Strange Attractor

Walking in Two UU Worlds

2012-02-02T16:05:00.001-09:00

Peter Morales’s recent article and all the responses to it remind me that I often feel like I walk in two separate, but over-lapping Unitarian-Universalist worlds: my church, and the UU blogosphere.

I enjoy Anchorage Unitarian Universalist Fellowship more than I ever thought I would. It is not a perfect organization, but there I have been accepted, encouraged, challenged, and affirmed. I have been welcomed there much more readily than I had expected. What I love most about that is that I have both been accepted with open arms just as I am, and challenged to be better and to do more. I love that.

The second UU world is really the first – I found Unitarian Universalism through the UU blogosphere. I have never met most of you, but you UUs who blog or frequently comment taught me about this religious movement until I knew I wanted to look for fellowship locally. I love all you UU bloggers and the community you created. Having said that, it doesn’t feel as welcoming as it used to. In spite of various disagreements and tensions, AUUF has never made me feel like maybe I don’t belong as a UU after all, but the blogging community sometimes has. When I have been hurt by comments I have read, I have been able to push back from the screen and remember that I have a community who accepts and welcomes me.

I believe strongly in the power of the internet and social media as connecting and community-building tools. If we want to use these tools for evangelism to unchurched UUs, we have to spend less time with self-flagellation. Endless material about what is wrong with UU churches and types of UU members isn’t going to attract anyone. People want to join a vibrant community that is going places, not a group who continuously agonizes over everything being done wrong. Give me a vision for making a better world, and a direction in which we are all going to pull to get there. Let’s build a movement based on that vision.

“What is it for us to do? It is for us to heal the world.”

Imbolc Resolutions

2012-02-01T14:30:00.001-09:00

Happy Imbolc!*

Imbolc is a strange holiday here in Alaska, because even though the light is starting to return (2 hours since the Winter Solstice!), there are no other signs of spring return, nor are there likely to be any anytime soon. Until last year, I never really acknowledged Imbolc as it didn’t seem to fit into my seasonal cycle.

Last year it occurred to me that Imbolc is the perfect time to make resolutions. By New Years I am still whirling from Christmas and usually planning two birthday parties. This puts me in no place for real reflection. By the beginning of February, I have had time, and darkness, and quiet enough to think about what I want to bring with me into the year. Imbolc is celebrated in honor of the Irish goddess Brigid, and her double emphasis on home & hearth, and creativity already make me think about what I want to be and do better.

Last year at Imbolc I decided I wanted to learn to do some things badly. I have a tendency to only want to things I am good at and avoid anything in which I might not excel. I did learn to both knit and run badly – badly enough to hurt myself even, but I found both learning experiences enjoyable, valuable, and freeing. Kicking off the expectation of excellence was uncomfortable at first, but it allowed me to explore interests in a new way, and opened up whole areas that I had always felt were off limits. I also learned to be a service lay leader this year, and I hope I am not doing it badly. It is really important to me that I do that one well, or move out of the way and let someone else do it better.

Here are three things I am focusing on this Imbolc.

1. Learning to do last year’s projects well. While I enjoyed the liberation I felt in learning those new skills, I want to get better at them rather than coasting. I also want to learn to do new things badly. I’m not sure what those things will be yet, but maybe when I am ready, a teacher will appear.

2. I want to write more without worrying about the readers’ reception. I spend way too much time second guessing what people think about what I write and not enough time writing. This might even fall under #1 as well.

3. 2012 will involve a lot of changes in my house. Tall Daughter E will be an adult this summer and she and I will need to find a new way of living together as two adult women. This might be a big learning curve. I am not sure how to do this, but she is important enough to me to figure it out. Tiny Daughter M will start middle school later this year and I will have no more small children. I need to learn how to parent through this transition.

Here is to more learning, writing, and adjusting in 2012. Check out the 7th annual online poetry festival for Brigid here. For those of you who celebrate, what does Imbolc bring to you?

*Patricia Kennealy Morrison referred to this holiday last night on Facebook as Brighnasa, as the counterpart to Lughnasa in August. I like it, and may use it in the future.

In Defense of Pink

2012-01-04T15:56:00.001-09:00

For one reason or another, the idea of gender was a major theme for me last year. One result of this is that I am defending something I never thought I would.

I am defending pink.

Between the video of the adorable girl criticizing the gendering of toys and the outrage over new Lego for girls it seems like the internet has blown up lately talking about toys for girls. I could spend all day linking to it all, or I could just let you Google it – there is a lot out there. I used to be in the same boat as these critics. I grew up a tomboy and my lust for Star Wars action figures instead of dolls was intense. I hated it when people tried to define my femaleness with traditional femininity. It did not fit me.

While pregnant with my first daughter I put a lot of thought into how I would raise a girl, unconstrained by social expectations of girliness. I was the parent who insisted on gender neutral clothing & toys. Barbie was absolutely forbidden. I ended up with an older daughter who almost totally eschews traditional feminine trappings. Aaaaand then we had daughter number two who is a frilly femme from her waist-length hair to her sparkly blue toenails. No amount of gender neutral propaganda is going to make this child not want to twirl around in lacy dresses and a tiara. And here is the thing – that should never be my goal.

I support gender neutral toys, but I no longer support the ghettoizing of pink ones. When we tell children that pink toys are bad, we tell them that femininity is bad. Girls and women should never be locked into gender stereotypes, but they also should not be denied their true selves if that self feels girly*. We ought not to tell children of either gender that girls cannot be chemists, but we also should not tell them they cannot be fashion designers. In an effort to support telling girls they can be whatever they want and make progress in traditionally male domains, I believe some feminists are painting femininity in a negative light.

One of the things I have come to realize in the past year is that my dislike of the color pink, and various other traditional feminine traits and activities are really my own unconscious internalized misogyny. That is painful to type, because I don’t want it to be true. When I go out of my way to make sure that people realize that I don’t do X, like other women, what I am really saying is that they way women do things is not as good as the way men to them. I’m saying I’m better than other women because I act more masculine. I am not OK with that. I am also finding that the older I get the more comfortable I get with my own femininity – I could not have written this post at 20.

I love my t-shirt & blue jeans daughter and my party dress diva daughter without any desire to make either one more like the other. I honor their true selves. I only hope I do them justice as they grow into amazing young women – with pink or without.

*I’m not ignoring the fact that these issues also apply to boys and transgendered people. I don’t feel as qualified to speak to that. Those issues are real and valid, but they are not the subject of this post.

Making Peace With Christmas & Solstice

2011-12-23T15:23:00.001-09:00

In which I address steps that havehelped to make this holiday season the best in years.

Since leaving Christianity I havestruggled with how and whether to celebrate Christmas. It felt false tocherry-pick parts of a Christian holiday while rejecting Christianityitself. On the other hand, I did not want to cause further division in myfamily by refusing to participate, nor did I want to force my kids to be thoseweird kids whose mom won’t let them do Christmas. I like Christmas and Iwanted to keep it, but I always felt a little inauthentic about it.

As a humanist science nerd and adabbler in paganism, I love the Winter Solstice. The trouble is noone in my family celebrates the Solstice or has the slightest interest inchanging the date of our winter celebration. Every year when December 21passed, mostly unobserved, it felt like I was neglecting something important,or missing out.

All of the pieces of this changehave been in my head for years, but this year they clicked in way that ismeaningful for me. Christmas is the way my culture celebrates the WinterSolstice. For me, that is it. It may be a few days late, due to acalendar clash, but that is far from the strangest thing about westerneuro-american culture. This may be a big "duh" to you, butsometimes it takes a while between when you know something is true and when youfeel its truth. When you look at the history of winter festivals, you can comeaway with a feeling that Christmas is somewhat false, but this year somethinghas turned and it feels more universal. I am not going to begrudgeliteralist Christians their refusal to see how much of their sacred day is borrowedfrom older traditions, but I won't let them interfere with my understanding ofits history either. Instead I will just view Christmas as one aspect in aweb of winter holidays. I will celebratethe Solstice on December 25 and call it Christmas. The actual story ofChrist's birth is not spiritually significant for me, but the long darkness andthe reborn sun are. If I focus on joy and peace and warmth and beauty inwinter, who cares if it is a few days late? This is Christmas and Solstice onmy terms, and I don't feel like I am fighting either one of them anymore.

The second change I have made thisyear is in my expectation for my own performance on Christmas. Our kidsare getting older and understand why financially this will be a smallerChristmas than normal. Knowing that I will not be able to provide everything Iwant to freed me from feeling like I have to make the BEST. CHRISTMAS. EVER!every year. I am focusing on spending time instead of money. This means watching Dr. Who Christmas specials with Tall Daughter E and cutting papersnowflakes with Tiny Daughter M. It ishot cider with Husband S late on Christmas Eve and learning to knit gifts. It means very little time spent Christmasshopping.

This Christmas is important. It is the last Christmas when all my kidswill be children. It is the last onewhere I know for sure that the whole family will live together and racetogether down the hallway Christmas morning. I hope Tall E is with us next Christmas, but she will be an adult then,and it is possible she will be living somewhere else. I want to wrap my arms around this Christmasand hug it.

Yesterday I had a very frustratingafternoon and what should have been a vexing evening. But as I killed time running errands andwalking in the beautiful falling snow, I stared pondering this post and foundmyself so in love with the world, so happy not to be a neurotic mess. I am not totally sure why I find myselfcalmer and less frantic this holiday season, but I am. I find myself honoring the stillness of theseason more than the joyous frenzy. I want to rest and dwell in this Christmas. To everyone reading this, I sincerely wish awonderful joyous and peaceful holiday, on whatever terms you choose tocelebrate it.

Force Majeure & Gratitude

2011-12-08T15:24:00.001-09:00

We had some pretty weird weather last weekend, and with it, some unfortunate force majeure type damage to our house. This has not been a fun experience as we are learning about construction and insurance policies, and figuring out how to pay our deductable and still manage Christmas. This falls under the category of character-building experience.

This happened right after I started a personal discipline of practicing gratitude in every situation. There is not a lot to feel grateful for when one is hearing the term “structural damage” about one’s home. For days my mantra was, “it could have been much worse”. I consoled myself with thinking about all of the terrible outcomes that didn’t happen.

No one was hurt

We did not lose our windows and have water and wind pouring in our house.

No big leaks in the roof

Our vehicle was undamaged.

This list provided some comfort, but things could be worse only carries one so far. Then I noticed that something had been happening since Saturday night – Husband S and I have been so close to each other lately. I shouldn’t be surprised by now, since adversity has always brought us together, but I am enjoying the effect, if not its cause.

Over and over this last week I am reminded of what complimentary skill sets S and I have. The areas where I excel are his weak points, and his strengths are in areas that leave me overwhelmed and frustrated. We don’t even have to discuss it anymore. One of us will take the lead and the other will either back them up or get out of the way. This week has left us both so grateful for each other. This stress and anxiety has all been worth it, having construction going on during Christmas if OK if it means I get to have this man in my life and we get to feel this way about each other.

I am not happy about the cost and the inconvenience, but I am so glad to have this opportunity to remember how lucky I am to have him.

Sex & Glee

2011-11-09T15:46:00.002-09:00

Knowing what the subject matter would be, I almost didn't let my girls watch last night's episode of Glee, "The First Time", but I am really glad that I did. This themed episode about losing one's virginity was a little bit after-school special for adults, but I don't think it was aimed at us. I don't think most kids get to see these types of behaviors being modeled, but Glee demonstrated teens discussing using condoms; teen partners have open and only slightly embarrassed conversations about what they wanted out of intimacy, how long they wanted to wait for it, and why; positive and negative emotional outcomes of having sex in high school; partners resisting sexual advances from someone they loved because they were honoring their own feelings; a romantic relationship for a non-traditionally attractive character that was not played for laughs, but introduced the idea that not everyone is attracted to blonde cheerleaders; and a homosexual relationship that had just was much emotional and physical importance as the heterosexual relationships.

I wish that there had been a little more balance and someone other than the mega-uptight counselor and the bitchy ice queen advocating for why they abstain from sex. In spite of some great West Side Story numbers, this will probably not be listed among my favorite Glee episodes ever, but again, it wasn't made for me. Most teenagers don't get to go to OWL and the sex ed schools teach is often ridiculously inadequate. If it takes a silly musical TV show to tell young people that they deserve to have their voice heard in intimate relationships, them I am all for it.

I am so happy with the way this episode approached sex that I am willing to overlook how annoying it was that not one, but two adult female high school staff members are virgins due to their hang-ups and that one of them even discussed this with a high school student. I may be, ahem, singing a different song if the show pursues the choir teacher/student romantic storyline, but not now kudos to Glee.

Knitting & Neurosis

2011-10-26T13:39:00.001-08:00

I am not a craftsy person. I generally find most crafts to be sources of frustration rather than fun because I can't make things look like I want them to. I can picture or see how cool something could be, but my fingers are too stupid to make it work. I like to be good at things so I hate having lofty goals and amateurish results. So it is with real trepidation that I am committing to making all of my Christmas gifts for adults this year. I am committing here so that I will actually do it, and you can all hold me accountable. My kids will still get indulgent and wasteful stuff. If there is something I hate more than doing crafts, it is the stress and expense of Christmas shopping.

I had solved the holiday shopping problem by using Amazon. Sit down, click around, get a bunch of presents - no muss, no fuss, no traffic. Except that I am trying to reduce the commercialism & waste in my life, and I do my best to buy local, so a Christmas sponsored by Amazon.com doesn't really fit in with those goals.

More than anything else, I dread the idea of giving people cheesy, tacky, hideous, handmade things that they would never want or buy, even in their wildest dreams. We've all gotten those gifts from well-meaning relatives and the thought of giving them makes me cringe. So next week I am going to learn how to knit. I mean, I live in Alaska so who can't use a nice scarf? My BFF and knitting coach assures me that if I start now, there is time to re-do them if they are ugly.

Now, if I were a normal person I could approach the idea of learning knit as the simple acquisition of a new and useful skill without being all neurotic about it, but noooooooo. I am not going to make things that simple; I am going to overthink everything instead. I have been intending to learn to knit for about three years, but have always helf off because of the emotional drama I spin around in at the idea. I know several really good knitters and it fascinates me. I like to watch them knit and it is amazing when they take some yarn and twist it around for a while, and magically it turns into a thing...a useful item. It is like yarn and stick-based alchemy. In my mind there is an intergenerational communion in practicing old skills, like the rare occasions when I knead bread and I feel in harmony with all of the women who came before me and fed their families with the work of their hands. It might be a good thing to learn this relaxing and meditative alchemy. It is probably a better thing to do with my hands than to continue to use them to shove Nutella in my face. But I digress.

As soon as I decide to learn the other voice speaks up. Do I really want to learn to be so domestic? I spent most of my life trying to prove that I was a female person and not that bogie-woman a girly-girl. Did I work that hard to be taken seriously only to fall into a stereotype now? I mean, what kind of feminist knits for goddess's sake? I had the same thoughts when I learned to really cook and I love cooking now. But cooking is a little different - everyone needs to eat, but no one needs to know how to make their own socks. If I end up liking to knit, am I telling myself that I am someone other than who I think I am?

To any reasonable person, the second point-of-view is stupid. The whole point of being a feminist is to be able to make my own choices, not to limit my choices to a different, less traditional, more masculine set. As I wrote this I could imagine the Buddha laughing at me. Why would you not allow yourself to do something possibly useful and enjoyable because it might conflight with your identity which you, yourself created and isn't even real? But those values of creativity, utility, relaxation, and humility are real, so why let my ego get in the way of giving knitting a try?

Grateful for Older Women

2011-10-13T13:46:00.006-08:00

UU Membership is "graying"; we all know. In my short time as a UU I have heard and read a lot about why this is a problem and how to fix it. Demographically, I understand why aging memberships are a concern, but I have found a benefit to this lop-sided nature of our congregation. It has given me an opportunity to get to know a whole group of people with whom I almost certainly would have never interacted.

Older women.

I love the older women in my church and I am so grateful I have gotten the change to get to know them. There is the cheerful & bubbly woman in her 70s who did more than anyone to convince me that AUUF was worth looking into. She loves and welcomes everyone and embodies loving-kindness. I recently heard one of our board members whisper that he wanted to be her when he grew up, and I don't think he is alone in that sentiment. She also introduced me to her women's group and the wonderful retired teacher who turned 71 on our shared birthday. That detail is just one of the many things this second woman and I have in common. She has shown me how to remain yourself while embracing change, and that gratitude and contentment lay on the other side of difficulty. Her spirit make me glad to be around her.

The simultaneously bold and relaxed 60 year old who hosts our small group is such a role model for me. Every time I talk to her she makes me feel valued and appreciated while continuing to push me to be the person I want to be. She pushes in the nicest way possible, but still... you know you were pushed. These wonderful women take everything in stride. When things go wrong they laugh, do what can be done, and move on with life. I love this about them.

These are just the three who stand out to me the most. There are others who I don't know as well, but I look forward to learning what they have to teach. I only hope that when it is my turn to be one of the elders I will have gained some of their love and wisdom, expressed with their humor and grace. I hope that I can be to a younger person what they have been to me.

Liberals & Evangelicals - Part II

2011-09-20T10:48:00.003-08:00

In my last post I wrote that religious and political liberals need to start taking the Christian evangelical movement seriously rather than just ridiculing them and hoping they will go away. So in this post I want to present the flip side. I am not comfortable any time people, including myself, make broad generalizations about groups of people. I want to make sure that I continue to view conservative Christians as people - people who have a very different philosophy than I do, but not necessarily uncaring, mindless bigots either.

It is easy to look at their positions and come to the conclusion this movement is made up of people who hate women and the poor, and anyone not just like them. Corporately, I believe their philosophy is dangerous to a free society and yes, I believe that unconscious or unexamined bigotries underscore part of their worldview. But I don't want to judge individuals based on the group as a whole.

The marriage between conservative Christianity and libertarianism & nationalistic jingoism makes it easy to view adherents as selfish and uncaring, but...

Some of the most generous, selfless, committed, and loving people I have ever known have been evangelical Christians.

The public hypocrisy of some makes it easy to view members as insincere, but...

Some of the most spiritually passionate people I have ever known have been evangelical Christians.

Their portrayal in the media and the lack of intellectual curiousity of certain politicians make it easy to view these true believers as ignorant or stupid, but...

Some of the most well-read and intelligent people I have ever known have been evangelical Christians.

As a child raised in the evangelical movement I was taught to, "love the sinner; hate the sin." Now, I want to translate that into my current belief structure. I want to separate my appreciate of the individuals' value from their philosophy. Work against the movement; love the movers. A woman at my fellowship said soemthing once regarding getting along with her ultra-conservative son, "our primary relationship is not political." I have carried this phrase with me ever since and remind myself when dealing with my evangelical colleagues and family members. My primary relationship with my family is neither political nor theological. It is familial and based on love. After all, connection is why I got into the whole spirituality search anyway, right?

Liberals & Evangelicals - Part 1

2011-09-15T18:47:00.001-08:00

I am always astonished to see religious and political liberals who are just now noticing evangelical and fundamentalist Christians and their influence. Where have they been all these years? I am a big fan of Rachel Maddow, but I have to shake my head every time she covers evangelicals and asks, do they really believe this stuff? Yes, yes they do.

Following political news has been a strange experience lately as I feel like I view the media coverage of various evangelical political figures through two sets of eyes. Maybe a better analogy is that I have one foot in two different worlds: one in that of my conservative Christian upbringing, and one in the secular liberalism that I chose. Like my fellow liberals I am often appalled at the statements and opinions of prominent conservative Christians, but unlike them, I am not surprised by them. They have been saying these same things for years, but few have been paying attention. It is only now that some of them are gaining real political power that their beliefs are getting notice.

Some people want to dismiss evangelicals as ridiculous, or naïve, or un-serious. This is a mistake; these people are completely earnest and they are not dumb. Their views may seem extreme, but they really mean them. They truly believe The Rapture is likely to happen in their lifetime. They mean it when they say that God has anointed America as a Christian nation and they are called to save it from the forces of darkness – they aren’t kidding. Treating fundamentalists as a joke or a fad will have serious negative consequences for liberalism because there are a lot of them out there, and they vote. Right now, they are successfully framing the debates. They are not just going to go away any time soon.

Evangelicals’ earnestness and commitment is beginning to have an effect in national politics. Old school beltway pundits wonder why it is that the Republicans are no longer willing to compromise. Yeah, um evangelicals hate compromise. They believe they are called to do God’s work in the world and that God requires them to follow the scripture. Compromise is disappointing God. Compromise is putting something else ahead of God and His commands. They are called to be apart from the world, not work with the secular world towards solution both sides can live with. This being the case, we need to stop letting them define morality for the majority of Americans.

It is time to really start paying attention to the religious right. We can no longer afford to dismiss them as a lunatic fringe. Religious liberals need to become a lot louder in their claims a vibrant spiritual life can be found a different way. We have got to stop letting them define which are good and bad religions, and what Christianity means. My struggles with Christianity are no secret, but it is the dominant religion of the United States and we need people to show that there is a meaningful way to worship Jesus Christ and the Abrahamic God with a focus on love and without dangerous literal interpretations. My fellow agnostics and atheists should be more vocal about how their humanistic belief leads them to a meaningful and ethical life instead of continuing to bash any and all forms of religion.

Our mockery and scorn for fundamentalists does not hurt or hinder them; it feels into their worldview that “the world” is out to get them. If the mainstream media does not like what they are doing, then it MUST be pleasing to God. Disbelief in their seriousness and effectiveness will not make them go away. We need loud counter-arguments to their claims. The evangelical movement has spent the last two generations gearing up for this. I believe religious fundamentalism is dangerous. If liberals want to keep the liberties earned and fought for over the last century, we had better start to pay attention and to advocate for a better way. Otherwise we could lose this debate before we even know it’s on.

Tiamat

2011-08-23T06:08:00.003-08:00

I have of late, but wherefore I know not, lost all my magic.

Lately I have been out of touch with my pagan “roots”. The reason I looked into UU in the first place was it looked like a place where I could explore my life-long interest in paganism and still be an agnostic. I thought I might end up a UU Humanist Witch or a non-theistic Jungian goddess-worshipper, if you will. UU seemed like it would help me explore those contradictions.

For the last year or so, Buddhism has been speaking much more loudly to me. The more I investigated Buddhism, the less I was drawn toward trying to make sense of exploring goddess archetypes. While I love what Paganism teaches me about connection & responsibility, Buddhism is helping me live in this world in a better, happier way. Because of all of this, I have been feeling out of sync with my local goddess group and other pagans, most of whom worship and practice ritual in a much more theistic way than I do. I don’t want to be a downer on what they are trying to do, and what is sincerely meaningful for them, but sometimes the level of woo is a bit much for materialist me. There were a few rituals where I went home feeling like I went along with something I didn’t actually believe; I do not like that feeling. If I wanted that, I could have stayed a Pentecostal.

Then something strange happened; in the last week I came across references to the same goddess three times: Tiamat. Just about the time I started thinking that was a little weird watched a film with an unnamed sea goddess/personification of the ocean. Hmmm. In general, when I notice the same uncommon thing a few times in a short amount of time I make a practice of paying attention to it. I am not saying the universe is trying to tell me something – maybe it has been there all along and my subconscious is drawing my attention to it. However you describe it, I try to look into it and see if there is something there I can learn. After all, that is how I found UU.

When I started to think and read about Tiamat, I thought she might be the perfect patron for this blog. Tiamat represents the powers of creation and chaos. Chaos Theory and the patterns within creation is what got me interested in forming my personal spirituality in the first place. Tiamat is the dark All-mother creatrix who was maligned and re-cast as a demon by who's destruction men gained glory. How perfect is that for a feminist? I felt like her struggle was my struggle. I mourned for her. To me she represents all of the strong and fierce women who were put down and told they were shameful over the millennia. I have been mediating this week on finding the Tiamat within me and nurturing her. I don’t exactly know what that means, but I feel like it is important.

I still do not know how to integrate Humanism, Buddhism, and goddess worship into a coherent spirituality. One of these always seems to be in contradiction with at least one of the others. For now I will continue to stumble from inspiration to inspiration until something coherent emerges.

"The cure for anything is salt water - sweat, tears, or the sea" - Isak Dinesen

First Day of School

2011-08-16T10:56:00.004-08:00

I am feeling a little emotional today. This morning I sent Tall Daughter E off to her first day of her senior year and I walked Tiny Daughter M to the school for her first day of 6th grade. Today feels like the beginning of an ending.

On the walk home by myself, I was sad until I realized I wasn't remotely being in the moment. My head was living in the future without them - where they don't need me anymore. I brought myself back to where I was, which was a beautiful, sunny, late summer morning on my way home to a day of solitary peace and quiet. Today they both hugged and kissed me and smiled. I have a whole year to still have both of my girls in my home and there is little to be gained spending that year worrying about its end.

Harry Potter, My Daughter, and Me

2011-07-26T19:59:00.001-08:00

It may seem a little late to write about this, but well, see the previous post. I’d like to bid a fond farewell full of gratitude to Harry Potter and the rest of the Hogwarts gang. I actually took the day off from work to go see the final Harry Potter movie with Tall Daughter E on opening day and I am glad I did. I don’t know how she felt, but the whole event was tinged with bittersweetness (if that is a word). Some moments are heavy with all the other moments that led to them and this was one of them for me. At this point, either you are a Potter fan or you aren’t, so I am not going to write here about the movie itself. I loved it and wept like a baby. Either you cried your eyes out, or you don’t care; that’s fine.

Much has been written about the “Harry Potter Generation” and E falls right into this category. This series neatly brackets her childhood. I read the first book to her when she was in kindergarten on the advice of her teacher, and we watched the final film together on the verge of her senior year in high school. She and I have attended all eight HP movies together on the opening day. No one else in the family likes the series – no, I don’t know why not either. It is Our Thing.

So I was really emotional heading into this movie. I took the day off, made arrangements for Tiny Daughter M, and splurged on IMAX tickets. So. Worth. It. I was eager for this movie since I had loved the final HP book, but I was also just so grateful. Thanks to J.K. Rowling, E and I have this Thing to share. While we talk alike, we have really different interests and personalities. Ever since she took her first steps towards independence in school we have had this Thing to bond over. It is hard to find activities that we both want to do, but this was something we could share. This was not just a film for me, but the culmination of all of the moments we spent together reading, and watching, and wondering what would happen next.

So thank you Ms. Rowling for Hermione Granger, and Molly and Ginny Weasley. Thank you for Professors MacGonagall and Snape. Thank you for the last twelve years of magic.

Great Post on the Goddess & Chaos

2011-07-26T15:23:00.006-08:00

I always get excited when someone else sees a connection between chaos theory and spirituality so I loved this post by Carolyn Boyd on the goddess and chaos. It especially reverberated with me because I was just reading the myth of Tiamat and Marduk. Thanks to Medusa Coils for the link.

Of Beautiful Brides and Broken Mothers

2011-07-25T21:04:00.004-08:00

Life got pretty crazy around here last week. I am hoping to catch up on a couple of blog posts I wanted to write, but we will see what my chaos level is by the end of the week. Last week was a big mishmash of joy and frustration. My BFF got married this weekend and that has kept me very busy, but very happy.

On a similar note, congratulations to all the same sex couple in New York state who can now make themselves as stressed out, and crazy, and ridiculously happy at their own weddings as the one we just had up here.

I knew the week was going to be busy, but I didn’t expect the week’s other complication – my mother broke her ankle while my dad was out of town. This part has not been fun. If you have been reading this blog for a while you know that things between my mother and I are loving, but strained. Neither one of us is really real around the other. Since both of my sisters live in the Lower 48, I am the only child around to help her. Mom is a very smart woman who is very good at many things – accepting help and feeling powerless are not among them. Her frustration manifests as irrational stubbornness. I believe this week is referred to as “character building.”

One afternoon I was at her house, vacuuming for her and helping her to make her home a little more wheelchair-friendly and it struck me that I was looking at my future. There I was, vacuuming the same hall where I had done so many times growing up and I realized that dealing with her while she deals with her diminishing physical capability is around the corner. My sisters and their kids all live a plane-ride away and my father has serious health problems. Mom is going to get older and angry at her aging, and I will be taking care of her. This future scares the shit out of me.

My most awesome and wonderful Husband S deserves a special note of appreciation. He dealt with a nervous bride, a cranky mother-in-law, his visiting mother, and me while I was stressed out with all of them. He never complained or batted an eye. He is my rock and I don’t know what I would do without his support.

A Social Media Story

2011-07-12T15:41:00.002-08:00

Last week Husband S and I went to an unusual wedding reception. Other than the families of the bride and groom, almost everyone there had met each other through Twitter. There were a few people who knew each other before, which is what allowed to connections to grow in the first place, but I have known most of these folks for about two years and have gotten to know them 140 characters at a time.

The Anchorage Twitter community is very close-knit, more so than other places from what I have heard. In the time I have participated real friendship have emerged. Anchorage Tweeps babysit each other’s kids & dogs, they housesit for each other. They bring medicine and food to people when they are sick and offer moral support when times are tough. Frequent “tweet-ups” bring us together in “meat space” and just this month there was a memorial service and the aforementioned wedding for members of this unofficial community with no rules whatsoever for belonging. Last year, a favorite local musician’s car broke down right before leaving on her self-supported tour. We responded with a fundraiser and many of us chipped in a few bucks to help her get on her way. A few people even started an Alaska Tweets Kiva team. While non-traditional and leaderless, this is a community. Tweetup events are some of the only places where I can talk to both conservative Christian librarians and openly gay IT professionals who are both treating each other civilly.

Why can’t we have a spiritual community that operates in the same way? I’ve been on Twitter with my personal account for about two years, which is just about the same amount of time I have been involved with AUUF. Both of these new communities are of roughly equal importance to me. There is something really important going on with social media that most religious organizations are missing out on. Social media should be more than a tool to let people know about official events; it should be a way for people to make community outside the church walls. It should be more than just ministers using it, too.

I love the UU blogosphere. I value being able to learn so much about Unitarian Universalism and about all of you, but this loose network is dominated by ministers and seminarians. What I would like to see is a social media tool where lay people can reach out both to clergy and each other for ministry. Not all of us live on the east coast. Alaska probably has fewer than 1,000 official UU church members, and other western states also have small numbers of UU’s. What if we could connect people and enable them to enhance the spiritual community they find at church? I do not believe that social media should replace real life church, but it can have a role in building relationships and retaining young adults. We have many tools to inform people, but not necessarily to engage them. Speaking for myself, when I am engaged in something I am much more likely to be committed.

With a structure halfway between Twitter and Facebook, I am interested to see what role Google+ could play in creating such a community once it goes live. There is a lot of talk in the UU blogosphere about how to attract and retain members to prevent UU-extinction. I believe that for most people, relationships trump theology. Anything that helps people find each other and minister to each other can only be a good thing.

On Friendship - Connection & Reconnection

2011-07-05T16:24:00.002-08:00

This was a great weekend for connecting with friends. Friday night was spent at a party with new friends, and Sunday and Monday were spent at parties reconnecting with an old friend, the Math Teacher and her family. One was a girls' night, and one was a 4th of July barbeque. Our friendship has a strange arc; we were friends as children, and again as young adults*, and we are re-connecting now as we each approach middle age. Who knows, maybe we will lose touch again and bump into each other in an old folks home.

Sunday night I hung out with the Math Teacher and her friend Goldilocks. We had a great time, but the conversations were a little surreal. On the one hand, we know each other so well and have so much history, but I have seen the two of them only sporadically over the last 15 years. We each know parts of the other’s lives intimately, but we are each totally ignorant about whole other swaths of our own personal history. Each conversation feels like the past is sitting there with us. We have tried to reconnect before, but we always let busy lives get in the way. I have to thank Facebook for helping us to start our friendship back up for a third time.

One of the best parts of hanging out with her is seeing what an awesome person she has become. She is still her, but it is like she has become her best self. Life has taught her how to be a strong and centered person that I really admire instead of the person who doubted everything about herself. I really wish I could take her back in a time machine and introduce her to her 20-year old self. I want to tell her younger version that this is who she will become.

I read somewhere once that as we get older those who knew us when we were young become more and more important. I have loved meeting all the new friends I have made over the last two years and I am grateful for them, but having people who knew you as you were and see you as you are is really grounding.

*The Math Teacher’s father was the first UU I ever met. I thought he was crazy when he tried to describe his church to me – the church I now attend.

Here's To the Summer Solstice!

2011-06-21T14:35:00.002-08:00

Even when it’s cloudy, like it is today, Summer Solstice is one of my favorite days of the year. Some people see this day as half empty since the days will all be getting shorter from here on out. I prefer to see today as a reminder to embrace joy. If things are not going to get any better than this, we had better celebrate what makes this moment awesome. I tend to be on the analytical side, but today is a day for celebration and abandon. On Summer Solstice, I remember just how good it feels to be alive.

I don’t think I am going to be able to stay up and see the midnight sun tonight, so I will have to toast it before I snuggle down in bed – behind my blackout curtains of course.

I Like Change

2011-06-17T15:00:00.002-08:00

I try hard to see things from other people’s points of view. I do. When I get too wrapped up in my own indignation, I try to remember that my point of view isn’t the only one, or even the only legitimate one. But there is one area where I struggle with this and I can’t seem to put myself in another’s shoes: I like change.

Not all change. Some change is bad, or sad. Not often, but even I am susceptible to nostalgia at times, but generally change in exciting. There are a lot of great options and things to try in this world and if you never change, you never get to experience them. While I am far from a physical daredevil, the fact that I have never tried something is a perfectly valid reason to pursue it. I like to try a million different ideas and see which ones stick. We won’t even go into what I think of cooking the same meal at Thanksgiving and Christmas every year. Most change is not scary, but an adventure.

Most people I know do not share this same attitude and that is frustrating. I often feel like I am being prevented from trying great things for no better reason than other people don’t want to change or try anything new. This trend is coming into play within our fellowship. From my biased and imperfect point of view it seems like many people want the fellowship to grow, and provide more services, and increase diversity, and attract young people as long as nothing has to change to do so.

This is driving me crazy.

I would never presume to join a functioning organization only to tell them how they need to change it to be more in line with my needs; that is just arrogance. But if you say you are concerned with dwindling numbers nationwide and you want to grow, if you say you want to reach out and have a bigger impact on your community, if you say you want to be a beacon of liberal religion in a very conservative town you have to be willing to try something new.

I am raising changephobic people, but I don’t understand them. I want to understand that point of view better so that I can work to find a middle way between my own quixotic nature and those who revere tradition. Husband S points out that I should be glad some people are happy to stick with what they like. I am not sure I will get it. I took a few days to write this and I’m glad I did, because the first draft was about how these people were wrong, wrong, wrong when I need to focus on finding harmony. How do you all had success in convincing people that growing means trying something new even if it is scary?

My First Labyrinth Walk

2011-06-16T16:52:00.002-08:00

So I finally got to walk a labyrinth yesterday. I have been fascinated with them for years, but I didn’t know we had one in Anchorage that was open to the public until recently. I first became interested in labyrinths in my goddess studies, but I walked the local one with my Buddhist Small Group. That is one of the things I love about labyrinths – they are so ecumenical. Pagans, Christians, Buddhists, people of wildly diverse religious faiths all find usefulness and beauty in this walking meditative tool. What could be more UU than that?

This won’t be the last time I use the local labyrinth at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, but on this first walk one metaphor stuck with me. As I walked, there was a moment when I had to step out, another moment when I had to balance precariously, and a final moment in which I stood firm in stability on both feet. I repeated that pattern, which we all do every day without thinking about it, over and over again. That pattern is like life and we repeat it metaphorically all our lives. There are times when we have to get inspired and venture out into something we have never done before, times when we don’t really know what we are doing and might fail, and times when we are stable and sure in what we are doing. To get anywhere though, we have to step out again. The thing that both surprised me and didn’t was how much I enjoy the unstable part of each step. That is something worth paying attention to.

Another group of women followed our group through the labyrinth and they were clearly much more organized than we were. Their beautiful chanting enhanced the whole experienced and changed it for me. The labyrinth walk became an evolution and I learned to step and sway in their rhythm. While I started the walk focusing on Buddhist-style mediation, I finished it like a pagan. I am pretty happy with that.

On the Great Leggings Debate

2011-06-10T12:32:00.003-08:00

In times like these when weighty theological subjects demand to be addressed, I am compelled (and was nudged) step forward and speak my mind. The controversial subject for today is… leggings. In these posts Peacebang and ChaliceSpark debate the appropriateness of leggings for ministers. Since I find myself smack dab in the middle I will roll for a diplomacy check here.

It is passed time that we admit that different standards of dress exist on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of the country. What is considered appropriate, or dressy, or formal is not the same in Philadelphia as it is in Portland. (St. Sagan as my witness some people wear Carhardts to the symphony in Alaska.) Broad proclamations about what should be always or never worn need to be considered in that cultural context. If you minister in Texas, cowboy boots are probably appropriate in the pulpit; in Ann Arbor, maybe not so much.

On the subject of leggings, I must say, I am not a fan. In my personal opinion, no one over the age of 20 should be wearing them. As long as they are being worn with long tops, I consider that a matter of personal taste, not one of right and wrong. I mean, they’re not crocs for cryingoutloud. I don’t wear leggings, but if you want to rock them with tunics for casual wear, OK I can live with that. Not everyone looks horrible in them and declaring them forever verboten on everyone is a little silly. I can easily picture a minister in her off time wearing leggings with a short dress and cute boots, and looking lovely. Calf-length leggings under a miniskirt are a blight upon humanity, and no one over the age of 16 can be excused for wearing them. If you choose to do so, I will try my best to look at your lovely face and think nonjudgemental thoughts.

Peacebang has one thing right though, how we present ourselves matters. If you want to encourage respect for yourself or for the service you are leading you cannot wear leggings in a professional context. I want you all to promise you will never conduct a service in leggings unless you are around a campfire. If you choose to do otherwise, please don’t let me know about it. No leggings for board meetings or anything else where you are presenting yourself as a professional minister or lay leader. As for GA, if a convention showed up in my town and they all looked like they just rolled out of bed and slipped on their camping gear and Birkenstocks, it would be difficult to take them seriously. Maybe that’s shallow, but it’s true.

New Roles... Maybe

2011-06-07T15:04:00.001-08:00

This weekend two different people approached me about taking on roles that I would not have thought of for myself. One of these options I am seriously considering, but I am pretty sure the other one is not something I want to do even though I am interested in the subject matter. Both conversations took me totally by surprise, but were extremely complimentary. It is always encouraging to see what others see in you that you never see in yourself, but it also stops you short. You think of yourself as a certain kind of person, but someone else sees the you who is past your limitation. Scary, but cool.

On second thought, I said there were only two, but Heather at Nagoonberry has practically made a hobby of encouraging me to stretch beyond my complacent comfort zone. She is wonderful.

Running, Zen, and Me

2011-05-20T15:34:00.001-08:00

I love finding spiritual growth in unexpected places. The wonderful Husband S and I started the Couch to 5K running program a little over a month ago. It is designed to get sofa spuds like us from the couch to a non-stop 5K run in 9 weeks. So far, so good. 30 minutes, 3 times a week, we have been sticking with it really well.

I chose this program because I was looking for something cheap to help me get into shape, and something for S and I to do together. So far, it has been successful on both front, but I didn’t expect any other benefits. I have never been a runner, even when I was young, healthy, and thin. I have never thought running was anything but exhausting. It was something to endure if necessary and avoid if possible. I think I am changing my mind about that. Through a series of events, we decided to turn off our music and just listen to the timed instructions. The quiet run turned everything around for me.

We are not yet good runners, but we are now to the point that we are no longer gasping for breath constantly and can actually jog and walk for the directed times without focusing solely on survival. I’ve heard runners talk about how their head clears when they get into their “zone” while running, but these were people who liked to run, so I didn’t really believe them. I have been amazed this week by how it feels to be able to tune into my body and my surroundings, while ignoring everything else. Actually, I am totally astonished that I am capable of such a thing. I have been practicing meditation for the past couple of years, but have only been successful while seated. I find walking meditation almost impossible and active mindfulness is generally an exercise in frustration. But running is hard enough that my mind does not swing through the daydream trees in its normal monkey state.

Neither S nor I feel like running when it is time to go, but this week we have both felt great afterwards. I know that some of this is the endorphins, but I think the meditative aspect contributes to how good we feel. After yesterday’s run I actually felt like I could complete the whole program for the first time. It was always my intention, but I don’t think I actually believed I was capable of doing it until then. It was an awesome feeling. Running is helping me put myself into my physical body. I have written before about living mostly in my head. Running is helping me to understand that the legs pumping and moving me down the path are just as much me as the mind writing this post. Once I get passed the stage where I just want it to end, I find I view things a little differently while running – in a good way.

I am not sure what we are going to do this winter since I don’t see myself being hardy enough for outdoor winter running, but for now this is working even better than I expected. As an addendum, I opened up a Dove Dark Chocolate Promise while finishing up this post. The message on the inside said, “lose yourself in the moment”. Exactly.

Confessions of an Easter Crank

2011-04-25T13:14:00.001-08:00

As requested by the lovely lady from Texas in one of her guises of @TheMissionalist, here are my thoughts on why I was glad to be done with Easter yesterday evening.

1. Sick kid who really wanted to have a fun Easter, but was feeling lousy – not much fun.
2. Family. Many people share my feelings about family and holidays. It can be difficult, especially in theologically diverse families. I am not the only one who has that one relative who makes every gathering a chore to endure, but I do have one. That one special person who makes you smile though gritted teeth and think to yourself that you really do uphold the worth and dignity of EVERY person regardless of how you are feeling at the moment. My feeling is that you have the opportunity to contribute and the right to criticize, but you can’t have just the latter. (Letting out that deep breath now.)

Now, for the theology. I’ve written about this before, but Easter as a holiday is meaningless for me. As a non-theist, I don’t celebrate the risen Christ. Participating in Easter festivities makes me feel dishonest and I hate being dishonest with people. My family of origin believes in the literal resurrection story so I know that the remembrance and celebration of said story holds significant meaning for them. For me, it means extra shopping and cooking I have to do. I guess it just tugs me back to feeling like I have to pretend to have a faith I don’t have in order to make them happy, and I won’t do that anymore. I don’t want to be disrespectful to their faith, but I can’t share it with them either.

Being post-Christian, I don’t like the whole Easter story. The theme of re-birth and renewal is lost on me because what I see is a celebration that your leader was tortured to death. That is not so festive for me. When I was a conservative Christian, Easter had meaning: Christ’s sacrifice bought my eternal life. But if you don’t believe in the divinity of Jesus and you don’t believe in penal substitution, then what is the whole point? Without a literal resurrection Easter just seems gory.

Sarah at Ernie Bufflo writes here about what Good Friday means to her as a liberal Christian so I know that there are other ways to view Easter from a liberal perspective. I recommend her post if you want a more uplifting version of Holy Week than mine. I guess I could sum this whole post up by saying that I would be happy to ignore Easter altogether and wish the faithful well as I do with many holidays that are not part of my faith tradition, but celebrating it part of the way, without any faith behind it feels wrong.

It's Finally Spring!

2011-04-18T16:48:00.002-08:00

Anchorage woke up this weekend. It is officially spring here now and everywhere I went people were walking, jogging, biking, and generally frolicking in the sunshine. I enjoyed the warm weather even more watching everyone else enjoy it. I don't think southerners can really understand the frenzy that comes over northerners when they finally get a chance to get outside without snow gear. The worst part of being a blog junkie is reading about people’s warm weather while I am still swearing at the snow. Now that spring has finally crept this far north I’m just giddy. Now begins the season where my children sigh at me a lot for forcing them outside. Again.

Failure in UU Parenting

2011-04-12T10:45:00.003-08:00

Tiny Daughter M: "Mom, can you come help me with my math homework?" Me: (In jest) "I can't. I can't do math anymore. I gave up math for Lent." Tiny Daughter M: Sigh "You're not even Jewish." File this under Doing Something Wrong.

On Reading Dennis Prager

2011-04-06T16:39:00.001-08:00

I am doing something that I should probably do a lot more often – reading something with which I am pretty sure I will disagree. Since reading only works by people with whom you agree leads to a closed mind and groupthink, I am reading Happiness is a Serious Matter by Dennis Prager. A friend of mine, The Artist, loves Dennis Prager and is always recommending this book to me and until now, I have always politely declined. The Artist and I don’t agree about much of anything political so I blew off his recommendation as an attempt to show me the glories of libertarianism. Sorry, been there, done that. He got a mutual friend to read it and she loved it so much that she actually bought me a copy. At this point, I felt obligated to read it. Prager is a libertarian type conservative and a staunch advocate that the basis of our society is traditional judeo-christian values. I did not expect to agree with him about much, but so far I actually like some aspects of his book. We are never going to agree religiously, but we may not end up too far apart on the nature of happiness. I did not expect that. Feel free to remind me that I need to keep an open mind the next time I tell you I am not going to waste my time reading something written by a conservative. Unless it is Ann Coulter - some sacrifices are just too much.

Terry Jones is Not a Terrorist

2011-04-04T15:07:00.005-08:00

I don’t like Terry Jones. The pastor of World Dove Outreach Center in Gainesville, FL is an unloving and hateful idiot without much concern for protecting American lives. His recent decision to publicly burn a Quran was reckless, arrogant, and stupid. But he is not a terrorist. The people who are calling him one are holding him responsible for the actions of people he offended. American law has long held that people can be held responsible for advocating violence even if they never commit it themselves, but that is not what we are talking about here. Those who want Jones legally punished want to do so because he offended people and some of those people reacted violently. In America, we do not recognize the right of people not to be offended. Those in Afghanistan who rioted and killed Americans are to blame for their own actions. The fact that they killed because they were really really mad at Terry Jones in particular and the United States in general does not excuse them. Murderers are responsible for their own actions and we infantilize people when we say that isn’t true. Terrorists commit violence against non-military targets with intent to frighten people. Terrorists crash airplanes into buildings. They blow up busses and cafes. Burning books might make you a great many things, including not invited to my home, but it does not make you a terrorist and we diminish terrorism’s horror when we say that it is. Personally I am offended by Jones’s message and his actions. I not only condone, but encourage people to denounce and shun him. Picket his church if you want. But legal or congressional action against his 1st Amendment right to express his twisted religious views is threatening to all our religious points of view. Terry Jones is an intolerant fool, but he is a constitutionally protected one. Terrorists kill people, and we shouldn’t confuse two.

A Response Regarding Libya

2011-03-24T16:33:00.003-08:00

Yesterday Joel Monka questioned why politically liberal UU bloggers haven’t been writing about the recent military action in Libya. I can’t speak for others, but I can tell you why I haven’t written about it yet – because I have been hiding my head in the sand trying to pretend it isn’t happening.

I believe that the strong have an obligation to protect the weak. I believe that great powers should do what they can do prevent genocide and massacres when they can. I am very glad that there are people alive today who would not have been if we had not intervened. I am glad that we prevented bloodshed in Libya. On the other hand I do not understand the philosophy or methodology by which the Obama administration is choosing whom to help. Why are not intervening to protect civilians in Yemen, or Bahrain, Syria, Sudan, Congo, or the Ivory Coast?

I am frustrated because I do not have an answer to this question and President Obama does not seem to be in a hurry to articulate it. The lack of an answer leads me to cynicism. I dread the idea of being at war in three separate Muslim nations simultaneously and the fallout that may come from that. I am angry that we can’t seem to afford social programs but we have plenty of money to attempt to save the entire Middle East from itself, as it anyone asked us to. I am disappointed that Obama neglected to consult Congress before taking us into another military action.

Most of all, I am sad - sad that I am frustrated and disappointed this way. Anyone looking fairly at this situation can see that Libya is not Iraq. When Bush took us into Iraq I was angry, but now I am sad and discouraged. I expected better of Obama. When I happily voted for him two years ago, I was not voting for expanded war efforts. I also didn’t think I was voting for no end in sight for Guantanamo, or for going to war without consulting Congress.

If I have been quiet on this issue, it is because I am feeling a bit hopeless. When protesting against Bush, it seemed like the right person in authority could undo the wrong, but now it seems like electing the “good guy” still brings a bad outcome. Where do we go from here?
Given time, I am sure I will remember that I agree with Obama about a lot more than I disagree, I will give him credit for a very productive first two years in office. Right now, I am ignoring the situation so I can forget that my side let me down. I do not claim that this approach is commendable, but it is human.

The Day the Glamour Died

2011-03-23T16:17:00.003-08:00

The world got a little less glamorous today.

I am sure you know already that Dame Elizabeth Taylor died today of congestive heart failure at the age of 79. A lot of digital ink has been spilled over memorializing her today and I won’t attempt to repeat it here, but I will tell you what she meant to me.

One of my peculiarities as a child was that I fell in love with old movies around the age of 9. As I grew up Elizabeth Taylor was the definition of glamour for me. She personified female sex appeal. She was fierce before that was a term. From Dame Elizabeth I learned that a woman could be strong without having to de-sexualize herself, or conversely that she could be sexy without having to be weak. I didn’t have to be powerless to be feminine. But she was more than just her extraordinary looks and she demonstrated that a woman’s value lasts far longer than her youth when she championed the cause for AIDS treatment. At an age when many women in her line of work as tossed aside, she began a second career as an advocate. To borrow a phrase she stood on the side of love and advocated for people whom others wanted to condemn.

Heather at nagoonberry has been encouraging me to write about fashion and self love, and I will, but I couldn’t even begin to write that without acknowledging the woman who epitomized beauty and glamour for me. Now I just have to figure out which of her films to watch this weekend – right now I’m leaning towards Butterfield 8.

Lent

2011-03-09T15:33:00.004-09:00

So, um… Lent.

What to do with it? It is there, and it seems all around me the past few years, but it isn’t mine. It feels like it needs addressing somehow. As I mentioned last year Lent was never part of my childhood faith. Neither Southern Baptists nor Assembly of God “do” Lent. As a non-theist, I don’t do Lent now. Other than remembering not to eat whatever it was that friends had given up in front of them, Lent has always been irrelevant to my life.

But…

Last year I enjoyed the 40/40/40 challenge when I gave up eating meat for 40 days. Especially for those of us in the developed world, it is good for us to go without something for a time, to focus on how fortunate we are to have all of these luxuries we take for granted. Times of excess and celebration are wonderful, but times of denial are their balance, and I have neglected that side of the equation. Lent seems like it would be a perfect time to be in sync with others doing the same thing, so I thought about it.

But the theology is getting in the way for me. Practicing Lent, for me, would be like admitting than I am an inherently evil person who needs Christ’s bloody sacrifice for salvation, and that I need to try and share, in some small way, with his suffering. That’s not going to work for me. I realize that not all Christians view Lent this way and it is meaningful for many. This is how it feels for me.

Then I saw that the UU Ministry For Earth is continuing the 40/40 for Earth Challenge from April 17 – May 26. I will have to delay my fast another month, but it is good to know I can do it in conjunction with others. Is anyone else out there in blogland planning to participate in this challenge? If you did it last year, what did you get out of it? If you are doing it this year, what kind of fast or change do you intend to make?

I do wish a blessed Ash Wednesday and Lenten period for all those who observe it. May your fast bring you what you seek.

Einstein & Heisenberg

2011-03-01T15:52:00.001-09:00

Whew! It has taken me weeks to get through this last book I was reading, Quantum: Einstein, Bohr and the Great Debate about the nature of reality by Manjit Kumar. Since I find both science and the history of science fascinating, this book was right up my alley. But it was dense, and I was busy so it took me a while to get through. Saturday afternoon I approached those last few chapters like a marathon runner reaching out for that ribbon. We need not speculate about whether or not I actually lapped the living room with the book held above my head. Let’s just move along.

Amongst all of the interesting scientific advancements and attempt to peer into the universe’s weave was a very human story that has stuck with me. Albert Einstein and Werner Heisenberg were both highly respected German theoretical physicists who were on opposite side of the great debate over quantum mechanics. (I promise I will not bore you here with particles, etc.) Before WWII, Einstein refused to return to Hitler’s Germany and settled in Princeton, NJ. Many Jewish scientists were exiled from Germany and many non-Jews left in support of their colleagues. Heisenberg stayed and went on the head the German nuclear weapons program.

In his book’s penultimate chapter, Kumar tells a brief story about Heisenberg visiting Einstein in 1954 in Princeton during a speaking tour after the war. Einstein claimed that the men avoided the subject of politics and discussed physics. It is a brief aside in the book, but it has stuck with me for days. How do you do this? This wasn’t like reconciling scientists after WWI where people ended up on opposite sides of a continental meltdown almost by chance. How do you sit down with an old acquaintance and pretend? How does one not ask, how did you try to help this man succeed, this man who wanted to see me and everyone like me dead? After learning about the camps and the slaughter, how do you sit across from someone and sip coffee? How do you not ask if he knew what was going on and what he did about it? If Heisenberg has built the bomb first, how horrible the outcome would have been, and yet they sat, and discussed particles and old times. For that matter, what did Heisenberg say? How do you suggest that bygones be left to be bygones after the government you helped tried to wipe out the other person’s entire race? Did he even attempt to say he was sorry?

I don’t understand this. I don’t even know if I admire Einstein’s equanimity or if I am appalled as his lack of demonstrated outrage. I’ve been thinking about this story for days and I have imagined it playing out in numerous fictional ways. Physics and its waves that are also particles are complex and fascinating, but we humans are each little universes ourselves and the stories or why we do what we do is the world’s most interesting puzzle.

RIP Merlin Stone

2011-02-28T14:52:00.002-09:00

Merlin Stone passed away this weekend. As usual Jason Pitzl-Waters at The Wild Hunt has an excellent write up on her impact in goddess studies. I try not to engage in hyperbole, but I can honestly say her book, When God Was a Woman changed my life. That book started a process that totally changed the way I think about religion and spirituality, their place in human history, and what all of that could mean to me.

I came across her book by accident. I was shopping in the college bookstore my senior year and it was on the clearance rack, marked down to some ridiculously low price. It looked intriguing so I bought it and promptly put it in the books-I-am-going-to-get-around-to-reading stack. When I finally worked my way around to it, I was totally absorbed. I had learned about the Venus of Willendorf, and Crete, and Catal Huyuk, but the idea that deeply matriarchal and spiritually vibrant culture was not an aberration was earth-shaking for me.

It didn’t convince me to believe in a literal goddess anymore than I believe in a literal god, but those archetypal images and symbols stuck with me, as well as a desire to connect with what they mean. Reading Stone helped me to understand how totally out of touch I had become with Christianity. I read it a second time a few years later and it revitalized in me a determination that my daughters not be brought up in a faith that taught them they were second-best.

Thank you, Merlin Stone. May you rest in peace.

Enabling Evangelicals

2011-02-25T14:29:00.001-09:00

I earned some daughter points this week.

Through my work, I was able to get two tickets for my parents to attend a major evangelical Christian event next month. They are excited. They are disappointed that I will not be attending the event with them, but still, they are happy to be going.

I struggled with this a little bit. My initial reaction when a co-worker suggested I invite my parents was that I did not want to support something so totally antithetical to my personal views. Giving them the tickets felt like giving the event my blessing and I don’t want to do that. After thinking it over for a few minutes I changed my mind. I am not paying for these tickets; my company has already purchased them and someone is going to use them. Letting someone else use the tickets would not mean that the message would not be getting out. I am not encouraging my parents’ beliefs because they are not going to change them whether or not they attend.

Giving my parents the tickets will A) make them happy and B) show the respect for their beliefs that I would like for myself. In truth, I bear a fair amount of hostility toward their belief system, but I respect their right to worship as they please. I can’t really expect them to extend that respect to me if I am unwilling to give it to them.

This occasion does present the danger that my co-workers will be spending time with my parents, unsupervised – a chilling thought. I’ll have to take that risk.

Can We All Just Stop Hurting For a Moment?

2011-02-20T19:51:00.006-09:00

Can everybody just stop hurting so much for a little while? I need a little break.

There is an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer called “Earshot” in which Buffy Summers temporarily gains the power to read minds. As the ability grows, she becomes overwhelmed with the burden of hearing everyone’s private thoughts. She explains to Jonathan, a suicidal classmate, that the reason no one notices his pain is that everyone, no matter how they seem, is busy dealing with their own.

I am feeling a little like Buffy this week. Everyone around me is carrying on living their lives, but underneath the surface is such pain. A friend found a second type of cancer after the first was successfully removed; an old high-school buddy threatened to shoot himself, a casual friend was left by her husband of 16 years and is now readjusting to her new role as a single mother; a co-worker and a sister both struggle in marriages that crush their spirits, but they are unable to fix and unwilling to leave; another friend just lost his wife to a protracted battle with cancer; a dear relative is combining the joy of expecting a baby with an emotionally abusive relationship; another friend is struggling with depression; body image issues are tampering a close friend's joy; one branch of the family is dealing with a possible drinking problem. These are just the things I know about, just the ones that come to mind at the moment.

Right now this pain is highly visible to me, but I realize that this is normal. This is life. I am currently noticing it more acutely, but I think the aggregate of pain is probably the standard. I am trying really hard to be there for the people I care about, but it is becoming exhausting. This week I feel a little overwhelmed. I am so glad that Husband S is the rock I am always depend on. He is keeping me stable so that I can be there for others.

Several UU bloggers, but especially Lizard Eater, talk about becoming a missional denomination. I admire their dedication, but I don’t usually feel compelled to join in. Lately when I look around and see all of the unfortunately mundane suffering I almost get the missional bug. I admire people who try to save the world, but that is not in my power. I just want to help ease some suffering, one person at a time. I can't fix people, try though I might (and believe me, I have tried), but I can listen, and I can accept, and I can love.

Learning To Disagree

2011-02-14T17:52:00.001-09:00

I am becoming more and more convinced that learning how to disagree well is the foundation for …well everything. Anyone who has been paying attention has seen the toxic effect of I'm-right-and-everyone-else-is-a-horrible-person on American politics, but it is not just politicians and pundits we can point fingers at; it is us, too.

Husband S and I got married when we were young, dumb, and brand new parents. With an eye on the odds, you probably wouldn’t recommend that young people take this route. Sixteen years later, he is still the love of my life and I shudder to imagine my life without him. Most of the time I am at a loss to explain how we beat the odds to make our marriage work when so many others who marry young do not. The one thing I come back to is we always try to fight fair. Whatever either of us is upset or angry about, the goal of the conversation has to be to fix the problem and heal the relationship, never to make the other person feel bad. We never call names when we fight. This is hard. Really hard sometimes, but it establishes a foundation of trust. I know that S is never out to get me. I know that I can count on him to listen to me and that my feelings are important to him. Always.

I thought about this yesterday and we need to apply that same standard in our congregations. Yesterday I attended some communication training at our Fellowship and during this session, it became very clear that there are deep divisions within the Fellowship that are still in the process of being healed. Some of these revolve around a specific experience, but I believe many others are part of our denominational dialogue at UU’s: theists vs. non-theist, those who want the church to be a mission to the world vs. those who are content with a liberal oasis, etc. Do any of us want to be in a Unitarian-Universalism where the only people left think just like us? Or do we want to continue as a faith with a rich dialogue of dissenting voices? If the latter, we need to focus on remembering or leaning how to disagree.

The thing about your church that totally annoys you, well that might be just the thing that keeps the person next to you coming to church. For non-theists it can be threatening when people keep bringing all their god-talk into your last bastion of rational safety, and I know there will always be tension there between these two camps. But surely our commitment to support each other in our own searches for meaning is bigger and more important than whether or not we involve a divinity in that search. Working together to make the here and now a better place takes precedence over what compels us to do so.

When I am mad at someone, I friend of mine is in the habit of asking me if I want to be right or be happy. The answer varies based on mood and circumstances. I want to apply this question to our congregations in a broader sense. Do we want to nurse our sense of righteousness or do we want to have a relationship with others in our church community, one which nourishes both of us? We say we want a big tent, so we have to build that tent with our individual everyday interactions with each other.

2 Charming Graphic Novels - Highly Recommended

2011-02-08T16:30:00.005-09:00

Completely free of any paid endorsement or incentive, I’d like to recommend a couple of graphic novels I read recently.

Hereville: How Mirka Got Her Sword, written and drawn by Barry Deutch is a charming all-ages stand-alone story. The sub-subtitle “Yet another troll-fighting 11-year-old Orthodox Jewish girl” spells out the subject matter, and gives you a hint about the book’s sense of humor. Aimed at younger readers, I still enjoyed it. Mirka lives in a conservative Jewish community where the other women try to convince her to hone her domestic skills, while she dreams of becoming a dragon slayer.

One of the things I liked about this book is that Mirka does not have to learn to transcend her community realize her dreams. Her heritage is not incidental to her success, but a major factor in it. I would recommend it for older elementary and middle school kids for discussions about how our religion and community shape us.

I spent part of the last weekend reading Action Philosophers by Fred Van Lente and Ryan Dunlavey. I didn’t even know this book existed, but I happened across it in our local library. Van Lente and Dunlavey are both comics industry professionasl who were awarded a grant to publish this history of western philosophy under their independent label.

This book is awesome. It explains dozens of philosophers and their theories down in comic book form. I swear, I will never think of Plato in the same way again. Need a quick review of someone you read in college, flip through this book and you’ll be sucked in to read the rest. These easily digestible nuggets of complex ideas are actually funny. Try though I may, I still don’t get Wittgenstein, but I don’t hold Action Philosophers responsible for that.

While Van Lente and Dunlavey mostly restrict themselves to western thinkers, I appreciated the inclusion of a few non-Christians like Rumi, Boddidharma, Lao Tzu, and the guy who began Kabbalah (his name is escaping my mind). I would have liked to see a few more of these, but I still enjoyed the book for what it was. The only two women featured are Mary Wollstencraft and Ayn Rand, but I lay the blame for that more on western culture as a whole.

There are a few off-color jokes, but I think this would be fine for older teenagers. Thank you for indulging this moment of nerdery; you may now return to your regularly scheduled reading about important things.

The Impermanence of Parenting

2011-02-07T15:47:00.002-09:00

I’ve been spending more time with Buddhism lately and it is affecting my parenting in a good way. Tall Daughter E will be graduating from high school and turning 18 in about a year in a half. This realization after the holidays started a panic beating in my chest. There is no way she is almost ready to be released out into the world as an adult. No. Way.

I am trying to take a step back and look at the impermanence of this stage of parenting. I do not feel remotely ready to be the parent of an adult; I can’t believe she is actually almost ready to be one. Unfortunately, me feeling ready and it actually occurring are unrelated ideas. No one is going to ask my opinion about the matter; it just is. So instead of railing against in inevitable, I am trying to savor and appreciate the time I have left with Tall E as my little girl. There are only so many more times she is going to hug and kiss me goodnight before she goes to bed. Only so many more times she will grumble as I ask her to help me with dinner. (That reminds me, I need to teach her to cook more different things.) The added side-effect of this is that is makes it easier to deal with raising a teenager. When I know that I don’t have that much longer to spend with her or to try to teach her my values it makes it easier to deal with things that, in the past, would drive me crazy. Why would I spend my remaining time with her being angry about small stuff?

Except when Tall E bickers with her little sister, the rhythm of our relationship has already changed in the last year or so. We relate and talk to each other differently than when she was a child and I can only imagine things will be even more different as she starts to lead her own life. I have been her favorite person for most of her life. She has always been bound to me in a way that I have sometimes found suffocating, but now I can’t imagine not having on a daily basis. It is hard to conceive of her not needing me. I have been raising Tall E almost my entire adult life so it is will real sadness that I view the end of actively parenting her, but that makes living with her all the more precious.

How To Discipline Yourself to Meditate

2011-02-03T12:33:00.002-09:00

I’ve figured it out. I finally know how to get myself to be more disciplined in a mediation practice. All you need to do is get yourself in a situation so over-whelming and stressful that you need the mental time-out of mediation to deal with it. See, it’s easy to be disciplined. It’s like how I am able to stick with my morning yoga routine because my back hurts a lot if I skip more than two days. Apparently, the stick approach is working better for me than the carrot.

I haven’t been writing here for a while, mostly because of the same situation that drives me to meditation. I just haven’t been able to spare the extra mental energy for it and I didn’t want this blog to turn into a whine-fest reminiscent of a 14-year old’s diary. I am working on getting my act together and being there for some people who really need the support. Sometimes people close to you have problems that make you reassess the scope of your own. That is where I am at right now. Hopefully, I will find the time for more reflection here.

Doug Muder's Humanism of the Sun

2011-01-06T14:53:00.004-09:00

I have been growing increasingly frustrated with the Humanist/non-theist blogosphere and publishing. Many people seem to put all of their energy into disputing any religious validity while offering nothing positive of their own. Then Doug Muder published this speech on the Humanism of the Sun today and it was like an inspiring salve to my little Humanist heart.

If you want to be reminded of what is awesome about Humanism and where it can lead humanity, go read it right now. It is a big longish, but well worth it. Go. Click. Read. Right now.

Happy Solstice!

2010-12-21T11:20:00.003-09:00

Happy Solstice to one and all.

We let our girls stay up last night to watch the spectacular solstice lunar eclipse. We had great visibility from our deck except for right when the moon was totally eclipsed; the clouds had rolled in by then. The huge silver moon that set this morning was almost as beautiful. All in all, it is the start of a lovely solstice. Even if nothing else goes right today, knowing that the days start getting longer tomorrow makes me glad.

Staying up late had another benefit. Wrapping presents, listening to Christmas music the girls and I ended up having a great conversation about how we each see religion and how important it is to respect others’ viewpoints. The girls never really want to discuss religion with me when I try to teach them something, but this was a really honest and organic conversation that one of them started. I talked to them a little about what UU has meant to me. We decided that we all three have different beliefs and agreed to respect them. I am glad we had that time to talk. We also learned how to wrap presents around the new kitten-type members of the family – a useful skill.

I haven’t posted here is a while. I think I have been avoiding introspection, trying to keep everything together for the holidays. I have a couple of issues I have been rolling over in my mind and I should be putting them down to screen here soon. Till then, enjoy whatever holiday you are yours cherish.

Slow Christmas

2010-12-06T15:24:00.003-09:00

I have just had the last busy weekend I want to have until the new year. I am focusing on having what I call a Slow Christmas this year – fewer presents, fewer activities, fewer obligations, less stress. I want to reclaim enjoying the holiday season. I simply refuse to spend any time in malls on the weekends for the rest of the month. I will do things with my family that I enjoy doing and will take on fewer things that I have to do. I will be mindfull and present for one of the last Christmases I will probably have with both my girls at home full time. I really mean it this year.

In our house tonight we will have one of my favorite parts of the season – putting up the Christmas tree!

In Contrast to Yesterday's Post

2010-11-23T16:45:00.001-09:00

Sunday was a day of highs and lows; the evening could not have been more different from the emotional tumult of the morning. Several women from and related to our Fellowship gathered together in a ritual of support for one of our own. It was beautiful, moving, and profound. Those women filled that house will such love and unwavering faith. I was honored and grateful to have been asked to be a part of it.

I am still reeling a bit, but grateful to have been shown the other side of the coin. This connection, this support, this love for each other, this is why I ventured back into religious life. It is not about theology or the expectations of others. It is not about us vs. them. It is about me and we. All is not lost or dark or despairing. I am still hanging in there.

Ghosts of Protestants Past

2010-11-22T16:29:00.004-09:00

Yesterday was a difficult Sunday at church. We are doing a series in which various members share those positive aspects of their childhood faiths that they brought with them into their UU practice and we started things off with Protestants. I was interested in the subject matter, but totally unaware of how it would hit me. I have been trying to put emphasis lately on moving forward into positive faith rather than dwelling on rebelling against the past. I don’t want to continue to define myself as a former anything. I thought I had made a lot of progress.

Sometimes we are not very honest with ourselves. I was so uncomfortable while people were sharing it was all I could do not to just get up and leave. I bolted out of there as soon as the service was over. I had a really strong emotional reaction and it wasn’t to what was being said; it was to my own response. I felt myself interpreting people through old filters. I didn’t like what I was showing myself about who I still am on the inside. I would like to be an open minded agnostic Unitarian Universalist, and part of me is. But the truth is that my base setting is that of a lapsed, disillusioned, and guilty Pentecostal. It made me question, whether or not I can really do Unitarian Universalism.

So I read Soul Seeds this morning. Anthony has a great post and this part in particular leapt off the screen at me.

Many books have been written recently about the Christian Right. One that does a particularly good job of getting inside the movement’s worldview, particularly that of its working-class members, is Spirit and Flesh: Life Inside a Fundamentalist Baptist Church by James M. Ault Jr…. Ault, like George Lakoff and several other authors, locates the heart of the Christian Right worldview in its overall vision of family life—not just in the positions it takes on a handful of specific “family values” issues like abortion or same-sex marriage.

[According to this overall vision of family life,] a child … is born into a network of mutual obligations and depends for its survival on the fulfillment of those obligations. As it grows, the child takes an ever more active role in upholding that network. At no point in the process is the individual in a position to stand outside the network and choose whether or not its obligations apply to him or her. The only choice the individual has is whether to fulfill his/her obligations or to renege on them. This is what fundamentalists mean when they say that moral values are “absolute” rather than “relative.”

Regular readers know that I struggle with relationships in my family and that second paragraph clarified things for me.

I feel like a bad daughter for leaving the faith.

I feel like I have betrayed my family and their sacrifices. I know it isn’t true, in my head that is. I know that I had to choose a different path. I can't live those values. Pretending to worship Christ to protect their feelings was eating at me. The dishonesty was toxic and it affected my children more than I realized at the time. I know leaving the church was the right thing for me. And still. And still I feel like I have let them down. I feel their disappointment. I often wonder why it is so hard for me to get over my former religion when I had so many positive experiences growing up in it. But it is this, it is so tied up with my family and my place in it. I don’t think I can get over one issue without the other.

I generally feel like I have my act together, but it is a times like these that I think maybe I am a lot more fucked up than I realize.

For Veterans and Armistice

2010-11-11T12:27:00.001-09:00

Today, like every November 11, is Veteran’s Day in the U.S. It is right and fitting that we honor and thank our military veterans and their families for their service and their sacrifice.

We should also remember today’s older name - Armistice Day. This day we set aside to be thankful for the end of a tragic and wasteful war. My wish this Veteran’s/Armistice Day is for all of our service members engaged in Iraq and Afghanistan to come home safely.

“In Flanders Field”

Happy Carl Sagan Day

2010-11-09T10:47:00.001-09:00

Happy Carl Sagan Day!

The winter holidays can be a struggle, but this is one I can get behind. For those of you with Netflix instant streaming Cosmos is available. I think I know what I am watching tonight.

Looking for Church Website Recommendations

2010-11-05T14:46:00.002-08:00

A few of us have been talking for a while about updating our church’s website. I have been digging around looking at other churches’ sites, but I would like to get your recommendations.

Which churches are doing it right? What do you like about their sites? What do you look for in a church website either as a longtime member or as a newcomer trying to find a new church? What do you hate about church websites?

Any and all construction recommendations and suggestions are welcome. Thanks for your input.

Voting Against Women

2010-11-02T15:58:00.001-08:00

I voted against several women today and I am rooting for more of them to lose. I feel a little disloyal.

I view voting as a personally sacred act. Whenever I vote, I think of women’s suffragists who worked so hard and sacrificed so much so that I could have my vote count. I wish Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony and others could see me and millions of other American women cast their votes. I feel like they are looking over my shoulder and it becomes a pleasure to wait in line for a ballot.

So it feels wrong to vote against so many women. Discounting judges, of the five races on my ballot I voted for exactly one woman and against three. I wish that wasn’t so, but as much as I want to see more women elected I am not willing to vote to support the lock that social conservatives have on the government of this state. I wish that progressive women got the attention that women of the Tea Party get.

Every time I discuss the news around my daughters and I criticize one high profile candidate or another, I hope they are not getting the message that women shouldn’t be leaders. I flinch when I hear myself criticize the sisterhood. So I am trying to see this as a positive development. Women are credibly running for office in large enough numbers that they are being judged by their capabilities and their character, rather than their gender. I don’t feel like I have to vote for every woman on the ballot just so that we have some gender parity in government. I still hope to vote for a woman and to see her win the presidency in my lifetime, but I want to vote for her because she is the best person for the job and not because of our shared gender. Oh, and she absolutely positively cannot be from Wasilla.

Still, it feels wrong.

Making Peace and a Non-theist's Samhain

2010-10-28T16:22:00.002-08:00

This year, due to a family obligation, I will not be able to attend our women’s circle Samhain celebration. Knowing that I am going to miss out of that has me thinking about the holiday ahead of time as I look for my own way to observe it.

Recently, Heather at Nagoonberry and I have been talking about the things we miss about theism. There is comfort in many theistic beliefs and I sometimes miss them even if I don’t believe their underpinnings are true. Normally, I think about the things I miss about Christian practice, but in reading articles on Samhain, there is something else I almost wish I believed.
Many theistic Pagans will use this Sunday as an opportunity to reach out to their ancestors and their beloved dead. It is a beautiful idea, really. The problem is I do not believe in any type of afterlife that involves spirits waiting to be summoned. In fact, I am extremely skeptical about any afterlife at all, but I am a little jealous of those who take comfort from this day.

Reading about how some Pagans experienced Samhain, I got to thinking about my maternal grandmother and how I wish I could make peace with her. I am her namesake and she died just a few years before I was born. It is strange that I was the one to get her name as our personalities couldn’t be more different. From all accounts she was a gentle and loving saint of a woman, but she was very sad. She provided love for her children while struggling with the family depression her whole adult life, and her premature death cast a pall over her children. She has been dead for 40 years and none of them can discuss her without something changing and dampening in them. It is like the guilt suppresses their spark. I have always felt like I could never really understand my mother and who she is or my relationship with her without knowing more about my grandmother and why no one in the family has ever gotten over her death.

Most of the time I am a happy non-theist. The world is so filled with wonder it can satisfy curious seekers for far more than a lifetime. Sometime, though, sometimes I wish I could cast a circle and find peace with someone whose memory haunts me even though we never met. Whatever I end up doing this Samhain, I will dedicate it to the memory of my grandmother.

Lessons Learned From Project Runway

2010-10-22T14:02:00.007-08:00

It is easy to bash fashion-y “girly” things like Project Runway. They are trivial and silly, not nearly so meaningful as something like, I don’t know… football. More than that, they are for girls, so not interesting or important. But I think the show is interesting and chock full of lessons if you focus on the process and not the outcome.

Tiny Daughter and I have become addicted to Project Runway, mainly because we both love pretty clothes and Tim Gunn. But a careful reading reveals how much a show like this can teach about the creative process and how to go for your dreams while still treating others with compassion. Yes, it is a reality show and heavily edited. No, I don’t think it really shows reality but here are a few of the topics that come to mind as teachable moments, times when we have hit pause to discuss what is happening and how we would like to be treated in such a scenario.

Showing leadership
Showing compassion
How to realize that you are not the center of the world and other people have legitimate feelings, too.
How to pick yourself up from a failure and to learn from it.
Winners aren’t the ones gossiping. They are the ones working on their own goals.
There are many sides to a story and everyone can be a little bit right and a little bit wrong.
Bad behavior doesn’t always mean someone is a villain; sometimes it just means they are human.
Forgive people for what they say when they are tired and stressed.
Stay true to your own creative vision.
How to work as a team.
Your way of doing things is not the only correct one.
How to admit that you misjudged someone and apologize.
Laughing at someone’s tears is not nice!
Accept people for who they are even if it is very different than you.

Not bad for a trivial fashion show. Those are just the ones that come to mind right now. I am sure there have been others. The most heartbreaking thing about this season is seeing the pain so many of the designers bear from not being accepted by their families because of their homosexuality, even when they work in an industry where many of their peers are also gay. Last night, watching Michael Costello break down because he was afraid to admit to his family that he failed was tough. Without making it to the finals he felt he could not prove to his family that he was successful in his chosen life and that they would try to force him back into a heteronormative lifestyle. Even with a supportive partner he did not want to face them.

Another contestant Mondo Guerra, announced his HIV positive status on the show. You could see the there-but-the-grace-of-God-go-I horror on the face of almost every man there. To a person, everyone offered him compassion, support, and encouragement. To see him again last night with his family, who clearly still wish he had grown up to be a construction worker was discouraging. They love their talented son, but they have never stopped reminding him that he did not turn out quite the way they hoped.

Twice we have also seen loving supportive gay relationships. I am glad they showed that things are not always gloom and doom. There are people out there who will love you for who you are. We will value our loved one for who they are and not for who we wish they would be.

When we first started watching PR together, I was a little concerned that it would focus too much on the material and vain. Quite to the contrary, I cannot think of any other show that we watch that has offered us so many good opportunities to talk about our values. People still tease me for watching it because it is “silly and girly” but I won’t be apologizing for my interest anymore.

On a personal note, it is time for me to stop feeling sorry for myself because of my differences with my family. My family is disappointed that I no longer believe in God. There is tension and disapproval because of that. My wound over that is not as special as I would like to believe it to be. Some of these people face constant criticism from their families because of who they are. One of them lost his access to his child. What the hell am I complaining about?

Wearing Purple is Not Enough

2010-10-20T13:45:00.001-08:00

So about the whole purple thing. I am wearing purple today to show my support for LGBT rights and youth. But the thing is…who cares?

Any decent person is saddened by the recent rash of young gay suicides. We all wish we could do something to help kids and make them feel loved for who they are. But this plan to wear purple on October 20 just makes us feel better and does nothing to solve the problem. It makes us feel better. It makes us feel like we have done something to counter prejudice. I don’t want to feel better about anti-gay bigotry; I want there to be no anti-gay bigotry and wearing purple does not solve that.

Maybe I would feel differently if I worked with children or youth. Maybe if I worked in a school, hospital, library, etc., I might be lending support to a young person who needs it. But I don’t and the people who live and work with me already know that I support gay rights. My children already know that I love and support them no matter what they their sexual preference is. My clothes have not reached out to one single young LGBT person.

If today’s Spirit Day galvanizes people to reach out and get involved with gay youth, then that is great, but if it just makes us all feel like we have done our part to fight bigotry then it is worthless. We all get to pat each other on the back for being so broad-minded. We get to identify ourselves as the kind of person who supports gay rights. It is the same kind of armchair activism that makes us feel like we are fighting back against breast cancer because we bought special Yoplait yogurt. My concern is that efforts like that can actually encourage complacency because we feel like we have already done our part. “Well, I wore purple, what more do you want from me?”

I know that many Unitarian Universalists are actively and courageously involved in working for gay rights and with youth, and in no way so I mean to diminish their efforts. The aim of this little rant is those of us who are not that wearing purple is not enough.

Great article here on the changing media representation of queer suicides.

Physics and Goodnight Moon

2010-10-19T09:34:00.004-08:00

OK, one more sciency thing and then I will settle down. Like many of you I overdosed on Goodnight Moon when my kids were little and now a physicist approaches the beloved and obligatory tiny tome.

Nerdcore parenting. Word.

RIP Benoit Mandelbrot

2010-10-18T13:18:00.008-08:00

This weekend Benoit Mandelbrot died of pancreatic cancer. Mandelbrot was arguably the most important mathematician of the last 50 years and was one of the founders of Chaos or Complexity Theory. He coined the term fractal to describe irregular self-repeating shapes the most famous of which bears his name. Check this out to see it in increasing magnifications. Even if you are not into science, it is really cool. This article does a lovely job of explaining his work simply.

I won’t pretend to have the mathematics to truly understand his work, but my introduction to chaos theory changed the way I see the world. I am a head-before-heart kind of person and I need to grasp something intellectually before I get it emotionally. As strange as and unconventional as it sounds, chaos theory was a doorway to spirituality for me. Without chaos, I would not have been open to Buddhism, or mindfulness, or Unitarian Universalism. The buddhabrot fractal is a tweaked subset of the Mandelbrot and there is a reason you see it on this blog.

When I think of connectivity, I think of chaos. This post is a small thank you to M. Mandelbrot for helping to blast open my mind.

Isaac Newton & Alchemy

2010-10-18T10:30:00.003-08:00

This article is for other fans of Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle, which I highly recommend if you like your sci-fi mixed with historical fiction and a cast of thousands.

A Non-Believer's Hallelujah

2010-10-14T13:34:00.002-08:00

Yesterday morning while trying to summon the energy to get out of bed, I was thinking about the recent debate about appropriate UU worship music. Don’t ask me, my mind goes to weird places when trying to justify my body’s sloth. I started thinking about writing a blog post defending so-called 7/11 style praise music. I grew up with these songs, as well as hymns, and many of them will be engrained in my brain until I die. One simple song consisting of just the word Hallelujah repeated with a peaceful and almost lullaby like melody floated into my mind and just stayed there.

After sending Tall Daughter E off to school I had a few minutes to meditate before waking up Tiny Daughter M. As I sat down and tried to focus on my breath, that song just kept cycling through my thoughts and refused to go away. Since I had just been thinking about praise music as a form of religious chanting I decided to work with it instead of fighting it. I generally stay away from Christian terminology in my practices, but I wanted to see where this went so I used the song I couldn’t get rid of anyway as a chant.

Now I know, OK? I know what hallelujah really means. I know it is an exhortation to praise specifically the deity known as YHWH, a deity I reject. I hope that my intentional miss-use of the term doesn’t offend those who use it in a more traditional manner because I sure did appropriate the heck out of it and change its subjective meaning to my own needs.

Having said that… I really enjoyed the results of my experimentation. The melody is so familiar to me from childhood that I never had to think about it at all, which helped me to really be in the moment. The hallelujah that I breathed in and out me became an expression of deep gratitude for everything. I experienced amazement as the intricate interconnectivity of the universe and personal gratitude for my small existence and my part in it. It was a humbling and amazing moment. I don’t really know why this particular combination of notes and syllables worked for me so well. I don’t think there is any magic in the phrase itself, but maybe it is there in the memories.

Then I got up and rousted the daughter from bed because life goes on after the mat. All morning the memory of that moment stayed with me like the song. Hallelujah.

Finishing Up 30 Poems 30 Days

2010-09-30T14:43:00.003-08:00

So obviously I did not stick with the 30 Poems 30 challenge. Even so, I enjoyed the experiment. I may return to writing poetry now and then, but without the time constraint. I think I will enjoy the writing more if I can take time with the poems to make them good instead of quick. My thanks to Jacqueline Wolven for dreaming up this challenge and encouraging me to do something I had given up on being able to do. I love language and this was right in line with my effort this year to force myself to get more creative. I have this notion that I have to be an expert at something or it is not worth doing. This year I have been reminding myself that anything worth doing is worth doing badly.

The other half of the challenge was to read a poem every day and so I end September with Neil Gaiman’s “Blueberry Girl”. This is a lovely clip of the author reading his work. I’ve been a fan of Gaiman for a long time, but I just came across this and I love it. I found out today that a co-worker is having a girl so I’m sure the picture book version of this poem will be part of her shower gift. I wish this poem for every little girl I know, including mine and all of yours, and for every other little girl, too.

Can't Get Her Out of My Head

2010-09-29T10:54:00.003-08:00

Thanks to last night’s episode of Glee, I cannot get the songs of one Ms. Britney Spears out of my head. This is not a state of mind I welcome or relish. However, it put me in mind of my favorite type of musical cover. Most singers can sing a great song well, but I really enjoy it when someone can take a song of dubious artistic value and make it great.

There is something there about taking what you find and making it better than you found it by sheer talent, hard work, and passion that speaks to me. In this spirit I give you Richard Thompson’s version of “Oops, I did It Again”.* He brings meaning, heft, and yes, irony to a song that did not have it before he got ahold of it.

*I realize this comes perilously close to a Stuff White People Like entry, but Richard Thompson is a genius so I can live with being a walking UU cliche.

Atheists & Agnostics Best Informed on Religion

2010-09-28T09:20:00.003-08:00

An interesting Pew study found that American atheists and agnostics had a better overall knowledge of religion than did believers. You can read the longer Pew article and shorter L.A. Times overview here. Not surprised by any of this, not even the finding that Mormons knew the New Testament better than evangelicals.

The study did not break out UU's as a group, but it would be interesting to see where we fit. I would guess that many non-born-and-raised UU's would do well for the same reasons as the atheists and agnostics. It would also be nice to see how those who grow up in UU RE compare.

Close Encounter of the Moose Kind

2010-09-24T14:55:00.002-08:00

Anchorage is the type of city that incorporates a lot of park land and the wildlife that come with that. You really can see eagles, foxes, the occasional bear, and yes, moose within city limits. We all teach our kids how to avoid and deal with moose the same way we teach them to look both ways before crossing the street. Generally, we just live our lives around them. I once actually called in to work because a moose was grazing my tree and standing between me and my car. I would be to work when it left. In Anchorage this is considered an acceptable excuse.

So now we get to today’s story. The bike path I ride to work runs by a lake in a small valley. You ride down one side and up the other. Today this path held a surprise for me as a bull moose was waiting at the bottom of the hill. Now, moose are big. They are not deer-sized. When drivers hit moose on the road the car is totaled and the driver does not always survive. Unfortunately, I could not see him from the top before I went down. So I am zipping down the hill and about halfway down he sort of shuffles out RIGHT NEXT TO THE BIKE PATH and now I can see him. It is a little too late to stop and turn around as I am blasting down the hill at what now feels like MACH 4.

I decide to continue past him AS FAST AS I CAN hoping he will not charge. They don’t look it, but moose are fast and they can run you down. As I get close to Mr. Moose he startles and does a little scaredy-dance that brings him even closer. This brings him about a foot or so from me and I pass him and I am SCARED TO DEATH that he is going to starting kicking out at me. I will be in the newspaper, “local woman is trampled by moose while commuting on bike trail.” Debates will rage in the press about who has more right to the park land – people or wildlife. My children will hate moose for the rest of their lives.

Anyway, continuing with my plan to haul ass, I race up the next hill. Dear readers, I have never before made it to the top of that hill so quickly. I pull over in an intersection there and check behind me hoping not to see angry moose antlers heading my way, fortunately, no moose. He had headed off back to the woods probably to tell him moosey friends about this crazy cyclist. After a huge sigh of relief I realize I am shaking and I am still only halfway to work. Not wanting to invite more trouble, I kept riding my shaky way down the path.

I was going to continue riding my bike to work until the first frost, but this encounter has changed that plan. We will be seeing more moose this time of year as they come further into town to look for food and it is mating season so the males are in rut. Repeat encounters with scared sexually frustrated ungulates does not seem wise so I am done.

UU Salon - An It Harm None...

2010-09-22T16:31:00.002-08:00

This month the UU Salon asks - What is evil?

Outside of fiction, I don’t normally think in terms of good vs. evil, but rather right and wrong. There is an implication in the use of the word evil that implies a universal standard. An action cannot be sometimes evil and sometimes good, but it can be sometimes right and sometimes wrong.

I do not believe in an omnipotent judge with a universal standard who determines which acts happen to be evil, but I would define evil or wrong as intentionally harming others. Sex is not evil, but sleeping with your best friend’s husband is, not because of the act but because of the harm done to your friend and the trust betrayed. We could quibble here about violence committed in self-defense, but I am totally willing to harm someone who is trying to hurt me or my family. I can live with that.

Where does evil come from? Desires to help and to harm others are intrinsically part of human nature and we choose which compulsion to follow on a continual basis. People are not inherently evil, but hold tremendous capacity both to help and to harm. Evil is not an independent entity that acts upon us, but it is a result of selfish choices we make. Good and evil are both aspects of human nature.

Nature cannot be evil as it does not possess free will; nature merely is. I find funny that we are often happy to ascribe goodness to nature when we like it. We may believe that a warm sunbeam is good or a beautiful stretch of coastline is good, but we don’t say a hurricane is evil when it kills so many people. This is a good reminder to me that while I may enjoy certain aspects of nature very much, nature just is. The universe exists, but it does not have good and evil sections.

I do not know who first said it, but I have often thought my favorite definition of evil is the absence of empathy. If you truly try to understand another person or creature, you do not want to hurt him or her. Empathy is a big things with me, but the more I learn about sociopaths the more I wonder if that definition is adequate. I am not in any way a mental health expert, but if my understanding of the current research is correct and sociopathy is an incurable condition is which the subject is not hard-wired for empathy from birth then we need to rethink this. If we believe in the inherent dignity of every person then we cannot declare that anyone born a sociopath is inherently evil. OK, I went off on a rabbit trail with that one, but I have been mulling this over lately.

Evil actions do not bring about our eternal damnation, but they do make us miserable. Currently, I do not believe in any type of afterlife, so I am not afraid to go to hell if I am bad, but evil does distract me from what I am supposed to be doing with this life of mine. I can’t make the world a better place if I am harming others. I can’t raise happy healthy daughters if I take out my aggressions on them. I can’t have a meaningful marriage if I abuse my spouse. The things that are important to me are not achievable through evil.

Poem for Equinox

2010-09-21T13:24:00.001-08:00

Still chugging along at this poetry challenge, in a haphazard sort of way. Here is a poem just for today. After today, I have decided to stop writing about autumn. I need out of the rut.

Autumn Equinox

A day
in the balance,
in autumn we feel our
age and our beauty, but only
briefly

Creep Morning Poem

2010-09-17T13:39:00.003-08:00

It was the morning that was creepy, not the poem (I hope.) Here I am, leaping back into the poetry fray. Today's poem that I read was "The Cord" by Leanne O'Sullivan

Foggy Morning

A ghostly fog
wraps itself around my spruce
and lingers in front of the mountains.
It silvers the sun so well
that it looks like the morning moon

The radio
talks of zombies and monsters,
and I look around to make sure they aren’t nearby.

Autumn
teases me with its sense of mystery
and the unseen.

Nature
poses in soft focus
like an aging film star
waiting for her close up.

Big Deal OWL Registration

2010-09-15T12:28:00.003-08:00

My husband and I have decided to sign up Tiny Daughter M for Our Whole Lives classes. This is a big deal. I was pleasantly surprised he went along with it as he dislikes “indoctrinating” our kids, but we both think the program will be good for her.

This is the first time any of my family members have gotten involved in anything UU related. I have assured Tiny Daughter that it is not like Sunday school and no one will be telling Bible stories and that was quite a relief to her. Still, I am kind of nervous. Neither of my girls have any interest in doing anything related to a church ever again and I am starting to look at the role I have played in that.

Both of my girls attended church regularly when they were little. I took them most Sundays to the Assembly of God church that I grew up in and my parents still attend. When I stopped going, I told them that church attendance was their decision; I was willing to drop them off at church, or not, as they pleased. I would not force them to go to church ever again. Neither one of them have the slightest interest in attending. At all. (OK, they do make an exception for the annual Christmas sleigh ride party.) Many people at AUUF have informed me about the wonderful RE program and how great it would be for my kids, but I have to respect their decision to stay home, even if I think they should give it a try before they dismiss it. This puzzles some people, but I cannot go back on my word to them. I cannot respect their search for meaning and coerce them at the same time.

This week I have been thinking about how my actions played a part in this. For years I hated going to church, but I went to please my mother. I was so stressed out and cranky by the time I got home on Sunday afternoons that the whole family experienced an improved quality of life when I stopped going. I never thought about how that affected them before. I am sure that watching their mother grit her teeth and endure something did not instill in them a desire to participate. I felt so alienated from my true self there, but I didn’t know that they could see it as small children. Looking back, it is kind of stupid to think that they could not. I am not beating myself up about this; I just want to look at the situation and understand it.

I have always found religion to be fascinating. Even as a non-theist, I worry that the girls are missing out on a fundamental aspect of human nature. You don’t have to be a theist to understand about religions and the role they play in human societies. Something like 90% of people in the world believe in some type of divinity and I don’t want to leave the girls ignorant about that aspect of humanity, but in no way do I want to force any sort of religion on them. They remain fantastically uninterested in any of it.

Still, this OWL registration is a big deal. Tiny Daughter M was reassured to know that next year, a high school level class will be offered and Tall Daughter E will not escape her turn.

Some Pretty Fractals

2010-09-14T09:56:00.003-08:00

I love fractals. I love what they tell me about the nature of the world. Check out Wired's collection of a few gorgeous fractals found in nature.

Making Decisions

2010-09-13T12:45:00.001-08:00

I have been thinking lately about how I make decisions. I am not widely known for my decisiveness so making a choice can be a lengthy process and it just gets worse in groups. When deciding where to eat for lunch, this is only a minor annoyance and, hopefully, something more along the lines of an endearing quirk (wishful thinking, I know).

While considering more important choices, this trait is more troublesome. I spend so much time anxiously going over all the drawbacks and benefits of each choice when I could spend that time productively doing something. Eventually I bounce my ideas off of someone, often my long suffering husband, to help clarify my ideas. This sometimes exhausts the patience of the idea-bouncing recipient. Contrary to his belief, I do not ask his opinion only to do the opposite.

Here is what I have noticed. Often, I know quite early on what I really want to do; I just need to time to come to peace with the decision or to give myself permission to do it. Other times I use that time “deciding” to come to terms and buck up to do something I don’t really want to do, but needs doing. I had my time to mentally whine about it, now I have to put on my big girl pants and do what is important. So if somewhere is my head, I know all along what I am going to choose, why do I prolong the process? Why can’t I accept my decision as the right one before I hash out every little detail?

Out of the UU Closet

2010-09-10T19:59:00.004-08:00

Well, frak.

I guess I am out now as a UU to my family. Here is the story. Since I informed my mother that I would no longer be attending church with them a few years ago, my family and I never discuss religion. In the past they politely invited me to various church events and I politely declined. It is the one subject we discuss even less often than politics and it sometimes hangs there in the air while none of us acknowledge it in our WASPy way. I know that my rejection of her religion and refusal to bring up my daughters in it is very painful for my mother. I wish there was some way around that, but there isn't. She did every thing she could to bring me up in a godly manner and it didn't work. My father sometimes worked two jobs so that my middle sister and I could go to Christian school, and still I left the flock. She is respectful enough of my choices not to browbeat me with that disappointment, but it is still there, obvious and unaddressed.

I am not ashamed of any of my spiritual beliefs, but I don't bring them up with the family because I believe it will just cause more pain. My personal beliefs are not any of their business. However, when my mother informs my daughter that she cannot have a trinket featuring a peace symbols because it is satanic - it can be tough.

The AUUF is starting an official Facebook page and I have volunteered to keep it up to date. This requires me to "like" the page. My personal Facebook page doesn't have a lot of details for reasons such as these. I figure if you know me, then you know I love the Beatles and Dune without me having to make it part of my profile.

So now my extremely devout Baptist sister is requesting an explanation about why I would "like" something like the Anchorage Unitarian Universalist Fellowship. I guess being a "backslider" and skipping church was one thing, but at least I wasn't an out-and-out heathen. (Not the Odin & Freya kind of heathen, but more like the totally misguided and much to be pitied fallen one in need of rescue.)

I think I am going to ignore this request as Facebook does not seem like the best place to discuss theology. If she cares enough she will call. I love my sister, but she lives 3,000 miles away from me and has for over half my life. My choice of house of worship is not her business. If my family chooses to gossip about my fallen state, well, that won't be any worse than when I was 20 years old, single, and pregnant.

Thanks, blogosphere, for helping me to work some of this out. I feel a little better. The point of this blog was for me to chronicle my journey to UU and the experience of a new member. I guess this had to be one of the chapters eventually. Still, I am not looking forward to that phone call.

44 Years of Star Trek

2010-09-09T15:43:00.005-08:00

Happy Belated Birthday to Star Trek!

Yesterday for the 44th anniversary of the first airing of Star Trek. I cannot over emphasize the effect Trek had on my growing up. Tolerance, reason, diplomacy, courage, leadership, responsibility, curiosity, loyalty, and friendship - these are just some of the traits I learned from the various crews of the starships Enterprise.

I've said it before, but I would not be a UU today if not for Star Trek.

Thank you, Gene Roddenberry, for making this universe where a strange brainy girl felt welcome and like she could make the galaxy a better place.

30 Poems - Getting Back on Track

2010-09-09T15:11:00.005-08:00

So I thought I would have a lot more time this week to write and post here, but it seems the opposite has happened. My schedule gets totally thrown off and discipline goes out the door. Add sick kids to that and writing has taken a back seat. Fortunately, the 30 poems 30 days challenge happens to coincide with the annual Anchorage Press Haiku Contest. So expect to see a lot of haiku about weird Alaska stuff you probably don't care about helping me make up lost ground.

The following is a bad poem. I wanted to experiment with some rhyme and I haven't made the time to write a better one. It was a really cool moment and I wish I captured it better, here it is.

A Moment of Peace in Chaos

Early September
The air still smells like last night's rain.
A moment caught in amber
here written down in vain.

All my plans gone awry,
so now a quiet calm birthday
I walk beneath a clouded sky,
Nature's chaos on display.
The mountains looks like Mordor wreathed in gloom
Chaff from trees litters the ground
and hated cottonwoods loom.
Yellow birch leaves swirl around
me in a personal dance
I feel at the center of it all
in this moment caught by chance.

30 Poems 30 Days: Day 4

2010-09-04T21:38:00.003-08:00

It late on Day 4, but I'm in time for posting today's and yesterday's poems. I am not happy with these, but as Jacqueline reminds me, sometimes it is better to get something done instead of waiting for the perfect version.

Sun Salutation

Reach, stretch, bend
Extend, press, hold
Breathe
Attend
Feel your body glide
between the movements.
Marvel that you can.
Pause
Notice
how much better you feel
Be thankful.

And for today, a hasty haiku

We walk in the rain
Her boots splash in the puddles
We giggle and smile

The poem is read today, appropriately enough, was "Football" by Louis Jenkins.

The Well is Running Dry

2010-09-03T16:41:00.006-08:00

It is only day 3 of Jacqueline Wolven’s poetry challenge and I already feeling out of inspiration. Our family has had a tough couple of weeks and I am just fried.

I want to at least include the poetry I have been reading here. Yesterday, I forgot to include the poem I read so here is “Break” by Dorianne Laux. I loved this poem, maybe because I am raising a teenage daughter and it spoke to me. I liked today's peom even better. In fact, it may be my favorite thing I have read in a really long time. This western-style senryu is by George Swede. It is so beautiful I have been thinking about it all day.

at the height
of the argument the old couple
pour each other tea

Maybe that is part of my writing difficulty today – I am frustrated that I will never be able to write something like that. I know that is not what this exercise is about, but have I ever mentioned that I can be a perfectionist? I’ll keep turning some things over in my mind and hopefully post a new poem by midnight.

30 Poems 30 Days: Day 2

2010-09-02T13:52:00.002-08:00

Today I am feeling strung out and overwhelmed so researching and learning a poetry form just seemed a bit much. Today’s poem will be free form, but I promise I will return to exploring various forms soon. I hate to abandon a plan so soon, but I am not taking any more on my plate today.

I had a hard time coming up with a fresh gratitude today so you see where we are.

There Are Only Days

All summer I struggled with this steep hill
at the end of the woods, by the lake.
Yesterday I finally crested it,
pedaling, panting,
Victorious.
Today that success feels fleeting.
I inch upwards and almost admit defeat.
Then I tell myself the truth.

There are not days when I can reach the top
and other days when I cannot.
There are only days.

30 Poems 30 Days, Day 1

2010-09-01T15:21:00.002-08:00

I have joined Jaqueline Wolven in her 30 Poems, 30 days challenge so I will be writing and posting one original poem for each day in September. Please do not expect for these to be good poems, as I don’t expect them to be so. The idea of posting my own bad poetry for the world to read is a little scary, but I think that is part of the idea. Creatively, I respond well to structure as long as there is room to play within that structure; I get bored doing the same thing all the time. So I will be experimenting with different poetry forms throughout the month. I’m thinking mostly simple forms throughout the week with maybe some experimentation with more complex forms on the weekends.

The other half of the challenge is to read a poem a day. In April I posted several poems on Facebook for National Poetry Month so this month I will be looking for poems and poets who are new to me. I decided to start the month with, fittingly enough, “Introduction to Poetry” by Billy Collins.

Today’s original poem is a cinquain.

Loons at Sand Lake

Loons on
the Lake call out
their eerie cry, only
if we keep very still and quiet,
watching

Grace & Whales in the Deep Blue Sea

2010-08-27T13:33:00.003-08:00

I have not been feeling well this week and I was grateful my kids had plans with their grandparents Monday evening. I was lying in bed watching TV with wonderful Husband S when the phone rang with a call from Tall Daughter E. My peace and quiet having been disrupted, I was not feeling nurturing as I answered the phone.

“Mom, guess what?” Good lord, what trivial thing has she called me about knowing that I am trying to rest? That part stayed in my head, what came out was an impatient sounding, “What?”
“Baby belugas, mom, I see a baby beluga. A real life one.” She and my dad were going fishing near Girdwood and were driving by a spot called Beluga Point on Turnagain Arm. It is a beautiful spot along Cook Inlet where you can, indeed, see beluga whales at the right time of year if you are lucky. We’ve seen whales there before, but never a baby. She went on to describe it to me.

Now understand that in general I am not a fan of children’s music. When my girls were toddlers I saw no reason why they could not listen to the Beatles or CSN&Y or Billie Holliday along with me. Many of their lullabies are old folk songs or Beatles tunes. I saw no reason why I should subject myself to more earworms than I already got from Sesame Street. But there was one exception, Tall Daughter learned Raffi’s “Baby Beluga” in kindergarten and I liked it. It was the one piece of kiddie music we listened to and we sang it together often.

At her age, it would have taken a death threat to get me to call my mother to remind her of a pleasant childhood memory we shared. I would have only brought something like that up if I could frame it ironically. But here she is, so excited that her wildlife encounter echoes this memory that she took time out to call me instead of just telling me about it when she got home like she usually would. I felt simultaneously touched and ashamed for having been so annoyed.
Like many many other mothers, I sometimes feel like a failure as a parent. Tall Daughter is so difficult to motivate that I sometimes despair. But here was a moment when I knew that I was doing something right. She may not grow into my vision for her, but we have a closeness that not even adolescence can shake. And adolescence is very trying indeed, for both of us. I should appreciate this bond more and reframe “needy” as “loving”.

A few weeks ago our minister spoke on moments of grace, even for non-theists like me. In this small moment I felt grace, and gratitude, and humility.

Big Red Crazy State

2010-08-25T12:27:00.004-08:00

In light of yesterday's primary election you may all be forgiven for thinking the whole state of Alaska is crazy. I won't even argue.

Just please don't mention HER, OK? Thanks.

Confessions of a Poltical Junkie

2010-08-24T09:46:00.001-08:00

Today is Election Day in Alaska and I love politics. Love it. I have always been a political junkie. I was the weird kid who, at the age of seven, begged to be allowed to stay up and watch presidential election results. Don’t ask me why I was rooting for John Anderson, but my penchant for iconoclasm revealed itself early. I still take the day off after major elections so I can stay up all night watching the results. Partly, I love the game of it all, but I learned to love the way it can affect and improve people lives, and create history in front of us. Through disillusionment and the switching of teams, I have been passionate about it my whole life.

Even so, sometimes I have to take a break and pull back. I have never been successful at getting myself to not pay attention, but sometimes I have to not care so much. I know that the triumph of evil happens when good people do nothing. I know that apathy helps nothing, but I also wonder about the effect of caring on myself. I pull back when I start to feel like I am spending too much time in anger and despair: Anger at the other side and despair at my own. Regardless of what some might tell you, it is a tough time to be a liberal when even winning elections doesn’t guarantee results. As much as I love Rachel Maddow, I find that I am less happy when I watch her five days a week. I spend more time being upset about things I cannot control. Two or three times per week and I feel informed, but there is a point where it is too much.

So the question is, how to I protect my own mental and spiritual health and still stay well enough enformed to try to make a difference? No, I am not saying I get all my news from Rachel Maddow, but I do find her to be well informed, thoughtful, intelligent, and refreshingly civil. She is also a kick-ass role model for my girls.

As an aside, my most evangelical, Bible-thumping, small government, anti-tax, pro-war, Sarah Palin & Dr. Laura loving, social conservative colleague and I are actually voting the same way on a ballot proposition. I do not believe this has ever happened before in the almost eight years we have worked together. It is like a tiny Election Day miracle.

UU Bloggers Hair Jinx

2010-08-19T10:00:00.002-08:00

This is for those of you who look for bad news to come in threes. First, it started with Peacebang and her annual hair color disaster. Then, Matt Kinsi discovered unwanted, and most pre-mature, gray hair. Now I have managed to make a monstrosity of the back of my head.

I wear my hair very short and have taken to cutting it myself (I can be quite notional at times). So yesterday, I cut my hair and the front looks very cute, if I do say so myself. Unfortunately, there was an accident with the clippers in the back and I am now left with something horrible. This is not just my hyper-sensitive opinion; every member of my family will verify that this is indeed at hot mess. It is gamine in the front and punk in the back. The only possibly solution is to make like Lizard Eater and buzz my whole head and I am not quite willing to go that far. By the way, LE, you have truly glorious hair and I admire your bravery.

So I dyed my hair a darker color last night to help camouflage the disparity in length, and now I hate the color. I think I am just in for a pretty ugly month while I wait for this to grow out. I will just have to face everyone for a while.

Strangely, I am not nearly as upset about this as I would have been in the past. I have really bad hair for the next month or so no matter what I do. There are worse things than that. I am quite surprised that I am so calm about this; I wouldn’t have been in the past. As a matter of fact, I am much happier with my emotional state than I am upset about my hair.

So for the rest of you UU bloggers out there, as well as other readers, it should be safe to go the barber/hairdresser now. We’ve got the jinx covered.

Clash of the Titans - With Spoilers

2010-08-17T14:05:00.002-08:00

I know I am a little behind the times, but I just watched the re-make of Clash of the Titans this weekend and I was quite surprised at the tack the film took towards religion. For my purposes here, I will not be addressing the shallow misunderstanding of Greek religion that seems like it came from a children’s book listing only the gods’ names and spheres of influence. Nor will I belabor the criminal waste of truly talented actors, besmirching their otherwise outstanding resumes. (I weep for you, Liam and Ralph.) If you want to read mean, snotty reviews of the film there are many available and they are all correct.

I was surprised at the way the film portrays the relationship between men and gods, and the not so subtle real life message. Religion is bad, gods are mean and bad, people should just figure out the world on their own with no goals other than that. Perseus’s whole goal is to kill and bring down the gods of Olympus, especially Hades. He is not interested in saving Argos, or brave Andromeda, he just wants to avenge his family and destroy the gods. How the world would continue to work after the gods are gone was not clear, but dammit, it would work for men. Not people, mind you, men.

As a science-loving non-theist, I’m as down as anybody for art that teaches people to rely on reason rather than superstition, but this was really heavy handed. Scene after scene, we hear Perseus attest to his goal of vengeance against the gods. I cannot call this film Humanist as it never tries to say how people would do better for themselves, than by serving Olympus. Nowhere does it attempt to define what is great about being a human or what can be achieved if not held back by the gods. Sure, the gods kill a few people, but are people any better to each other?

I tend to roll my eyes when conservative Christians talk about Hollywood being anti-religious, but this is the type of film that gives credence to their argument. It criticizes religion, but to no purpose other than lashing out that gods are bad. Hint, hint, get it, gods are bad.

Another aspect that jumped out at me, was how much of the action in the film is motivated by hate. Hades hates Zeus, Caliban hates Zeus, Perseus hates Hades. No one, save perhaps Andromeda, seems motivated to benefit anyone, even themselves. It is not about salvation, or greater glory, or love, it is about implacable hate, which is pretty dark for a sword & sandals type film. I think they were going for a Gladiator vibe, but even that film has a restore-the-glory-of-Rome subplot.

Maybe I just don’t like people picking on the gods of Greece, with whom I fell in love as a child. Do yourself a favor and avoid this film. Save those two hours of your life.

Joys and Concerns

2010-08-16T10:50:00.002-08:00

Can I just say how much I love spoken Joys and Concerns? I really really like it. I know it can be an opportunity for blowhards to blow, but it also a chance for people to share their lives with their community. I want to know if the folks sitting around me have had a death or a birth in the family, or have lost or gained a job, not for the sake of gossip, but so that we can support and affirm them. It makes it easy to let people know where you are in your own life without feeling like to have to reveal too much in a conversation, or figure out how to work it in. It builds a closeness and a trust that silent candle lighting does not.

No matters how much I am encouraged to do so, I am not going to come up to someone after the service and say, “I say you lit a candle today; is there anything you want to tell me about?” I’m just not.

It reminds me of the time for prayer requests from my childhood. Each child got to feel like they had their moment that was important. Their life and concerns, no matter how small, were important to God. Now Joys and Concerns is like that, but without the necessity for belief in the Almighty. My triumphs and struggles, as much as I choose to share them, are important to the community and we take the time to recognize that all of us have a place in the service.

For me, Joys & Concerns helps to keep the focus on the democracy of US, rather than the hierarchy of YOU and WE that often develops in organizations. I don’t know if it has become blasé to longtime UU’s, but as a newcomer, Joys and Concerns has become one of my favorite parts of Sunday mornings.

Not Just Ted Stevens

2010-08-10T16:47:00.005-08:00

Tough day today. Several co-workers and friends knew the pilot who died along with Sen. Ted Stevens last night. Terry Smith was very well-regarded and will be missed. He just attended a memorial service a few weeks ago for his son-in-law, who also died in an aviation accident. I can't even image what it must be like for that family right now. Things are pretty somber around here.

A close friend of mine works with Smith's other daughter and used to work with him. I had to call her to tell her when I found out that he definitely was one of the fatalities. People had been on pins and needles all day; we knew there were four survivors, but not their identities.

I felt pretty down after I called her and heard about the reactions of his former associates on her side of the airport. A few minutes later Eva Cassidy's version of "How Can I Keep From Singing" came on my iPod. It helped. It's still a tough day, but it helped.

Feministing & Religious Institutions

2010-08-10T15:06:00.006-08:00

There is a lot of food for thought in this post from Feministing on how to view religious institutions which advocate political positions and their members. She makes several interesting points, but this really stood out to me.

And I wonder what society would be like if folks like my friend defended my right to not be burdened by the laws of someone else’s church with as much passion as they defend the rights of religious institutions to advocate for public policy that plants their dogma on my neck.

But maybe that's just the week I'm having. The bigger question is do we hold believers responsible for the teachings of their religious institutions if they choose to stay? I've been on both sides of that question and I lean towards "yes", but you can easily make the other arguement. Your thoughts?

My Wedding Anniversary

2010-08-06T12:57:00.003-08:00

Today is my wedding anniversary. For 16 years, Husband S has been legally obligated to put up with me, and he does a pretty damn fine job. There is some argument as to whether I am low or medium maintenance, but a maintenance program for my happiness and sanity does, indeed, exist.

S has always stuck by me and supported me, even when he doesn’t have to. He has faith in me even when I don’t and he always encourages me to try something new even when he doesn’t agree with what I want to try, like joining a UU fellowship for instance. He frequently puts my wants ahead of his and he deals with my family – even on holidays. He holds me accountable for my actions, which pisses me off, but it makes me a better person. He is patient with my impatience. He is my favorite person in the world.

Old age isn’t scary when I think about growing old with him.

Today won’t be the anniversary celebration that we hoped for, but it will be just us and that is enough. I love you, S.

P.S. Congratulations to all of the same-sex couples in California who can now celebrate their own wedding anniversaries, U.S. Supreme Court willing.

Happy Belated Lughnassadh

2010-08-02T11:27:00.002-08:00

I missed both Lughnassadh/Lammas celebrations this weekend due to travelling for work. On the plus side I can now say I have been above the Arctic Circle, and what better time than now? I will also miss our women’s circle’s Lammas retreat due to a conflict with my wedding anniversary. As much as I would like to go, I don’t miss our anniversary for anything.

This is the third year in a row that Lughnassadh just hasn’t worked out for me. It always seems to be this festival that has the problem. Also, it is hard to get in the mood to celebrate the fruits of summer when we have seen nothing but rain for a month.

Best wishes for a meaningful holiday for all of you who celebrated this weekend or who have celebrations yet to come. Here’s to looking forward to Mabon!

Forgiveness

2010-07-30T15:22:00.003-08:00

So, forgiveness, huh? Yeah, about that. Let me tell you, it is way easier to give some lessons than to receive them. This week Tiny Daughter and I have been talking a lot about the need for forgiveness. She is a natural grudge holder and I have been trying to convince her that holding those grudges hurts her much more than the other person, and that she will be happier if she learns to forgive people. Y’know, basic standards that A) I truly believe and B) all parents and supposed to try to teach their kids.

And most of the time I believe it. Most of the time forgiveness is not a big struggle for me. I tend to get angry quickly and easily, but I get over it quickly as well. Most of the time. And then there are days like today. Today I discovered that someone who I believed was a mentor sabotaged me professionally. I liked her, I respected her; although not part of our congregation, she is one of the tiny steps that brought be to my UU fellowship, and I am terribly, terribly hurt.

I don’t want to forgive her. I want to nurse my wound in self-righteous wrath. I feel betrayed and I have earned that emotion. I want to stay angry at her. I want to enjoy her suffering. None of that is any kind of good idea. None of it really hurts her or affects her in any way. I feel like I am inside the moral lesson I was trying to teach my daughter and if I really mean it, I have to live it. If I really believe in compassion and connectivity I have to let it go. The pain won't get any smaller if I feed it. If I really believe in forgiving the human failings of others, I have to include her in that forgiveness.

I’m not totally naïve or dumb, so I don’t have to trust her in the future. I am no longer in a position where she can affect me professionally, but we will continue to deal with each other and network in the same industry. I learned a great deal from her in our previous working relationship; now I have learned from her how not to treat others. I suspect I will be working on this for a little while, so here is the first step.

I forgive you. Whatever happened in the past is done. I forgive you.

RIP Daniel Schorr

2010-07-23T09:41:00.004-08:00

NPR reports that Daniel Schorr died today at the age of 93. His depth of understanding in understanding Washington will not easily be replaced. I will miss him not being part of my drive home anymore.

A Plea For Kindness

2010-07-22T10:21:00.002-08:00

I know it is always there, but this week I am seeing a need for kindness in the world. We know that we are all human; we all want to be understood and forgiven our weaknesses, but we don’t do it. Can’t we all just extend that understanding out to others just a little bit? Wouldn’t we all rather be treated that way?

I am speaking as much to myself as to anyone else, since it is difficult to remember to be compassionate and understanding with a teenager. This week everything from ugly national political stories to workplace cranks makes me wonder, what if we were all just a little more kind to each other? Is it so important to win that we must trash someone’s good name? People need to be seen as so put together and blameless so that they vilify another for a small human mistake. When my colleague makes a mistake, he or she is probably not a moron as some would attest; she is most likely a human being who made an error. If I can help her fix it, maybe she will understand the next time I make a mistake. Because I’m human I will make a mistake again.

You know what; this even applies to Sarah Palin. I don’t like Sarah Palin. I don’t like what she says about others and I am sick beyond all belief of hearing about everything she and her family does and says. But if I spend all of my time mocking every grammatically-challenged thing that comes out of her mouth then I am just being negative and not hurting her at all. Her supporters don’t even care. Look at me, I’m clever and snarky; I don’t mangle the English language. So what? How have I improved my life by watching and criticizing her every move? It doesn’t help create any positive changes; it just makes me feel superior. I still reserve the right to criticize and disagree with her political actions and speech, but let’s leave her parenting and hair out of it. Deep breath. Even Sarah Palin deserves respect and compassion. (Realistically, someone may have to remind me I said that in the future.)

I didn’t even know I was going to write about She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.

The Dalai Lama famously said, “My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness.” I need to remind myself of that more often. Couldn’t we all be happier and more at ease if we could look past our initial frustration and see each other as flawed and human people, instead of obstacles in our personal paths to happiness? As a person with a long and loving relationship with snark, I’m changing. Just watching people treat each other callously disturbs me and stresses me out. I wish I could stop people from being awful to each other, but as a proper child of psychology, I know I can only change my own actions. So my mantra this week is Kindness, everyone else is human, too.

Lesson Fron My Bike

2010-07-09T16:14:00.002-08:00

As I have written before, I have been riding my bike to work this summer and it has been a surprisingly great exercise in gratitude. Every day when I ride I am reminded of so many things that I generally take for granted.

For many people in the world, a bicycle is a treasure. It is the means to start a business, or commute to a job and still come home to family, or to be able to go to school. For me, it is a luxury; I get to choose to take my bike instead of driving. It seems strange that the method requiring more work is actually the luxury here in the U.S., but it’s true.

I have the physical ability to ride a bicycle. I work close enough to home that it is not a burden to commute this way; I don’t have to choose between supporting my family and seeing them every night. My workplace is safe and clean enough that I can breathe while riding. These are not benefits that I would even think about having most of the time. An unexpected side effect of this change has been a repeated reminder of my own privilege. Every morning I think about billions of people around the world and how different their experiences and points of view are from mine. Still, we are interconnected and their struggles are not any less worthy than mine.

I have also been surprised at the response I have gotten from several co-workers. While a few people have been supportive, most seem to view me as a trick pony or a dancing bear. Isn’t it just adorable the way she rides her bike? No cheek pinching, so far.

It’s funny, when we find spiritual growth in the most unexpected places.

No Memory of Peacetime

2010-07-07T14:38:00.002-08:00

Yesterday I realized that my 10 year old daughter has no memory of the United States not being at war. No experience with prosperous peacetime at all. That is really sad.

She doesn’t know what this war is all about or why we are fighting it. She doesn’t know anyone who had to fight in it. It is just an abstract notion to her. American soldiers killing and being killed in foreign lands for some unknown reason is just normal to her.

That shouldn’t be normal.

Dreaming of a White Lughnassadh

2010-07-01T16:35:00.002-08:00

It looks like I will be spending Lughnassadh above the Arctic Circle this year with my evangelical Christian boss. This ought to make for an interesting holiday. It might be hard to think about the first fruits of the harvest at 32 degrees. I know two years isn’t much of a pattern, but it seems like Lughnassadh is becoming the day to expect surprises.

Of Tantrums & Revelations

2010-06-30T17:00:00.004-08:00

You know how sometimes you feel mad about something pretty small only to realize, while ranting, that you are actually mad about something really big that you have not addressed? Yeah, I had that day yesterday. It sucked.

I don't know if pride truly goeth before a fall, but it does go before a temper tantrum.

Here is my quote for the day; it's from Marianne Williamson. "Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you". Pardon my vulgarity but screw that. Screw shrinking and then being angry when people think you are small.

On Agnosticism

2010-06-29T13:41:00.003-08:00

Slate has a good article on agnosticism and the value of spiritual uncertainty today. It is worth checking out. I like that he stakes it out as a viable third option, and not just weak theism or atheism.

Your thoughts?

Not Content With Homelessness

2010-06-28T13:00:00.002-08:00

Yeah, I know I’m rockin’ the UU stereotype, but I loves me my NPR. Last night I was making dinner while listening to an episode of This American Life from a couple of weeks ago. (I also love their iPhone app.) The third act was about crazy myths that immigrants believe about America that turn out to be true. Most of it was pretty lighthearted stuff, Christmas lights, overweight people, public kissing, but what struck me was their shock at homelessness.

They couldn’t believe it was true. People flee from lands of poverty and tyranny, war-torn lands that offer little hope to come to the America that they pray is a land of plenty only to find that we allow our people to sleep on the street. One man commented that where he came from families would be ashamed to allow this to happen to a family member.

How did this happen? How did we become so comfortable with allowing Americans to live this way as long as we are lucky enough not to be among them? Why are we not ashamed of that? My cousin is mentally ill and formerly homeless; how did we as a family let that happen?

My fellowship has a commitment to helping Safe Harbor Inn, which provides transition housing for homeless families and I am proud that we are doing that, but I am not at all proud of the part I have played thus far. My United Way contact tells me that the average age of a homeless person in Anchorage, AK is 9 years old. Why are we OK with that? I don’t want to be OK with that anymore.

Sweet 16 for Midsummer Girl

2010-06-25T14:06:00.003-08:00

Yesterday Big Daughter E turned 16. As I’ve mentioned before, I have been raising her almost my entire adult life. My sense of being a grown up is wrapped up in caring for her and now she is almost grown. I am a little overwhelmed.

E and I talk the same way and have some behavior similarities, but emotionally we are such totally different creatures. This does not enhance communication between a teenager and her mother. She drives me crazy. Just crazy. I have no idea how she is going to fend for herself in the real world in a couple of years.

But here’s the thing, she loves fiercely. She loves with a devotion like that of my mother who is the most nurturing person I have ever known. E has loved me every day of her life and I have never doubted that. I fear for the day when someone breaks her heart because that is going to be ugly. I named her for a woman of power and I hope she carries that strength throughout her life. She is so secure in herself and impervious to peer pressure. This makes it hard for her parents to influence her as well, but she is so confident in her own self and doesn't look for outside superficial validation. Whatever her life may hold for her, I know that she will find her own way.

16 is an exciting and scary age to be. I just hope we both make it through it.

Happy Summer Solstice

2010-06-21T10:38:00.002-08:00

I love love love the Summer Solstice! It is my firm and unassailable opinion that no one loves the solstice like we northerners. The sun decided to come out and play for the celebrations yesterday and we are having a beautiful solstice today. I walked down to the nearby lake last night and just watched the sun and the birds and the trees. I felt so at peace and this morning’s ride was giddy and joyful. I am just happy.

I am really coming to love my women’s ritual group. Even though our Solstice celebration was rained out on Saturday we had a lovely time as one of us opened her home. It was a small part of what was said and done, but one passage stuck with me. As glorious as it is, Solstice highlights impermanence for us. When summer is at its zenith, it begins to wane again. I usually try not to think about that and focus on all the glorious night we have left all summer long. But the reason this day is so joyous is because I know winter is coming. Those long dark nights make this day so much sweeter, but I am sure I wouldn’t care about it if I lived near the equator.

I love it when my interests in Paganism and Buddhism overlap like that. This day reminds me to savor every sweet and wonderful thing I see without begrudging its eventual loss. Without impermanence, it wouldn’t be so beautiful. I hope I can hang on to this lesson this winter and remember that it is OK to lose something, because that means that I once had it.

Chronic Complainers

2010-06-17T13:11:00.001-08:00

I have reached a point in my life where I am out of patience with chronically unhappy people who spend all their time complaining about everything that is wrong with everything. I am not talking about people who struggle with mental illness or depression. I do not mean people who are living through truly horrible life experiences. I mean people who live the same sheltered and well cared for middle class American experience that most of us do, but cannot find one single thing to be happy or grateful about.

Once you get fed up with this type they are everywhere and I just find them exhausting. For most of us, life is full of problems and struggles, but it also has some pretty wonderful stuff going on too. And for cryin’ out loud, not everything is that big a deal, y’know.

I am a rescuer and I have to deal with that. I grew up in a home where depression was a major issue, many of my friends deal with depression on various levels. I frequently take it upon myself to “fix” them and make them happy. That is my own struggle that I have to deal with and I will continue to be there for family members and friends who really need me. Having said that, I refuse to continue to be a sounding board for people who refuse to take any steps at all to change their circumstances, but seem to enjoy reveling in their own unhappiness. It does not make you cool to see what sucks about everything; it makes you a drag. My life is too short and too precious to spend it listening to people constantly complain.

Enough.

*Note to my husband – I reserve the right to make an exception for our friend the Comic Book Guy because I know you will call me on it later. At least he and I can fight honestly.

Two More Years

2010-06-14T16:06:00.001-08:00

Two short years. While taking a walk with my girls last night I realized that two years is all I have left until everything changes. In two years Big Daughter E will be out of high school and turning 18, and Tiny Daughter M will be done with elementary school and heading into the hormonal morass of middle school.

Due to some less than stellar planning, I have been parenting E almost as long as I have been an adult. Two years from this month, she will be a grown woman making her own way in the world. Even if she continues to live at home I won’t be actively parenting her the same way anymore. In two years my baby will be almost a teenager and not a baby anymore. The small children stage of parenting will be over and I will become increasingly annoying and stupid to her. That’s it. That’s all I have left.

I need to slow down and cherish these next two years. After that, we will be playing a whole new ballgame that I am not ready for yet. Gretchen Rubin frequently quotes, “the days are long, but the years are short” and I am hearing that message loud and clear today. Slow down and be mindful of this time I have left to raise my girls together. Stop taking their time and attention for granted. Pay attention. Just two more years.

Demographics and Multiracial Americans

2010-06-10T14:37:00.003-08:00

The Huffington Post posted this article about the latest demographic numbers and America's path to becoming a minority-White nation. It is mostly information that we have all heard before, but what caught my eye was that multiracial is the largest growing demographic in the United States, I assume, it is growing fast than even Latinos.

Does this bode good news for race relations? With a growing number of people who belong to different ethnicities or who have family members of different ethnicities will we see an increase in acceptance of differences? Studies show that people with gay family members are much less likely to discriminate against gays; does it work the same for racial issues? Do you stop seeing other races as “the other” if your grandchildren belong to their race as well as yours? It is very easy to dislike or fear those lousy, no good, fill-in-the-blanks, but it is much harder to hate your nephew, or sister-in-law, or cousin.

Maybe I am hanging a lot on very little data, but made me hopeful for our future.

Humanist Pilgrimage to Mauna Kea

2010-06-09T14:16:00.003-08:00

I went on a spiritual pilgrimage last week. A Humanist pilgrimage.
While visiting Hawai’i I got the chance to go the summit of Mauna Kea to see the astronomical observatories located there and it was a deeply moving experience for me. I just wish I had been better dressed for it. There are seven observatories on Mauna Kea which are run and supported by countries from North America, Asia, and Europe for the purpose of peering outside this little planet of ours.

Out of the entire world, Mauna Kea has been deemed to be the best spot on Earth for astronomical observation. There are also big telescopes in Chile, but Mauna Kea is generally judged Number 1. This is the one place in all the world where the people of Earth come together to try to figure out the answers. That is a powerful idea. All of the big cosmic questions about the universe, its origins and destiny, and our place in it are addressed here. Where did we come from and where are we going? The eternal human need to know, to wonder, and explore finds expression in those massive telescopes. Our connection to the rest of the universe is underscored on that summit.

The whole way up the mountain I was so excited. We were going to the best place to see the stars. Metaphorically, it seemed like the place closest to the rest of the universe, closest to the unknown, closest to creation. The wind blew so hard at the summit that we didn’t stay long, but the drive up and down the mountain was unforgettable. The view was absolutely spectacular and I only worried about our driver running us off the road a few times. At some point halfway up I realized I was on a religious pilgrimage. This journey was every bit as loaded with meaning for me as other holy sites are for their own adherents. This spot was sacred for me.

People of every religious faith I can think of have sites considered holy, places where believers travel and sometimes gather to grow closer to their faith. If ever there was a place for Humanists do the same, Mauna Kea was it for me. There are no shrines or temples, just telescopes that stand as monuments to international cooperation and the undying human need to know what is out there. They stand as testimony to the idea that answers are knowable and that we should continue to strive for them. There is an amazing universe out there beyond our globe, and our tiny place in that vast network is so awe inspiring that I don’t need a belief in the supernatural to feel humbled and connected there.

The Hawai’ians have long considered Mauna Kea sacred for their own reasons. I am happy that they share their sacred mountain with the rest of the human race, and with me.

Biking My Values

2010-06-08T14:04:00.002-08:00

Now that school is out and summer is here I started riding my bike to work yesterday. I write about this here not to brag or to be more environmental-than-thou, but to commit myself. It’s much harder to back out when you have made a public declaration.

I have been saying I will ride my bike to work in the summer for two years now and it has not happened. I even tried to talk myself out of it on Sunday night; I was sore and thought I should let myself rest up a bit. I live less than a mile from my office so this is not some type of huge burden I am placing upon myself.

It comes down to this, I either need to stop making excuses and start pedaling, or I need to shut up and stop claiming I care. I can’t have it both ways. Either I care about reducing petroleum consumption or I don’t. Either I care about living a healthy lifestyle and avoiding my family’s pattern of heart disease or I don’t. Either I reject the modern day ethic that values more and bigger above all or I respect the value of simplicity.

I realize most of you reading this drive to work and you may have good reasons for doing so. I would if I still lived 10 miles away from the office and I will drive again in the winter. This is not a blanket proclamation or accusation; it is something I feel like I need to do to live in accordance with my values.

From a health point of view, this program locks me in. I am a horribly inconsistent exerciser, but it is much harder to put it off when it means that I have to get my husband up early to take me to work (we are a one-car family) and at the end of the day I pretty much have to exercise in order to get home. Making exercise a necessity instead of a choice may be the way to get me to stick with it.

I've Been Outed

2010-06-07T13:47:00.002-08:00

Twice.

So, I had this fantasy that if I kept names and pictures out of it, that no one notice my little blog enough to wonder who wrote it. I started this blog to have a place to explore this spiritual journey I found myself on. I needed a safe place to explore and archive the thoughts I was having because I sure wasn’t ready to talk about them much.

Now two wonderful women from our fellowship have separately and casually mentioned something they read on my blog to me. The first time caused a moment of panic. While I am normally pale, I’m pretty sure I turned white and there may have been babbling. I tried to think of anything offensive I may have written that she might have read. I got a reminder that the old rule still applies to the internet: don’t say anything behind someone’s back that you wouldn’t say to his or her face.

I am going to keep this blog anonymous for the time being. Mainly, I don’t really want it to be searchable with my name. Some of my opinions may not enhance my career working in a red industry in a red state. I still want the freedom to speak my mind without hurting the feelings of family members. If any of you reading attend the Anchorage Unitarian Universalist Fellowship and you find anything here remotely interesting, feel free to ask or argue with me about my blog. ‘Cause I guess I’m out.

For now I will remain,

Yours always,

Strange Attractor

P.S. I’ve been on a great vacation for the last two weeks and I thought of a lot of things I want to write about so you will be reading more about that soon.

Mad Props for The Secret of Kells

2010-05-19T16:36:00.005-08:00

I had never heard of The Secret of Kells until it was nominated for an Academy Award a few months ago, but I have been eagerly waiting for it to play here in town ever since. I just can’t recommend this film highly enough. Everyone in my group, ages 10 – 67, loved it.

It is so beautiful.

The hand drawn animation is based on Irish art, but also manages to remind me of Samurai Jack, of blessed memory. All I can say is vive la 2-D! I am pretty sure that if I saw this film in Greek without subtitles I still would have loved watching the images. It is fluid and graceful: no portion of the screen is boring and it is 100 times more entertaining than Avatar.

The film is about a boy named Brenden living in the monastery of Kells in the Middle Ages and the creation and preservation of the famous Book of Kells, but really, plot is not what compels this movie. In fact, a few of the plot points towards the end of the film felt a little rushed and I wished they had been developed a little more. This film, full of beautiful imagery, is about imagery and its power. It stresses the importance of beauty and imagination and faith in the most dreary and dangerous of worlds.

If you are at all interested in Irish history, celtic myth, the history of the medieval church, the role of art and faith, syncreticism, or pretty pictures than this film is for you. Maybe if you are a big fan of Vikings, not so much.

The portrayal of the rival religions in Ireland was balanced: neither one was the bad or the good faith. Both religious systems were given a point of view and both had sympathetic and scary/dictatorial aspects. Pagan magic is delightfully represented by the fey girl Aisling and is treated as no less real than anything else in the film, but Cromm Cruach shows a dark and scary aspect of the same pagan belief system. The Christian monks are shown as trying to hold onto the light of their civilization against a violent force who wants to wipe them out, but the Abbot is rigid and has forgotten the art and joy of his youth and tries to block out the outside world. Brother Aidan is an example of the Irish style of Christianity that stressed reverence of nature more than the fear of God.

My girls loved this movie enough to insist we buy the soundtrack as soon as we got home. They have never done that before. Though it chagrins their mother and grandmother, they are not in general fans of traditional Irish music, and yet we will be listening to the soundtrack tonight while I cook dinner.

The Secret of Kells would be a great film to show in RE, but it might be too scary for very little children. It could be a great spring board for discussing how religions effect and influence each other, when and why should be listen to authority, how to we respond to outside dangers while still preserving what is important about ourselves, the relative importance of symbols , what is worth dying for, and I’m sure other great topics that haven’t occurred to me.

I almost never buy DVD’s anymore, preferring to keep my collection in the Netflix cloud, but this one I will buy as soon as it available. Maybe we will make it our new St. Patrick’s Day tradition as it is much more thought provoking than Darby O’Gill. Slainte.