Burnin' down the house

An interesting New Year's Eve exercise just took place in my bathroom ...

I made a list of everything that was weighing me down right now, everything big or small that I was worried about. It was a long list, and for a little bit I was really hoping that the Lord would just float it away out of my hands and into the sky. When that didn't happen, I was at a loss for a little while - how exactly do you give a list of burdens over to God?

Who knows if this was the right way, but here's what I did: I saw that some things on my list were actionable items (like finishing my grad school application), while others were state of mind and being questions that I have no idea how to address. So I made a list of the action items and separated them into short- and long-term. Then I realized that the long-term items were really burdensome, too ... so I just burnt them up, together with the full long list. What I have left: 10 items that are low stress, and that I can actually do something about.

It's not that the other things went away, or that I'm ignoring them or don't ever have to deal with them. But I'm admitting that I have no clue what to do, and that these are things I cannot figure out on my own, or accomplish through sheer force of will. I had to give them into the hands of someone more capable, who knows what to do and can guide me.

I think that's a little part of what it means when they say God doesn't give you more than you can bear. I don't think he expects us to address these big burdens alone, and sometimes he doesn't expect us to address them at all - he knows that many things are his work, not ours. The list of things he just gave me to address isn't more than I can bear at all - it's totally doable. I'll only get overwhelmed if I start taking back things that are to much for me, that he hasn't given me to tackle right now.

I almost feel like I should do this every month; it would help me to focus on just what the Lord has put on my plate to do, and to lay everything else down until he tells me to pick it up. But next time, my sacrifical altar goes outside, so I don't smoke myself out of my room again. ;-)

Taking a break(down)

One of the most overwhelming things about this year has been the sense that there was never any time to stop and think about what was going on and how I felt about it and how I wanted to handle it. That's been true from near the beginning of the year, when an upsetting email from a co-worker made me consider quitting on the spot, right up until this past Wednesday.

An email from my ex started the collapse, as it caused me to reflect on all the pain and confusion that I am still carrying around from that relationship. Then it moved on to more general issues of loneliness, spiritual dryness, lack of purpose, abandonment by God, and utter confusion about where my life is heading. And I kept saying to myself, "I just want the world to stop for a week, so I can figure all of this out. Why can't everything just stop?" When you're imagining opportunities for hospitalization just so you can get some peace and quiet, that's likely a signal that something is amiss.

And then I guess I finally realized - the only way to take a break was for me to take it, responsibilities and pressures be damned. So I canceled the rest of my week, wrote an email to my friends and family announcing Stage 1 of my nervous breakdown, and wrote a less tongue-in-cheek email to my employers informing them of my mental health issues and need for some periods of rest immediately and in the upcoming weeks.

Two amazing things happened:

1. Contrary to my general mistrust of people, when folks were informed of my distress, they were both supportive and generally appreciative that I shared. That's more to be expected of my family and friends (although my trust issues tell me you never quite know with anyone); but the real surprise was how supportive and accepting my employers were. I was pretty worried that I'd get some reactions of, "Hey, do we really want this crazy lady at the helm of our company?" Instead, there was a lot of understanding and a real desire to make sure that, first priority, I got well. The positive calls and emails were a balm to my spirit.
2. The break actually worked! While I am not at all fully recovered from the major depressive episode in which I've been for several months, I did see my therapist for the first time since March; see my chiropractor for the first time in 2 months; have a wonderful time of social interaction and good conversation with family and friends; find a potential source of supplemental income for the new year; and finally get it together to begin a real search for a roommate. This last is a particular sign of progress ... I have been so overwhelmed and distressed for the past 3 months that I couldn't even handle the thought of addressing my housing situation, despite the looming financial issues that not searching would cause for me and my landlords (who are fabulous and don't deserve to suffer for my crazy).

I also realized that I don't need to be in contact with my ex any more. I've been on a combined search for closure/quest to be supportive of him in a difficult time of transition (yes, despite the fact that he never asked for or especially welcomed my support). Well, he has a girlfriend now, so my misguided sense of responsibility for the latter can be released; and as for the former, the only things I want to hear from him would be bracketed before and after by a phrase similar to, "I'm sorry for breaking up with you like the world's biggest jerk; there was no excuse." Since that's highly unlikely to happen, I realized I don't really need to talk to him. Whatever else he would say is just an excuse for the inexcusable; no matter how horrible of a girlfriend he thinks I was (which itself would be a matter of heated debate), you just don't walk away without saying a word to someone you've professed to love and planned a life with for 3 years. So, I'd rather not carry any part of that relationship into another year ... time to start fresh.

Also, on the subject of my wonderful landlords, they invited me up for a great little dinner with some other friends this evening, and it was just a really nice time getting together with them. It's nice having a little family away from my family, so I don't feel so alone up here. Which reminds me that I need to stop saying that I'm all alone; while my friends may not be live-in, blood relatives, or life partners, I have a pretty darn good network of support, and I need to both recognize and use it more often.

Matt Damon is the cutest

I am watching what must be an ancient episode of The Tonight Show, where Matt Damon is promoting The Talented Mr. Ripley ... he's just adorable. He's one of those actors who does so many movies that I like, and whose fame hasn't seemed to take him over into the land of crazy-full-of-himself-ville.

Also, Selma Blair is really cute in her interview. Dude, this episode is almost 8 years old!

OUCH! Third Eye Blind could not sing live. They couldn't really be this bad in real life; how did they get signed?? This is just painful; time for bed ...

Oh, and in the realm of things that I choose to do rather than go to bed on time: http://www.zug.com/pranks/colon/. I should probably be embarrassed at my sense of humor, but I laughed so hard at just the first few paragraphs of this article that I couldn't breathe, much less read it to my sister. The one redeeming note is that I have not looked at any of the pictures, although I did laugh at the link descriptions.

Fine, I admit it!

I am insanely jealous of other people's marriages and babies. It's all Facebook's fault.

One of the delights of Facebook is that you catch up with all these people who you haven't seen or talked to in years. One of the challenges is when you discover, as an unmarried 30-something, that 90% of the people you knew when you were younger are married and bedecked with children, while your profile still tries to talk cheerily about your job and the Red Sox. Suffice it to say, I'm feeling a little behind the curve, as usual. Sigh ...

Online Persona

I was having a conversation with some friends today about people who feel that their online identities shouldn't be used as a factor in job qualifications or evaluations. From their perspective, it's a part of their personal life that has very little relation to professional performance. On the other hand, what you put out there does say something about your character - and if it's so personal, why the heck did you put it on the internet?

I do go through some of that same questioning with this blog. Last time I wanted to share a blog post, I got ready to send it to a whole bunch of people; and then I quickly pared down the list, eliminating the vast majority of professional contacts to whom I thought of sending it. The post wasn't the problem, it was everything else about my blog - the depression, the relationship issues, the religious views, who knows what else. What might someone pick out of these writings that would change how they think of me? What might get me labeled incompetent, judgmental, radical, aberrant, or just plain nuts?

I wasn't ready to share all that with all those people, and there may have been reasons for that to be appropriate. I don't know. On the other hand, I constantly struggle with being open about my inner self, and sharing this blog with others who know me is a part of trying to change that pattern. It's a little back door to do it on a semi-anonymous blog that hardly anyone reads, but it is a start; I do post the link on Facebook (the subject of the earlier conversation) and GMail chat so that people continue to be aware of it and can read it if interested. There is a risk in that; someone's opinion of me really could change, and may have already, and I don't know what the consequences would be. In another 20 years when I run for President, I know this'll come back to bite me in the butt - or I'll still be maintaining it, and have 20 years of trouble on my hands! But I've been realizing for a while now that I am at a critical point where I have to stop hiding, and have to be open and broken and vulnerable in order to be who God is calling me to be and do what his given me to do. That is super scary, and I can't say I'm relishing the process, not yet. But I am eager for the freedom of no longer having to manage a façade, and putting that energy to better uses. Ultimately, I'm not sure it's about other people accepting who I am so much as it is about me accepting who I am, instead of trying to run from it and hide from it and bury it out of sight. I don't think I realized until just now how very much I must feel ashamed of myself, to have been doing this for so long.

Original thought

I'm beginning to think that I've never had one, that all my thoughts are just amalgamations and repetitons of other people's thoughts. This has been occurring to me often lately as I write in this blog. I feel that, most of the time when I comment on something, someone else has probably already made that comment, and more insightfully; nothing I write is new. This is rather devastating from a creative and intellectual standpoint - am I just parroting what I heard elsewhere? And even if I haven't read or heard a specific idea elsewhere, am I just putting it together in a way that is so obvious that many, many others have already done the same long before me?

Is it enough if a thought or concept is new to me? Am I able to lend some flavor of my own to its discovery and discussion that makes my contribution worthwhile? Do I have any of that true creative genius that makes something original, to be a first generator?

I think I sound like an architecture student always trying to come us with some new form, pursuing newness for its own sake. I've always thought that was generally silly, and that it was enough to just do something of excellent caliber that really suits the purpose, even if you're not the first to do it. But for some reason, lately I've been understanding the pressure of originality.

Perhaps all of us are being original, when we put something together in a way that comes specifically from who we are, no matter whether it is similar to what has come before. Or maybe we all copy, building on and borrowing from each other. Are those things really mutually exclusive?

On Hilary as the first female President

I care, but I also don't care. Yes, it would be a historic milestone - but that is in no way enough to make me consider her a good candidate. (I'm watching CNN's re-airing of the Democratic debate at UNLV.) I'm feeling so frustrated because, at least in the frontrunners, I don't find at all the kind of demonstrated leadership and integrity, the kind that stands out and makes you notice, that I want to see in my President. I don't see that Clinton or Obama are really going to make America's stated values be the real things that characterize our decisions as a country and our reputation around the world. I feel like they're both popular, good in front cameras, good at making speeches, but that they're also business as usual, the same kind of politicians we already have who promise change and deliver nothing. If the two of them are such leaders, how have they been leading all the change that we were promised by Democrats in the 2006 midterm elections? Where have they been out in front, willing to take a political risk for things they believe we need to do in order to be a more just, sustainable, educated, equitable country?

And then I see folks like Richardson or Kucinich, and while I don't agree with everything they say, I see them doing a lot less pulling punches and crafting messages for ultimate palatability, and more saying what they really believe, even if it's risky and challenging to the American people. That's what I want from my President, and it matters a lot more to me than their gender or skin color. But then I get so discouraged because I feel like those people will never be given serious consideration because they don't have the image machine and the deep-pocket supporters, and I get so mad because I don't know how to change the way the world is weighted, or make change within a system like that.

I like learning

Despite a long week - our symposium is done, and was awesome - I am feeling very charged. In addition to our sessions, I've also spent 3 of the past 4 days at other people's symposia and forums. What has been great for me, even with the very long days, are these opportunities to learn and to have all these enriching conversations with colleagues (new and old). I thought I would be so exhausted by now; I am tired, but I'm also having fun.

There are starting to be more little glimpses of enjoyment and re-energization in my work ... I still don't feel fully back to form, but I don't feel so down. It's hopeful.

One of the remaining tough spots (that I realized just now) is that I keep seeing far into the future what I want to do - like 3 to 5 years out - but sometimes that makes me think that all my joy and fulfillment is far away instead of here and now. I want to change my perspective a bit, so that I can be more aware of the good things that are happening right at the moment.

I think maybe I was feeling very nervous that the symposium wouldn't go well; I do feel a weight lifted and a little less stressed. It could just be getting through a major event, and being able to take a nice breather. I did also get some nice encouragement yesterday; a colleague from out of state who came in to speak told me that I should be proud of how much we've accomplished with the organization in a short time. As I told her, I go back and forth so much - I see that we do a lot, but I also see all these things that other organizations are doing, and I feel behind. It's hard to accept the limitations of still being young and not be impatient. I do need to remember that our growth, and our very existence, are exciting all by themselves.

One last note - I keep thinking that in a few years I'll leave my job, but that might be a false expectation based on past short-term experiences. What might it be like to plan on growing with the organization rather than beyond it? What if the organization grew with me and my interests? That's a whole new way of thinking about it, which is also hopeful.

What does it say about me ...

... that "Bees in My Bonnet" is one of the largest categories on my blog? :-)

Why America Should Not Vote - in Celebrity Dance Contests

OK, so I was going to post on the magic of the Red Sox victory and parade, but there's (shockingly) more important news - Sabrina Bryan and Mark Ballas just got voted off of Dancing with the Stars!!

Alright, so in the scale of world affairs, this is not that big a deal - but I'm really unhappy! Sabrina was doing very well; she did have some things she needed to address as far as softening her moves, but her technical skill was unparalleled on the show, and she should have obviously been in the final competition. This is totally ridiculous, and I'm rather inclined to stop watching because I just don't know how to get into the rest of this competition when one of my favorite pairs is gone. This is so much worse than when Laila Ali didn't make the top two - and I stopped right in the middle of watching last year's final when that happened. (Though I saved it on my DVR for months, I could never bring myself to finish the show.)

It's clear that while DWTS's popularity contest tendencies are somewhat balanced out by the fact that there are professionals judges (so that it doesn't become American Idol), the fan base is clearly what determines winners, more than the dancing quality. I have nothing against Marie Osmond, and I really like Jane Seymour; but they are running on their non-dance related popularity and not the level of dance skill. Both have done fairly well this season, no doubt; but they are not keeping up technically with many of the top contenders. It may or may not be age-related; I don't necessarily think so, because professional dancers can go well into their senior years. But while Jane is beautiful and graceful and Marie is cute and sweet, neither of them is top ballroom material.

But the real reason that America shouldn't vote is probably the ABC.com message boards ... wow. I know I should be used to this by now - but every so often I go on to internet message boards hoping to have a fun, reasoned conversation, and get bitterly disappointed. The vitriol, the insults and attacks, the grammar and spelling! That might be the real outrage of the night, despite how sad I am about Sabrina. Interestingly, it does seem she had a whole anti-fan base; but there's also a lot of pro-Sabrina protest, including the petitions for a) a dance-off between her and some of the other contenders; b) for Jane and Marie to give up their slots; and c) for ABC to immediately revise their voting system, and reject the results of these votes.

Sidenote: Oh, she's on Jimmy Kimmel now, and she's so cute! Also, I think she and Mark Ballas totally were about to kiss on the floor at the end of the show, and I predicted they date soon (if they're not already). I wish Mark had come on the show with her. Also, she's a lovely lady, and I appreciate a woman with some curves! She gets added to my Womanly Women Heroines list, along with Queen Latifah. (Hey - I want to hang out with Sabrina and Mel B! I'm very jealous.)

Which reminds me, one of my chief ambitions in life is to get to be on this show, because I love competitive ballroom dancing. Mind you, this week's voting debacle makes me think again ... but I am constantly trying to figure out how to become famous enough to get ABC to call me.

However, I might be overqualified; one of the apparent big debates about Sabrina among fans of the show is that she is a professional/dancer choreographer, and shouldn't have been on the show in the first place. I think she probably does have more dance experience than some (like Helio), but she's certainly not the only one (classically-trained Jane Seymour is an excellent example, along with Spice Girls singer Mel B). Her experience is not in ballroom, which is different from hip-hop, and skill with one doesn't necessarily transfer to the other (although the increased comfort with moving your body does help). I do think she had to learn ballroom like everyone else, but that she is also a natural dancer who picks up dance easily (besides being a dancer trained in another genre). Anyway, all this is to say that, with a background in both ballet and actual ballroom for a little while, I probably might get rejected for too much experience. But does it still count if my experience is more than a decade old?

No more hedging

"... if it's God's will."

Normally, this would be a phrase of obedience, and submission to where the Lord is leading. But sometimes, it's a way of hedging my bets, trying to ask for something but leave myself an out in case God disappoints me, so I won't feel so bad about it.

I've been doing that about this marriage/family thing ever since my boyfriend broke up with me last year. I keep saying that I'll have a husband and family if God wills it; but what I really mean by that is "I want a husband and family, but I think it's entirely likely that won't ever happen, so I'm trying to convince myself that God will show me some purpose in being alone for the rest of my life." That's not asking in faith; that's expecting the Lord to leave me hanging.

I finally decided today that it's time for some real faith in this area of my life. I believe that God knows the desires of my heart, and that He cares about me and wants to see me have abundant, joyful life. I believe that God created the desire in me to have a lifelong companion and to raise children who will serve him, and that that wasn't a fluke or a mistake or just for kicks. I also believe that the Lord has formed and continues to form me into exactly the person that He has created me to be, and that He loves that person and thinks she's awesome and special, and so He will draw me to other people who can see His art in me and appreciate it.

(I'm good enough, I'm smart enough - and gosh darn it, people like me! ;-) )

Given all of that, I'm stating here that I believe that the Lord is preparing a husband and family for me, period. I believe that - as with pretty much everything in my life - it's going to come about in a different way than I expect, because it's going to be beyond anything that I can imagine at this point, and tremendously amazing and clearly His doing and not mine. So I don't need to feel dried up, past my sell-by date, or behind the curve; like my degree and many other things, the Lord will do this in the exactly right time, when it's precisely what He intends for it to be to bless and fulfill me.

This also means that I don't need to continue hermitting myself out of fear and sadness, as I've been increasingly doing since the end of spring. I can go out, be social, meet people, have confidence, not feel so much pressure, and enjoy where I am right now, trusting that it is where I'm supposed to be, that it is not a punishment, and that good things are happening both right now and in the future for me.

Bad deal

OK, so I still love my Red Sox and have every confidence that they can make it to the World Series - but they paid $100 million dollars for what?? Two important postseason games, and Dice-K blew big in both of them. I want a refund, in the form of ticket prices at Fenway that I can actually afford.

Democracy crumbles slowly at first - then really, really fast

I've been intending to write some version of this post for about a week now, but I just watched something today that reignited the fire.

I'm a big fan of The Colbert Report, as I've mentioned before. But I normally just enjoy its content in passing and then forget about it. A few weeks ago, though, there aired an episode of The Report that just hit home. This video is from The Colbert Report's Word clip from September 19, regarding the recent tasering of a student at a John Kerry speech. The taser incident was one of the things that got me fired up about posting after talking with a colleague at the end of September. Not only did John Kerry appear not to do anything significant to stop this incident, but the crowd at the event - perhaps guided by Kerry's stunning leadership example - just sat and watched. Watched a college student get accosted and attacked by multiple law enforcement officers just for asking questions.

There have been many expressions of outrage, but the news also seemed to be filled with nearly as much justification. It doesn't really matter whether or not the student is a prankster, or has a web site full of half-baked rants. None of that has any bearing on the fact that the response of the University of Florida police was completely inappropriate and unnecessary. Sometimes people overrun their time and are belligerent at public forums. This actually happens all the time at community meetings. You let the speaker handle it, or the moderator handle it, or the sponsor of the forum. The police are only necessary for physical threats, or when all other means to control a participant in a forum have been exhausted, and the situation is dangerous.

But speaking out at a public meeting is not dangerous - except in a society that represses free expression. Even if the student had to be forcibly removed from the podium because he refused to leave the floor (say, after Kerry had answered his question), why on earth were charges filed? The primary disturbers of the peace were the officers who dragged a speakers out of an open forum; and what he was resisting was the complete excess of force used on his person.

I'd like to look at this as an isolated incident, but it is part of a growing pattern of overreaction in the name of "security". When you start to couple it with the MIT student arrested at Logan for a "fake bomb," the marketing folks penalized for a "bomb hoax" in Boston earlier this year - interestingly, neither of these things was a bomb or anything pretending to be a bomb, making the words "fake" and "hoax" both completely inaccurate (but effective for scaring people) - the reliance on overly stringent airport search procedures which don't catch anything (as opposed to vigilance and attention by airline and law enforcement personnel to truly suspicious or dangerous behavior, which has caught a number of potential threats recently), the fact that even saying (not yelling, as in the Supreme Court example) the word "bomb" in an airport can get me arrested ... not to mention new laws like the Patriot Act, which contain multiple incursions on civil liberties and rights to privacy, the Military Commissions Act, allowing anyone to be named an enemy combatant, or the NSA's civilian surveillance programs. This a serious pattern, not just for policy wonks or Washington watchers, but for every ordinary citizen. We need to be scared, to be shocked into action.

One person who seems to be recognizing this pattern - and trying to shake us up about it a bit - was a guest on this same episode of The Colbert Report. In this clip from Stephen Colbert's interview with author Naomi Wolfe about her new book, The End of America, A Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot, Ms. Wolfe only gets to explain four of her 10 steps to a fascist state; the full list can be found here, and the number of points we've already hit on this list as a nation should frighten us. Why? Because the loss of democracy doesn't happen overnight, in a big dramatic event; it happens step-by-step, with the assent of ordinary people.

As everyone knows, the quickest way to end an argument is to bring up Nazi Germany. But in this case, the comparison is not overly dramatic, and is very instructive. The Third Reich developed over the course of a decade, building off of the national crisis following the First World War. It started with anger and discontent and the need to find a scapegoat for the national ills; it proceeded through propaganda; it achieved power through the democratic process of elections and legislation; it developed a network of fear and suspicion, enforced as much by ordinary citizens as by those in official positions; and by the time the dramatic dismantling of democracy occurred, the way had been prepared both to build supporters for the move and to build a structure that could quash dissent by physical and social force. While many German citizens, Gentile as well as Jewish, were imprisoned for dissent, many, many more participated willingly in the Third Reich - either by actively enforcing it or by refusing to fight it in the interest of self-preservation. These were normal people, not a nation of monsters. And each step they could justify by saying it was regrettable but necessary, or that only a fool would try and test the boundaries in that kind of climate.

We are already well on our way. There are still people among us who remember how fascist states develop, and they're beginning to recognize the signs. We have an opportunity to stop what is happening, but only if we rise up and act in protest. I admit that I am not sure what that means yet; I don't want to be one of Stephen Colbert's jokes, a young person who will write out a long missive from the security of her couch, but who wouldn't know civil disobedience if it hit her in the face. Part of it is talking, and sharing the need with others I know. But there is an action piece, an involvement piece, that I am also responsible for as a citizen, and I have to find it.

This quote gets trotted out so often that it feels played; but cliches only become cliches when they contain that strong element of truth:

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” --Edmund Burke (1729-1797)

Punishment or consequences?

Does God actually punish us for the things we've done wrong in the past, or do we just end up facing the consequences of our mistakes? Is the difference between the two just semantics?

I keep feeling like not being married at this stage in my life, and not even being in an intimate relationship, is punishment for my wayward sexual ways of the (not-so-distant) youth. Which - and I hope He will forgive me for this - kind of pisses me off, because formerly promiscuous people get married all the time. I know I sound like one of those crazy people who just wants to marry somebody, anybody; but I'm not, honestly. I know it's about marrying the right person, and I also know that marriage is not a solution to any of my issues (not to mention that it comes with issues all its own). But I really do miss the companionship and the planning for the future together and the comfort of coming home to someone who loves you - and the belief that you'll get to have all that as long as you both shall live. I've been thinking about having a family since I was so little, and I always thought of that as one of the most important things I would ever do. I know I can still do important things; but without that piece, the other stuff feels empty. I have friends who doubted they even wanted a family who are married and having kids, for years now. Why not me?

Ah, complain, complain, complain. Time to change the channel.

-----

In other news, I think I'm going to apply to business school. Normally, an MBA would have no interest for me, but this program has a specialty in non-profit management, which is both interesting and useful right now. I'd been thinking about it earlier in the year, but I just finished this career development seminar recently that made me give it some serious consideration again. Part of the reason I'm frustrated work-wise is that so much of my time these days is spent on paperwork and administration, rather than the outreach and creativity that I love. I'm also at that 2-year itch stage, where I can get bored with an endeavor and start looking for change; it doesn't have to be the dramatic change of leaving, but I do need something to reinvigorate me. It's also a nice preparation for what I might do next - not that I have any idea what that will be, but this could be part of the road to finding out.

Surprisingly, at least to me, I'm not nearly as interested in a design or planning degree. I'm still passionate about the design of the built environment, but I almost feel like the kind of structural change I want to make is much more about policy (and politics) than about executing projects. Well, not that execution isn't important, but my gifts seem to be leading in this other direction.

Talking about gifts, this career seminar really gave me a chance to think about both what I do well and what I like to do, and where I can use some improvement and caution. It reminded me - at a critical moment - that I chose my current job for a reason and that it's still very well suited to me. But it also gave me a chance to stop and think about what I really want in my job and my life, and to think about how I move closer to that vision both now and in the future.

So there! Not everything in my life is sucky. ;-)

Blah

So I just realized today that I am bored - depressingly, mind-numbingly bored with my life. Nothing seems all that exciting in my life, I feel like most of the stuff I have to do every day is a chore, and I rarely do anything really, unreservedly fun. It's tiring, looking around at everything and just seeing blah.

Of course, the diagnostically-minded might see this not as depressing boredom, but just plain old depression. I can't necessarily disagree with them - there's a whole family thing around why my sister did not end up staying in Massachusetts that was quite the drama, and resulted in a lot of relational disruption and realignment. I haven't written on here in so long because I'm not even sure where to begin writing about that, and writing about anything else was like ignoring the giant pink elephant in my room. Or there's my job, where I think I'm spending as little time as possible because I am running much more on duty than inspiration or passion, and so I feel like I'm slacking off and letting down all these people who invested in this idea - and in me. And then (speaking of the word "menopause," which my phone auto-suggests every time I type "me"), let's not even get into the fact that I feel old and dried up at turning 31, with no one to date, hardly any interest in finding a date, wasting my eggs, and totally likely to end up a spinster cat lady. But thank God for my cats - without their company, I'd be depressed for real.

Isn't that sad? I'm counting on my cats for companionship. And what is wrong with me?? I'm like a poor little rich girl throwing a pity party for one because my life isn't a bundle of chuckles and I'm not the belle of all the balls. I get irritated just listening to myself; I can't imagine how I sound to everyone else.

Are we really back to this? Depression, increasing self-isolation, diminishing relationships? Everyone around me seemed to dislike that person intensely, or at least not be able to tolerate her for that long. (Great, now I'm starting to cry, how pathetic.) I am right on that edge of hating myself and the way that I am, while also wishing that someone would just love me for exactly who I am.

Which makes me think that, yes, I've lost focus on my work and my personal life, but mostly because I keep losing focus on God. I learned all of this stuff this summer about misplacing my sense of worth and value in the affirmation of other people instead of depending on the Lord - but when was the last time I really spent time with him, in prayer or in Scripture? When was the last time I set foot in church for 2 weeks consecutively - or even 2 weeks in the same month? Although that just makes me feel like there's yet one more area where I'm not doing what I'm supposed to. Do I ever get to just be sad, or lonely, without having to come up with the perfect Christian response?

Well, I guess so, seeing as "everything is permissible" ... but not everything is beneficial, now is it? I guess, like I keep telling my mom and sister, how I respond to all this is my choice, and I should choose the reactions that lead to the place where I want to be. And I do want to be close to God, and at peace, and not depressed and dissatisfied. I just wish that it all came a little more naturally.

Outsider

I went down to shop at the Brazilian market today. I kind of had to force myself to go; normally, I go to the Asian convenience store a few doors down, or the convenience store across the street. The Brazilian market is closer to me and easier to get to than the one across the street, but I typically bypass it; something about going in there makes me feel completely out of place. It's like, if I'm not Brazilian, I don't have any business shopping there.

I began to wonder if that feeling of being an outsider was coming from them, or me. As a black woman, I'm pretty used to being the different one; but at the same time, I'm usually still in crowds of people who are culturally, linguistically, socioeconomically, educationally and professionally similar to me. Was I just feeling even more different than normal, and therefore responding with a sense of my own discomfort? Was I expecting other to cater to my standard American tastes and preferences even when I was on their home territory? Or was there something about the Brazilian store and the people in it that said, "Go away?"

I wonder about it from both a social and a spatial perspective. I know that, often, white people feel very uncomfortable in a room of all or mostly black people. Much of this is due to that experience, the first time for many, of clear, visible racial uniqueness and distinction, of actually being a minority for a brief time. Typically, the attitude of response can include fear, defensiveness, acting out and aggression. But another significant part of the equation is the way that black people will talk about and look at the white people - derogatory, dimissive, disgusted, or even truly hateful. It's tough not to respond negatively when those signals are coming off the people around you.

As a designer, I also can help looking at the physical signals of the space - what tells you who's here and who belongs here? Massachusetts is an infamous example in its street signage - or rather, the standard lack thereof. Street signs are often small, hidden, or nonexistent; and good luck finding out what street you're already on! I half-jokingly tell friends and family that the message of Massachusetts street signs is clear: if you have to ask for directions, well then, obviously you're not from around here.

At the Brazilian market, the signs are key - the majority of the signage is Brazilian only. By itself that might not be terrible, but it is backed up by the demeanor of the store staff and other people who hang out there. Today, I couldn't find the refrigerator with the butter and eggs; the store layout is crowded and confusing, and it's hard to figure out which items live in what aisle. I saw a fridge with dairy products, but didn't see the two items I sought. When I asked the cashier if they sold those two items, she stared at me and then told me to go ask someone else in the store. It was tough to tell if this was because she didn't speak much English or because she just didn't want to deal with my question. The man to whom I was directed looked up from my conversation like I was a tremendous imposition; thankfully, at that point I saw the eggs (previously obscured by a box in front of the fridge) and could help myself from then on. It wasn't until I paid and left the store that I got a smile or a friendly word.

This could all be just a case of bad customer service, but this is just a repeat of the last experience that caused me to avoid the market. As an interesting contrast, I don't get this same sense from the Korean market a few steps away. It's still a market catering primarily to a foreign diaspora, with products the half of which I don't recognize or know what to do with. The store still packs a lot of merchandise into a small space. But the feeling is different; I've been able to both find my way around and find people to ask when I need help. Maybe the staff are more used to dealing with a clientele that has diversified beyond their original base over the years. Whatever the reason, that market has found a way to welcome all the people who come in, and to help them belong in an unfamiliar environment.

Kids, how they grow

I was babysitting for my landlords' son tonight, for the first time since they returned from a year-long sabbatical in Norway. In a way, we kind of have to get reacquainted again, both because I haven't seen him in a year and because he has changed so much in that year. I guess that's a bit redundant; the fact that he's changed is really why the fact that he was gone matter so much in the first place. Well, that, plus I just missed having them around.

Spending time with Jacob always brings me to comparisons with my nephew, who is only 6 months younger. There are many similarities between them - both sensitive and sweet-natured, both at that stage of moving from affectionate little kids to boys who hold you a little at a distance. It's cute to see them play together, and to see them be excited but not always wanting to show it at the times they get to visit. The differences are also interesting - Jacob's more intellectual, Kwame more rough and tumble; my sister more strict in discipline but more permissive in what Kwame gets to watch on TV - and the ways the boys respond to different situations as a result. And of course, you don't see a black boy of Ghanian descent and a white boy of Norwegian descent playing together nearly as often as you'd like.

I'm biased; I think my nephew is the best boy ever. :-) But I think I actually know Jacob better, because I've been here watching him grow up, whereas I've been living away from Kwame all his life. Jacob asked me tonight how long I'd been sitting for him, and it's been ever since he was born. After he asked me the question, I started having all these flashback moments: to rocking and singing him to sleep; to distracting him in the kitchen so his parents could leave from the front door; to the long, rambling stories that kids tell from their daily experience and their imagination; to fixing dinner and baking muffins and all these other memories in between. I remember how his room was setup when he was a baby; and when he finally started sleeping in a bed but still needed someone to stay with him to get to sleep, all the clever maneuvering I had to do to leave the room without waking him up once he was finally out.

In another 9 years he'll be a grown man, which is both strange and sad to imagine. I don't know if I'll still be in this apartment, in this state or even in the States by that time. He's the second child I've watched grow like this - the first being my youngest sister, who is now an adult and living away from home for the first time, here with me. The hard part is that of course you want them to grow up and be good, strong people in their own right; but I can't help remembering all those other stages and still wishing for those little kids who trusted me with their worlds.

I love my family!

Nothing posted in a while because I've had family in town since August 9th. I know people say fish and visitors begin to stink after 3 days, but I truly love having my mom, sisters and nephew here; more than anyone else, they are my posse, and it's fun to both doing things and hang out doing nothing while with them. I also like showing them my town, and it tickles me that they all get so excited by how different it is here from the NoVA 'burbs. Maybe they'll finally move back!

Some cute notes:

• My sister was so "city mouse, country mouse" while she was here, but it's the most adorable thing! She makes me take touristy pictures and appreciate all of the things I take for granted living here.
• My nephew is the best, sweetest, handsomest boy ever. If he stayed here a week, he'd probably be bored to death (except when he's playing with my landlords' son), but I would be so happy it'd be impossible to express. Even when he's pouting or in a temper, I still love him to pieces.
• Cooking for 4 people makes a lot of dishes and trash!! But it also makes cooking much more interesting than just doing it by myself. And apparently, having proved that I can make meals for other people without killing them, it seems that if I ever have a future family of my own, they may actually not starve to death.

On the subject of meals, I have no idea how people are supposed to do this going to work and then coming home and preparing a full family meal every day. The ridiculous amount of prep and cleanup time, to say nothing of actual eating, could take up a whole evening every day. The only reason I've been able to do this - and enjoy it - is because half the time, I was on vacation.

Final interesting note - my sister is coming to live with me, and I think I'm just beginning to grasp how big of a transition this will be for everyone. Understandably, she's nervous about being able to hold down a job and support herself on her own for the first time; my mom is going to have a really hard time leaving her here on Monday; and both my sister and I are going to have to adjust to living in a house with each other not as big sister/little sister, but as adult equals. That's a lot of changes ...

... plus, I have to clean up my (now our) disaster of a room to make room for her. Aya!

Build-up

I think I all of a sudden realized today that I've been stressed out for most of the year. I don't know why it hit me this particular day, and I could just be sad and tired from lack of sleep. The feeling will probably pass, but I'm not sure that's a good thing.

I posted a while ago about the challenges of being on depression meds. One of them is that it seems sometimes like I don't feel things much anymore, and significant events can pass by me without seeming to make much of a mark. I start to wonder if it's just that my meds allow me to more easily suppress whenever I feel bad, but the feelings are still kicking around in there somewhere.

The one that really surprised me was when I broke up with my last boyfriend. I was sure something was wrong with me that I could end a 3-year relationship without being too broken up about it. I was angry and confused by how it ended, but I didn't cry too much. (And I'm definitely a crier.) We all assumed that I must just be super well-adjusted and accepting of God's will.

What's odd now is that I've really been feeling it since January - 9 months after the fact. I was watching an episode of Scrubs last night, dealing with grief; maybe I'm in the depression stage. If so, denial, anger and bargaining went by pretty quick, and depression is taking its bloody sweet time moving on to acceptance, seeing as it's August and I'm still in it.

But this isn't really about my ex-boyfriend; that's just how the year started. Since then, it's been stress at work, stress in my volunteer group, stressful travel, a summer without a break, and a look ahead to a full fall. Many things have gone well, don't get me wrong; I have a good life and I'm very fortunate. But I feel like I have an internal tangle I haven't dealt with, and I can't get a hold on what's upsetting me. It's not like I want to live in the heady days of depression when life was an emotional roller coaster and nightly crying was normal. But I feel out of touch with myself, and that's weird.

It could be birthday trauma, too. 31 is worse than 30, and I feel really old and past my prime this year. I feel particularly unmarried and childless, and behind the curve professionally and educationally. I feel plodding, settled, unattractive, uninteresting, almost out of the newness that makes my talents seem exciting to others. When the novelty of my ideas and ambition wears off, I'm afraid I'm rather boring and ordinary.

On the other hand, maybe I'm just having a really bad day. Ach, who knows?

Who are the people in your neighborhood?

As I was leaving the house this morning, I had an experience that reinforced my sense of the joys of being at or near home during the day. My neighbor, Billy, was cleaning up the garden and yard around my house before my landlords come home later this week. We chatted, and he mentioned an upcoming block party next month, which I know folks on the street have been wanting to organize for a while. He asked after my sister, who is moving up to live with me, and joked about my two cats, who were trying to avoid the puddles from the hose. I wished him a good day, and headed out to the bus.

On my way down the street, I ran into another neighbor, Jen. She was on her way to work; she's a medical resident, and her rotation right now is in family medicine. Although she does have to stay until 7:30, she gets to wait to leave home at 11. We wished each other good day and continued on to our destinations.

I love these moments of exchange with my neighbors. Billy gets them all the time; he's an older man who mostly stays near home except for the one day he goes in to his shop downtown. Billy has lived in the neighborhood all his life, and inherited his childhood home from his mother. Billy is that guy on the street who knows what's happening; he keeps an eye on the neighborhood, Jane Jacobs-style. You can leave keys with him, get information from him, ask him to take care of things for you. He seems good at getting to know people in the neighborhood and caring for them.

In many ways, that's the kind of life I'd like to be able to live. I won't idealize it, because I don't know Billy's whole situation, but I admire the feeling he gives of being a stable grounding point for the neighborhood, especially a repository for its history that might otherwise be lost because the rest of us are more recent imports from other places. It's something that gets more and more lost in urban neighborhoods; when Billy is gone, who will be that person for us?

Betrayed by feminism?

I decided to start re-reading the book "Who Stole Feminism" today because of a conversation I had with a friend a few days ago. She's 29*, a lawyer clerking for a good judge, involved in justice work, and has an active social life. But all of a sudden, she's feeling like she got sold a false bill of goods; after putting off romantic life in favor of the career everyone told her to focus on, she's starting to want to find that life mate, but feels like she hasn't laid any of the groundwork and that all the men of good caliber are already gone. Left with a bunch of guys in their late 20s and 30s who are still "finding themselves," she was wondering - did she miss out?

(* Separate, unrelated rant - when did I start being the oldest person in my circle of friends?? Every time I discover the age of one of my friends, at the most they've only just broken 30, but half the time they're still in their mid-20s. I mean, I know 31 isn't that old (or at least, I thought it wasn't), but I feel like I must be way behind in some life stage, because people my age and older just don't appear to be involved in anything I do. Actually, I think they're all married with kids and too busy for activism and social lives ... so maybe this isn't an unrelated rant after all.)

Obviously, many good things came out of the feminist movement - in addition to legal rights and protections, there was a breaking of the traditional bounds that defined "a woman's place." But were those bounds broken, or just moved to an equally limited field? Some of the backlash among women around feminism is that it didn't expand the bounds to include both old and new roles for women, it just rejected the old in favor of the new - and rejected the women who valued and enjoyed those old roles as unworthy of attention or respect.

This hit home to me a few years ago, when I mentioned to my then-boyfriend that I'd like to stay home with my kids, at least in their early years and maybe for longer. While I wanted to maintain a connection to work and activities outside my home (whether paid or volunteer), I also looked forward to making a home for my family.

His response was less than enthusiastic. To him, women who wanted to stay at home were lazy, not wanting to pull their weight. They expected to be taken care of by a husband who had to work long and hard to provide for them. For en educated modern woman to desire such a thing was unthinkable, a waste. Interestingly, this sentiment came from a man whose own mother had stayed at home her whole life.

How did taking care of our families become less important than going to work for strangers? Why do we think it is so easy, and therefore worthless? Anyone who has been at home trying to watch kids, keep a clean house and make meals will tell you different; for crying out loud, I'm a single adult and can barely do those things for myself. And why are we told to put our relationships - all our relationships - on the back burner for people and things that will never care for and sustain us as much as our friends and family can?

Actually, my friend remarked that the bad bill of goods is worse than either-or; it's both-and. Women have to be stars at the office and in the bedroom; perfect corporate leaders and exceptional mothers. To fail at either is to fail at being a good woman ... but to succeed at both is practically impossible.

I know I'm not breaking any new ground with this post; people have been writing about all these issues for years. But as a young(ish) woman living with the results of the feminist movement, there are some parts of its legacy that I'd like to give back.

Confession

It's been a while since I've had this feeling - where I've done something that I know I need to fix, and I just couldn't wait until I could go to someone and tell them, so I could make it right. The last time I can really remember was years ago, when I had to tell my then-boyfriend some of the worst news you can give a significant other.

Oddly, that's how I feel about sharing my budget with my economic discipleship group tomorrow. I actually can't wait to share my budget; not because I'm so great at financial management, but because I've been so bad at it. I develop a budget, but I don't stick to it; and even in that budget, I struggle to give up expenses that I know keep me from giving more to serve the Lord, things that I know are luxuries, but that I keep defining as needs.

I want to confess, so that someone will know and will force me to be accountable for my spending. I wish I were better at doing it on my own; sometimes I feel like I rely too much on external forces to make me do what I need to do, rather than just doing what I know to be right. But I guess right now, I need the support - and correction - of a community; and I've been dying to have that support for so long that it's really exciting to finally get it, even if it means opening up parts of my life that are far from perfect.

I think that has always been one of the comforts of my relationship with God since I really started to know Him; it's difficult at first not to try and hide all those shameful parts, but when you stop hiding it is such a relief not to have to spend all that energy pretending to be perfectly together. As Christians, we aren't as good at opening up or accepting each other as we should be; but I feel like this group is a step in the right direction. Only the sick need a doctor, right?

Phone Love

It's a small world after all ... Now I can blog from my phone! (I couldn't take a picture of myself with my phone, so I took this picture instead.)

Have I mentioned how much I love my phone? You can keep all your silly expensive iPhones; they are shiny, and pretty, but my slightly beat up, year-old Cingular 8125 is the jewel of my world. I suppose it's a bit of an addiction: I love technology, I love being connected, I love having a single machine with my phone, PDA, documents, games, and music all in one. And, even though some people think it's bulky, the big slide-out keyboard is what I love most; I wouldn't be typing this right now if this beautiful keyboard didn't make texting a pleasure instead of a hassle.

OK, that's all - my ode to my phone is done. I will add a mini-ode to unlocked phones that let me use my T-Mobile service, which is much cheaper than AT&T. And a final ode to T-Mobile itself, which gives me a $39.99 phone plan and a $29.99 for unlimited data and HotSpot access. You rock!

Jon Stewart gets a little schooling

I used to be a bigger fan of the Daily Show a few years ago, when Jon Stewart seemed a little more balanced in his criticism and less obviously beholden to a certain agenda. He can still be funny, but I'm much more of a fan of Stephen Colbert, who distributes his sarcastic love to everyone equally, and whose whip-smart intellect is much more in evidence than any particular political ideology.

He just had Tony Blair's former press secretary, Alastair Campbell, on the show tonight; earlier in the show, he'd been making fun of Blair, and now the new Prime Minister Gordon Brown, as lapdogs to President Bush. One of the things I really liked about the interview with Campbell is that he pointed out to Stewart that a) it's awfully easy to make fun of people and ridicule them when you take their words and decisions out of context, and b) all of these folks are human beings making ridiculously tough decisions, and that while we can (and should) critique their decisions, we need to do it with the respect of our common humanity and the recognition of likelihood that we wouldn't necessarily do all that better at their jobs, and few of us have ever been willing to take on that level of responsibility.

Anyway, I appreciated that he was willing to call Jon Stewart on that a little bit and to continue saying it when Stewart kept up the ribbing, because it's not said enough. I think George W. Bush (and a great many other world leaders, for that matter) have made some awful, terrible, sinful decisions; but they also have some of the hardest jobs in existence, and are under constant scrutiny. How well would you do?

A thought process - what's environmental justice about?

• Health and well being
• Equity in benefits and consequences
• Providing the basic necessities of life and making sure they are available to all
• Understanding interdependence, cooperation and balance
• Taking responsibility for caring for others
  

Are lifeboat ethics really about sustainability?

One more thought from the conference, about so-called "lifeboat ethics" - I think its a flawed, or at least incomplete, analogy. A lifeboat is only going to be able to hold so much weight before it sinks, and this part does make sense when considering the Earth's limited capacity to produce nutrients for its inhabitants (also called carrying capacity). But the question is: how is that weight distributed among the people in the lifeboat? In deciding who gets on the lifeboat, is one of the first qualifying factors how much weight someone is bringing, how much space someone takes up and how that relates to saving the most people?

If the goal is really to preserve the human race for the future in an ecological crisis period, your criteria for who gets to live are the following: people who have the most sustainable relationship with each other and their ecology; people who can lead and teach sustainable living for future generations; and getting the maximum number of those people to continue into the future. Note that technological advancement and wealth are not on this list, along with many other highly prized qualities of modern society ... and that the first two criteria tend to eliminate most people in the world's power centers. Would these leaders be giving such consideration to the lifeboat model if they knew they wouldn't get to go? Is this model truly about what will help humanity to survive the best way into the centuries ahead, or is it really about maintaining existing power structures and eliminating society's "undesirables"?

A Philosophy in Process

I realized this weekend that maybe I just needed to start blogging (or heck, even pen-in-hand journaling) a vision for holistic sustainability. I know it might sound presumptuous, and maybe it's mostly just to work out my own thinking versus being a prescription for others; but I need a vision, a target to aim for. I know it might take a long time to get to, and I know that even if the Lord grants me a perfect vision I still won't do it immediately or perfectly. But I feel like without something to set before me, I'm just bumbling from idea to idea, from one new talk and new reading to the next, without any frame work to guide me.

Now, part of me thinks this is my need for control talking, my need to know everything before I go there. It might be a lack of faith, it might be putting my own human perceptions out there and calling them God's word. I hope he will guard and guide me so that what I write honors him and is suffused with a trust in him for everything, a giving over of everything.

Bron Taylor (a speaker at the conference I attended this weekend - www.yaef.net) just said that utopian thinking is not useful; we have to deal with the real world. I don't know if I can agree with that; I guess it depends on what he means for that. I'm not sure how he can say we need to rethink everything if he's being all, "Only limit yourself to the realities of the world." A reality of this world is that people rarely want to rethink anything until they experience a crisis/choice situation; so isn't it unrealistic to think that the necessary change will be made to avert catastrophe? I don't think that envisioning the ideal is utopian; we can acknowledge that human nature not yet submitted to God will fail in reaching justice, but that doesn't mean that we stop pursuing justice, acknowledging equally that we can only attain it by divine grace and provision.

I feel a building frustration, a building impatience, a building radicalism. But my life has not changed radically, although it is changing incrementally; but I feel so many forces calling for a much larger shift, and I don't know how to respond. In the end, I suppose that's what this whole writing thing is about.

Simply in Season

Simply in Season

OK, well, mostly this is me trying to find a creative way to bookmark another Blogger's site ... I'm doing some food choices research as part of the leadership team for the Boston Faith and Justice Network. We're trying to collect information on options for just, sustainable, locally-appropriate food consumption and this cookbook came up during my web search.

Hey, if you've got suggestions for good resources about eating justly, sustainable and locally - particularly in the winter in Boston! - feel free to drop me a comment.

Conviction

So, I started writing that thing as a sermon-inspired rant against the "good teacher" theory - and then I ended up convicting myself.

Truth in advertising: I do not live like Jesus did. I do not actually follow all the things I started saying toward the end of that last post. I say that I believe Jesus and that I trust God, but I do not believe enough to take them at their word.

Rationales for why I don't have to literally follow Jesus's teaching:

• Look, I am already trying to do good work with my life. I chose my job to be able to change the design and planning professions so that they are more fair and benefiting people equally and not catering to the elitist, money-driven centers of power that our society is currently organized around. Plus, I'm part of the leadership team of things like the Boston Faith and Justice Network or Common Boston. I give a significant portion of my income away. I am doing good work for God where I am. Not everyone is called to leave their home and family and give up everything.
• I do need clothes, and an apartment, and food, and even some of my electronics like a computer or cell phone. These things enable me to do the good stuff I am trying to do. If I lived on the street, or in some horrid vermin infested apartment, and had only thrift store clothes, or had no access to email, I couldn't do what I do or ever be taken seriously in the real world.
• I cannot spend my life going around talking about God to everyone. I just can't. I'd be fired. I'd be ignored. I'd make everyone uncomfortable and they'd never want to be around me. I have to be realistic. I have much more influence when I try to bring these things in subtly through the work that I do, or just let my work speak for me and not have to talk about the religious motivation behind it. People will recognize and appreciate the good work more than my preaching.
  
• Also, it's worth noting that clothing and a good job and a good home and friends are not bad things to want. These are good things. I shouldn't feel guilty for wanting to have them. I shouldn't feel guilty for trying to make sure that my needs are met as well as everyone else's.
• Following Jesus is not about pursuing some nonsensical, fundamentalist, literalist model of doing exactly what's in the Bible. We have to look at Scripture and understand what it means for our lives now, in the modern world. We have to try and interpret things based on where God has placed us. The living out of Scriptural truth will look different for different people.
  

Reasonable people, Christian people, people that I trust, would tell me that all of these things are valid and right. They make sense. They are intelligent, rational ways to look at my faith.

But what if I think that they are all a cover for not having to really obey, a place to hide so that I don't have to go too far for Christ? None of these rationales has anything to do with what Jesus put forth about the truth and the purpose of life. All of them are about keeping me comfortable in the world I live in.

I think these rationales are wrong. But I am afraid that sweeping them aside will be just as wrong, and foolish to boot, throwing away everything I have right now. I am afraid that I am following some silly idea about Christianity that has nothing to do with reality. I am afraid that I am going to extremes because that is just my nature, to take things literally, to see in black and white.

But if I take my faith literally, if I take Jesus literally, I honestly think that I am called to ignore all of that reasoning and be willing to give up - forget be willing, to give up everything about my position and my possessions to do the work that He has for me. What do I do? How do I know what is right, and what is my terrible misunderstanding?

How do I know the Lord's call?

Christianity requires a choice.

"I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." - John 14:6

In short, either Jesus was right, or He was a crazy liar.

My pastor (Dr. Gordon Hugenberger, Park Street Church in Boston) preached on John 14:1-7
today, with a focus on this verse. And I was reminded of the small group Bible study I'd been in a few years ago, where we were going through a chapter-by-chapter reading of the book of John. I'd never done that before ... but it was a tremendous, faith-shaping and life-changing experience for me. Really looking at John and seeking to understand what Jesus is saying and doing, it doesn't allow for anything except a face-to-face confrontation with the plain truth that Jesus speaks about Himself. And that truth is undeniably radical, uncomfortable, and offensive.

In our society, we like to pick and choose religious ideas like it's a worldwide buffet. We like to craft our own sense of "spirituality," based on whatever we are comfortable with at the time. We like to say that everything has validity, and that you only have to figure out what works best for you and roll with that. We all can accommodate each other's beliefs, and they each can be true in their own way. There's no absolute right or wrong, just opinion and preference.

I've always believed that true Christianity - based on the teachings and actions of Jesus and what he says about who God is and who we are - just doesn't allow for that perspective, not even a little bit. Christianity will not allow for itself to be true, and for all these other perspectives about God to be true, too. The statement above is unequivocal and unapologetic - Jesus says He is the only way to God, and that He is the embodiment of truth and life. And everything He says about who God is and who man is and how man ought to live is based on that premise; that premise is the only reason why He has any authority to speak at all (ex. John 5:16-30, John 8:25-29). So either his premise is true, and what He says is true, or it's not, and His teachings do not stand because their foundation is false. You have to choose.

"Again the Jews picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus said to them, 'I have shown you many great miracles from the Father. For which of these do you stone me?'
'We are not stoning you for any of these,' replied the Jews, 'but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God.'" - John 10:31-33

The Jewish religious leadership was, of course, wrong to stone Jesus, because His claims were true. But they were right about one thing - if they didn't believe Jesus, then the only appropriate reaction was to be absolutely offended by the ridiculous, outlandish, completely unreasonable, megalomaniacal claim He was making.

Many people who don't take on the whole part and parcel of Christianity still like to think of Jesus as a good teacher, or a prophet. Jesus rejects this notion that He should be listened to just because He's a good guy: when a rich young man comes to ask the "good teacher" about the way to eternal life, Jesus asks, "Why do you call me good? No one is good - except God alone." (Mark 10:18, Luke 18:19) Jesus says over and over again that the only reason to listen to Him is because He was sent by God the Father.

This is one of the other interesting things about a close reading of Jesus' words; His claim to be God is not about giving glory to Himself, but about pointing back to the Father and making sure that His hearers know the source of His authority and teaching. Even Jesus, who is one with God and comes with all authority, still comes as a servant and a messenger of the one true God. This is a great mystery of the Trinity - and one that is so beyond human comprehension or experience that no one trying to "make up" a convincing religion would bother proposing it.

"'One thing you lack," [Jesus] said. 'Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.'" - Mark 10:21

Yet that crazy notion of Jesus being who He says is the foundation for all the rest of what He tells us to do. And contrary to the "good moral teacher" point of view, the rest of what we are asked to do is just as radical, uncomfortable and offensive. It is wholly unreasonable to ask someone to sell everything they have or to leave their job and their home and family to follow some teaching. It doesn't make any sense to offer someone a second cheek after they've slapped you the first time; to not work to make sure that you have enough to eat or drink the next day; to give someone your own, rightfully earned, second cloak; to forgive someone a debt that they owe you because they borrowed your money. And no matter how good one thinks Jesus's teachings are, who really loves their neighbor (defined as everybody in the world) so much that they make every effort to ensure that everyone has at least as much food and comfort and shelter and safety as they do (that is, as they love themselves)? It's a nice goal, but it's not reasonable or possible to expect someone to take that literally.

Unless what Jesus says is actually true.

In that case, our whole set of priorities and perceptions is overturned. Our first purpose would not to take care of ourselves and make a living, but to make sure we are accurately representing who God is in every part of our lives and making sure other people knew about Him and that we were sent by Him. We would see our things and our jobs and our relationships to friends and family and neighbors and strangers the way that Jesus saw His job and life and relationships. We would actually do the kinds of things He did and commanded, and live the way He lived.

The "reason" behind injustice

I hesitated to comment on the following in my blog, lest it take on any more life than it already has. But as I looked across the vast expanse of the internet, I found no one who had even uttered a peep against this nonsense. So here goes.

The nonsense (which I've seen online varyingly labeled as truth and humor, and as originating either from North Dakota or Colorado, but which came to me in the following form):

Denver Post:

This text is from a county emergency manager out in the central part of Colorado after todays snowstorm.

WEATHER BULLETIN
Up here, in the Northern Plains, we just recovered from a Historic event--- may I even say a "Weather Event" of "Biblical Proportions" --- with a historic blizzard of up to 44" inches of snow and winds to 90 MPH that broke trees in half, knocked down utility poles, stranded hundreds of motorists in lethal snow banks, closed ALL roads, isolated scores of communities and cut power to 10's of thousands.

FYI:
George Bush did not come.
FEMA did nothing.
No one howled for the government.
No one blamed the government.
No one even uttered an expletive on TV .
Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton did not visit.
Our Mayor did not blame Bush or anyone else.
Our Governor did not blame Bush or anyone else, either.
CNN, ABC, CBS, FOX or NBC did not visit - or report on this category 5 snowstorm. Nobody demanded $2,000 debit cards.
No one asked for a FEMA Trailer House.
No one looted.
Nobody - I mean Nobody demanded the government do something.
Nobody expected the government to do anything, either.
No Larry King, No Bill O'Rielly, No Oprah, No Chris Mathews and No Geraldo Rivera.
No Shaun Penn, No Barbara Striesand, No Hollywood types to be found.

Nope, we just melted the snow for water.
Sent out caravans of SUV's to pluck people out of snow engulfed cars.
The truck drivers pulled people out of snow banks and didn't ask for a penny.
Local restaurants made food and the police and fire departments delivered it to the snowbound families.
Families took in the stranded people - total strangers.
We fired up wood stoves, broke out coal oil lanterns or Coleman lanterns.
We put on extra layers of clothes because up here it is "Work or Die".
We did not wait for some affirmative action government to get us out of a mess created by being immobilized by a welfare program that trades votes for 'sittin at home' checks.
Even though a Category "5" blizzard of this scale has never fallen this early, we know it can happen and how to deal with it ourselves.

"In my many travels, I have noticed that once one gets north of about 48 degrees North Latitude, 90% of the world's social problems evaporate."
It does seem that way, at least to me.

I hope this gets passed on.
Maybe SOME people will get the message. The world does Not owe you a living.

I am delighted to hear, of course, that the real or fictional people in this account banded together, helped others and were able to head out to work. I am glad that they had restaurants to serve them food and fires to keep them warm. I am also glad that their snow did not have dead bodies or sewage in it so that it could be safely used for drinking water. For the many real people in Colorado who were stranded by or suffered damage in the recent storms (including my roommate and her family), I am glad that many were able to return soon and safely to their homes.

To compare these storms with what happened in New Orleans and other areas of the Gulf Coast is a travesty. That storm severely affected millions of people in 5 coastal states, not to mention minor effects inland. More than 1800 people died, hundreds remain categorized as missing, and more than $80 billion dollars of damage resulted. The declared disaster area was nearly the size of the United Kingdom.

Restaurants were not open, and local emergency services struggled to operate. Cars could not travel in many parts of the region, but numerous volunteers did use their boats without compensation to rescue others who were stranded. Families in various parts of the affected states did take in family members, friends and strangers if they had habitable dwellings. But none of these do-it-yourself gestures, no matter how valuable they were and continue to be, is sufficient to handle a disaster of this magnitude.

Yet it wasn't even this comparison that incensed me, stupid as it is. It was these lines:

• We did not wait for some affirmative action government to get us out of a mess created by being immobilized by a welfare program that trades votes for 'sittin at home' checks.
• "In my many travels, I have noticed that once one gets north of about 48 degrees North Latitude, 90% of the world's social problems evaporate."

It's barely disguised code for "poor, dark people are the cause of all the world's problems," with a nice undertone of "let's cut 'em loose."

I'm not even sure where to begin to untangle the web of prejudice behind these remarks. Do you start by pointing out the obvious fact that poverty, not to mention a variety of other "social ills" exist in the North American, Northern European and Asian countries that fall in this person's special latitudes? Do you talk about the social systems that many Northern European countries have and pay dearly for in order to provide basic services and education for every one of their citizens? Do you talk about the long history of oppression and exploitation of darker people by lighter people and the legacy that has been left in African, Asian and South American countries as a result? Do you talk about the tremendous imbalance in access to resources and opportunity between haves and have nots in this country, not to mention this country and the whole rest of the world, and the ever-increasing gap between the two groups? Should I maybe just give this person Jared Diamond's excellent book, Collapse, and hope that his eloquence will wake up for my apoplectic inarticulateness?

I feel impotent, and frustrated. Especially since there are these small seeds of good questions or thoughts that this person takes and twists into lies and evil. I do think we need to continuing examining the welfare system and other anti-poverty strategies to understand the balance between providing for those in need and encouraging people to do as much as they are able for both themselves and others. I don't know how I feel about recurring funding for people to live in and recover from known disaster areas (and also, typically, ecologically fragile ones) - whether in the Gulf Coast or the forests of California or the shores of Massachusetts. I do condemn the looting and violence and anger that was shown in much of the media, although I also a) understand what caused it and b) know that wasn't the whole story, but merely the most sensational one.

I wanted to write something really eloquent in response to this, but I can't. I just don't know how to reach across that divide and touch all the people out there who forwarded this on and cheered it. I don't know how to explain that we can't abandon portions of our society just because they look or act different; I don't know how to explain the costs of that to people who don't recognize the value of other people in the first place. But I hope if there are any Christians out there, they will remember this - we are all one body, and we don't function properly without each other.