds me: my favorite African American character in film to date is Daniel Holt, portrayed by Jeffrey Wright in Ang Lee's underrated Ride with the Devil. It reminded me of Last of the Mohicans in that, by the movie's end, it occurred to me that the most important character was perhaps the brown guy standing behind the white male lead. Also, bonus to Jewel for her strong female character of the old South. Very atypical. I must be strange because RwtD has probably received the least universal praise of all Lee's films (after Hulk), but it is - by far - my favorite.

In other news: I heard today that Margaret Busby, editor of the phenomenal anthology, Daughters of Africa, was on WBAI this morning and said she would be editing a NEW version of the book to include material published since 1994. Yes, yes, yes!

Film Favorites

2006-03-06T23:22:00.000-08:00

Watching the Academy Awards last night helped me to remember how much time I used to spend watching films. Now I see about two movies a month; back when I had a very limited social life, I would watch, on average, seven a week.

A random 10 of some favorite films:

1) Before Night Falls - art and persecution in Castro's Cuba
2) Fearless - dying to ourselves - more than once
3) The Decalogue - inspired by the 10 commandments
4) 25th Hour - coming to grips with one's choices
5) Ed Wood - all the freaky people make the beauty of the world (franti)
6) The Secret Garden (1993) - if you were born sour, you should learn to love flowers
7) All About Eve - great one liners + female characters
8) The Widow of St. Pierre - powerful woman + anti death penalty
9) I Am Cuba - some of the best cinematography ever + an ode to a revolution
10) Karakter - complex relationship between a bewildered son and stonehearted father

My favorite actors are Sarah Polley (My Life Without Me), Daniel Auteuil (Girl on the Bridge), Juliette Binoche (see #8), Jeff Bridges (The Door in the Floor), Jeffrey Wright (Ride with the Devil), Tony Leung Chiu Wai (Ashes of Time), Rachel Weisz (Sunshine), Andre Braugher (Homicide), and a couple of other people. Honorable mention to Linus Roache, who broke my heart twice - first in Priest, then in Wings of the Dove - but never quite found a role as good as those again.

I am always looking for recommends. I am a sucker for redemption stories.

(picture: still from Mike Van Diem's practically perfect Dutch film, Karakter)

Non-Sequiturial Crossword Joy

2006-03-04T12:14:00.000-08:00

Like candles and recipes, one can never have too many crossword puzzle books. I bought a new one at Powell's two days ago called Enigmatic Crosswords to Keep You Sharp. It was my mother who introduced me to the joy of crosswords, logic problems and other paper word games. When I was a teenager we would buy logic problem books together. If either of us came across a really tough one, we'd sit and figure it out together. I have fuzzy memories of my maternal grandmother sitting at her kitchen table with the newspaper, pencil in hand. I would read the funnies and she'd work the puzzles. According to my mother, her father would make his younger siblings, newly arrived from Panamá, complete crossword puzzles - in pen. Ever the perfectionist, and overly proud of his "genius" IQ, he had a low tolerance for error or perceived stupidity in others.

I work many crossword puzzles in pen, but only because I have more pens around than pencils.

This morning I had to laugh at myself. For the clue, "Usually sour fruit" I easily entered cranapple. When I realized I couldn't think of any "pie fruit" beginning with the letter N (from cranapple), it occurred to me that only in the world of Ocean Spray is cranapple a fruit! Too much television in my childhood. As cleanly as I could, I wrote B over N. Now I am only two letters away from learning the name of an Assyrian war god.

p.s. Is sequiturial a bona fide word?