Ersatz Eloquence

Sidewalks

2012-08-05T22:08:00.000-07:00

I have found myself thinking a lot about sidewalks over my past few days in Texas. It is, of course, because I have been walking for miles and miles everyday. I have depended on sidewalks since arriving in Texas, and it's hard not to notice them.

One of my days in San Antonio, as I began a walk from one end of the city to the other, I decided to take on a sidewalk challenge: I was to navigate my way around as if I were traveling in a wheelchair or similar mobility vehicle. I could not use steps. Curbs without ramps meant I had to search for a driveway. Broken, cracked, uneven sidewalks were potential hazards. I needed real sidewalks.

It was miserable. I was already all in favour of further measures to increase accessibility in all places (and not just for those who travel by wheelchair), and, intellectually, I already understood that ramps placed out of the way on the side or back of a building, rather than in front where stairs might be, were in many ways a sort of "separate but (not) equal" access, but it was very different to experience it myself.

I had to turn around and backtrack way too much. Often, there were no ramps at all. When there were ramps, they were far out of the way and inconvenient. I frequently had to go into the street because a car was blocking the sidewalk (though I would have had to regardless in those cases). Sometimes, I came to a complete dead end. Other times, the sidewalk just became too uneven or overgrown with plants. It was endlessly frustrating and gave me so much more respect for everyone who has to put up with such frustration on a daily basis.

I didn't even have to deal with any sort of discrimination or prejudice from other people (and, believe me, I have heard people say some horrible things about and to "those people in wheelchairs") to understand that we have absolutely not done enough to make our businesses and public spaces and homes and cities accessible.

And it's not just about "those people in wheelchairs." It's about parents pushing strollers and children learning to ride a bike and you not worrying that your parents, grandparents, or friends might trip on the uneven path. It's about ensuring there are safe pathways for everyone and being intentional about inclusion and accessibility.

Check this resource out for just a few good reasons for having (functional) sidewalks, including dramatically reducing car-pedestrian collisions, and all kinds of other related information.

As I walked around Houston today and saw sidewalks, both good and bad, I asked myself what ways I could be part of the solution. I wondered about what my local chapter of The Harry Potter Alliance could do. I thought about community organisations that could take action and ways to encourage political decision makers to prioritise something so simple yet crucial. I tried to come up with other accessibility concerns not limited to sidewalks.

There's not one answer. For me, right now, talking about it is most important, involving others in the discussion and drawing attention to the issue. I have five and a half more weeks to take in more and more, to learn and grow and not try to single-handedly fix all of the world's problems overnight. (Though I'm tempted right now to try to fix all the sidewalks at least.) Maybe I will come up with a brilliant project to start once I arrive home that will help make accessibility a higher priority in Los Angeles.

Austin, Texas

2012-07-31T20:09:00.002-07:00

It's Tuesday night, and I'm safe in San Antonio now. Austin was amazing. I'm trying to find a way to summarise my experiences here, and I simply can't. So much happened between flying in Thursday and boarding my bus away from Austin this afternoon.

I walked for hours and hours every day. I talked to so many new people. I climbed into the cars of people who had, not long before, been complete strangers. (Just pretend that sentence never happened, Mom.) I crashed meetings and shared stories and even played some Quidditch on Saturday. I laughed at complaints about the traffic ("If you're moving, it's not traffic."), drank more water than ever, and probably learned more about Austin than I know about my own hometown.

Lady Bird Lake, Austin, Texas
(I insisted it was a river, but the locals call it a lake anyway!)

The people were wonderful. After sprinting in the Texas heat and humidity to catch a bus (and thus literally dripping in sweat), the bus drive said kindly, "I wasn't going to leave you! Come on in and cool off." Those words have stuck in my mind ever since.

As I explored town, one woman told me about her 48 years working in public education and how she insists on riding the bus, despite having two cars, because it gives her a chance to help others—and be helped by others, too. It was a reminder to me as to why I try to take the bus—not just to "save the planet" through reducing fuel consumption but also to connect me with my community in ways driving simply can't.

I talked with a cashier at a small shop at length about social justice and Quidditch and community. A priest and I discussed the similarities and differences in the ways Los Angeles and places in Texas gentrify neighbourhoods and force the poor and homeless further and further out of sight and away from resources. It's always nice to know that it's not just a couple of people in Los Angeles who care.

Unintentionally, I found myself in a group, meeting on the roof of Whole Foods, which sought to reduce waste and over-consumption and build community by regularly coming together with items and stories to share. We talked about all sorts of things, from car-sharing programs and composting to different religions and their historical roots (yes, I absolutely did tell the condensed history of the Episcopal Church). "Hey, you should start a group like this in L. A.!" I remember someone suggested.

Some ridiculously kind people took me out to lunch when I was tired and hungry and far away from the centre of town, which turned out to be a fascinating meal—there was a police standoff just down the street, and I can now say I've seen both the Austin SWAT team and their bomb squad (Ignore that, too, Mom)—with people who were even more interesting than any police standoff and much warmer, too.

Someone else offered to drive me home when it was late, took the long way, and showed me a great deal of the city, complete with history and other context to help me understand all that we travelled through.

People offered up their homes and their hospitality just about everywhere I went. I'm not yet sure if it's an Austin thing or a general kindness-to-travelers thing, but either way, I have met some pretty incredible people, and I have learned so much about myself in meeting them.

I was sad to leave Austin, but I am so looking forward to my time in San Antonio and beyond and all that I will learn along the way.

Jonah: Swallowed by a Giant Plane

2012-07-24T00:39:00.000-07:00

It's late Monday night. I should be sleeping; I will take my little brother to camp for the penultimate time (at least for a long time) tomorrow morning. It occurs to me that I am going to miss him. A lot. I should sleep so that I can be fully rested and enjoy what little time I have left with him.

I'm too excited to sleep though. I cannot wait to find myself in Texas, and there is something so endlessly strange about that, being excited about Texas. My thirteen-year-old self would be appalled and furious if it weren't already preoccupied with gaping at me in utter disbelief.

"Texas?? But we HATE Texas," it is protesting. "Let a black hole swallow the entire state! Nothing good comes from Texas!" I grew up with a very big "thing" against Texas. Blame it on Bush, I suppose.

When I was about fifteen or sixteen, my best friend, on whom I had depended a very great deal, decided that they absolutely hated my very guts in that way only fifteen- or sixteen-year-olds can. It was one of the most painful losses I have ever experienced. It sucked. I was miserable.

In the midst of my grief, anger, pain, and swirl of incomprehensible emotions, my iPod played a song I had never heard before. There's a long, logical explanation for how it ended up on there, but in retrospect, I think I was just supposed to hear it. To use only a little hyperbole, it changed my life.

Imagine my horror when I found out the person who wrote that live-saving song, Bryce Avary (The Rocket Summer), was from Texas. It was a bit of an existential crisis. How could someone who seemed so nice, who wrote things to which I related so well, who clearly cared about the world, be from Texas??? It was impossible to comprehend. I knew the answer, but I didn't like it. I frantically fled from the suggestion that Texas might not be simply a hell-hole of pure evil.

Going to Texas feels like finally submitting to something that has been calling to me for the past four to five years. I feel like Jonah: I have been running and running from Texas, determined that nothing in Texas could possibly be good, and at last I will be swallowed by a plane which will, after three hours in its belly, spew me out in the very capital of Texas.

A few months ago, when I finally made my decision to go to Texas, I was mostly just terrified. I had already known for a couple years that I would have to face my (irrational) fear of Texas at some point, but it didn't make it any less scary. I lost plenty of sleep being afraid and nervous.

Tonight, I am sleepless with excitement. It feels so right to be rocking out to The Rocket Summer right now. "Let the revival rattle me and open my eyes, open my eyes!" I cannot wait to be rattled. I cannot wait to have my eyes opened. Texas, here I come.

Blogging Update

2012-07-16T11:48:00.000-07:00

Over the next two months, this blog will be serving a new and specific purpose: to document my journey through the U. S., volunteering and learning and immersing myself in the communities I will be visiting. I won't promise a specific posting schedule, as I cannot predict how much time and wi-fi I will have throughout my seven weeks, but it would be reasonable to expect updates while I fly/bus between cities.

I have been fundraising for this trip for a few weeks now and am almost to my original goal of $700! I had to update my goal to $1000 when I found out my trip was being extended a few more weeks—read more about that on the page (check out the "Updates" tab to see how things have been developing). You can find the campaign at indiegogo.com/elizabeththraen.

I will try to get a post with all of my pre-journey thoughts up sometime in the next week and a half before I leave. Until then, thanks for all your support and I look forward to sharing my journey with you!

P. S. Yes, I know it's been a stupidly long period of time since I last blogged.

Why "Tax the 1%!" Makes Me Cringe

2012-04-16T11:38:00.000-07:00

On Sunday, since it was Tax Day, members of my church signed on to letters of concern to our elected officials about how our tax dollars would be spent. As I was reading the letter, a woman next to me said something along the lines of how we need to "tax the 1%!"

Now, I have never been a fan of this "99% v. 1%" language because, while I agree that there is massive and unjust inequality, it seeks to lift up one group of people by pressing down upon others. It (the language, not necessarily all of the people who use it) does not love its enemies. While "the 99%" may have every right to be upset, the language itself (again, not necessarily all of the people who use it) promotes a war-like mentality which seeks to destroy, not love, its enemy.

"Tax the 1%!" I cringed when the woman I was with said this, but for new reasons. I realised that not only did I not like the war-like rhetoric of trying to bring harm to another in order to solve a problem, but also that I didn't even want the government to have more money at all. Like a real conservative (not those phony ones running around with their expensive campaigns and big-central-government attempts to federally illegalise and control everything), I realised I wanted to cut taxes, if anything.

Why? Why should someone in favour of free health care, free education through college, free public transportation, free internet, and free just-about-everything else want to cut taxes? After all, these things cost money, as I am well aware.

Why? Because the government doesn't do these things, at least not with the vast majority of its money. When only 1% of the budget goes to "fighting poverty" in developing countries, and even that is spent with such inefficiency that it only gives money to Big Agribuisness while failing to provide adequate necessities to the people it claims to help, the government does not deserve any more money. I would never give money to a non-profit that spends only one cent of my dollar on what I actually want it to do, and I certainly wouldn't want others to give their money to it either. Why should I treat my government any differently?

The largest portion of our federal budget is, by far, military-related spending. The exact figures vary depending on who you ask (statistics are too easy to manipulate), but the cost of our wars is undeniable. Costofwar.com is a good site to check out if you want to get sick. The cost since 2001 to my congressional district alone, according to the site, is well over $3.6 billion as I write this. The "Trade-Offs" tab there puts it into perspective: what my district will spend this year on the Afghanistan war alone could pay for "36,288 Scholarships for University Students for One Year." I'd have loved a scholarship instead of a war, but since I got a war instead, I'm not going to advocate raising more funds for that government.

Because the problem is not a lack of money. The problem is how that money is spent. At what point do we finally realise that our country's budget problems are rooted in the private profitability of our publicly destructive military-industrial complex? Taxing the rich will not make war unprofitable, nor could it possibly alleviate the publicly held burden of the destruction and pain caused by war. Only by turning our spears into plowshares, by building an economy dependent upon growth and nourishment instead of destruction and warfare, can we possibly solve our budget woes and create a just, sustainable, and fair society, and until the US government actively supports the dismantling of our war economy, I have zero interest in increasing its funding.

Hunger Is Not a Game

2012-03-21T17:28:00.001-07:00

This Friday, The Hunger Games will hit theatres nationwide and, I'm sure, even internationally. The world will be watching as teenagers flock to movie theatres to witness the brutality of the Capitol and its barbaric "Hunger Games," pitting children from each of Panem's twelve Districts in a Battle Royal-style fight to the death. Participation in "The Reaping," the lottery process by which two unlucky children from each district are chosen, is mandatory, but impoverished and hungry citizens can put their names in the lottery extra times in exchange for a little extra food. Meanwhile, the citizens of the Capitol live in absurd luxury, entertained annually by the twisted Hunger Games.

While the details may differ, The Hunger Games tells the story of the harsh inequality, artificial scarcity, and brutal violence inherent in our own systems. People are starving. People lack access to clean water. These aren't issue limited to far-off, "third world" countries either. Hunger happens even in the richest countries in the world. Hunger happens in my own backyard, and I assure you it happens in yours, too.

And this is NOT an impossible problem to solve.

The Harry Potter Alliance's Imagine Better Project has partnered with Oxfam America and Hunger Games fans across the nation and globe to draw attention to these issues and the solutions. This weekend, fans will collect donations of food for their local food banks and pledges of support for Oxfam's GROW campaign as the first step toward addressing the systematic problems which cause worldwide hunger.

So take the pledge (and if you do, leave a comment here letting me know why you signed!), tell your friends, Tweet hashtag #notagame this weekend, and find a food drive in your area or star your own! You'll be sending a silver parachute to someone in need when you do.

We stand with the Imagine Better Project
Hunger is Not a Game

Kovu, the Outsider

2011-12-07T14:54:00.001-08:00

I love The Lion King. Let's start off by getting that out in the open. I grew up on The Lion King. I still cry when Mufasa dies, I know every song by heart, and "Hakuna Matata" has been the basis for many important decisions in my life. I can even recite "Be Prepared" in German. The narrative of the young, exiled lion who returns to save his homeland is so deep in me, it is very much a part of my soul. Simba lives in me, and his songs live in my iPod.

"Not One of Us" from the second Lion King movie came up on shuffle just before I started writing this, and I was suddenly very unsettled as I sang along. In the scene, King Simba passes judgment on young Kovu from atop Pride Rock: exile. Immediately, the masses of animals rally behind Simba's decision, crying, "He is not one of us. He will never be one of us," and Kovu is quite literally chased out of the Pride Lands.

The scene, and the movie itself, is blatant social commentary on xenophobia, but as the words of the xenophobic, animal populace left my mouth, I suddenly understood the scene as much more than a slap on the wrist to some distant xenophobia. The xenophobia was here, is here. Let's watch, shall we?

After King Simba has been ambushed by Kovu's former pride (the "Outsiders"), a plot which Kovu sincerely had nothing to do with—in fact, he attempts to protect Simba and is exiled by his former pride for doing so—Kovu returns to Pride Rock, hoping to explain his role, or lack thereof, and receive mercy and forgiveness (for his failure to do more to protect Simba). King Simba, however, glares down upon Kovu from his Pride Rock throne and declares that Kovu "does not belong here."

Even when Kiara, Simba's daughter, begs that King Simba listen, he merely silences her. As the populace rallies for judgement, the mighty King Simba unmercifully grants it: exile. Immediately, the populace—who had earlier participated in the joyful song in which Princess Kiara and Kovu fall in love ("Upendi")—turns on Kovu, lowering horns, tossing rocks, stomping, pecking, and doing all possible to drive him mercilessly and dishonourably from their land.

I'll be blunt: Kovu is an undocumented immigrant. He's probably Muslim too, actually. Maybe even left-handed. And the bipolar populace of animals is us, the bipolar populace of America who, like our King Simbas, have so quickly and senselessly cried out, "You asked for trouble the moment you came!" at those who have sought refuge and a new life in our lands, just as the animals cry at Kovu.

Our political leaders, like King Simba, have cried, "Silence!" at those who have advocated for justice for the Kovus among us, and they have declared, upon people whose stories they do not know, their judgment: exile, "you do not belong here," "not one of us." Their judgment has gone unquestioned by the populace: as political leaders in our world have declared undocumented immigrants, Muslims, LGBT persons, and others as outsiders, enemies, threats—"not one of us"—the populace has rallied unquestioningly behind them.

Kovu's story does not end there, however. "Social activist" Kiara and Kovu team up and show everyone—from King Simba to "soldiers" to the populace—that they are all one. "Look at them. What difference do you see?" an impassioned Kiara asks her father in the midst of the all-out-war which breaks out. "We are one."

The Lion King lays out a moral imperative for the treatment of "outsiders" in our community in the same way Harry Potter or The Bible, two of my favourite "narratives for justice," do: through the lives and stories of beloved characters. To love these stories means to live them out. To love Simba and Kiara and Kovu and Rafiki means to walk with them, journey with them, and learn, as they do, to love your neighbour, even if your neighbour is an immigrant, Muslim, gay, left-handed, or an outsider in any other way. Because, as Simba teaches his daughter long before he so mercilessly declares Kovu an outsider, exiled, and "not one of us," we are one.

Not in Harry's Name

2011-11-21T14:58:00.001-08:00

Unethical labour practices are a pretty huge issue within the chocolate industry, so it's not exactly an easy issue to tackle. The Harry Potter Alliance, however, has one of the coolest ways of addressing it: the "Not in Harry's Name" campaign.

The Harry Potter Alliance (HPA) is an organisation of Harry Potter fans who put their "faith" (love of the Harry Potter books and the ideals expressed therein) into action through creative activism. The "Not in Harry's Name" (NIHN) campaign demands that Warner Brothers either prove that the Chocolate Frogs they sell with Harry's name on them are already being made using fair and ethical standards or take action to live up to their own "fair and ethical labor standards."

The NIHN campaign was originally launched a year ago as part of our much bigger "Deathly Hallows" campaign, and was re-launched and re-focused yesterday with three new actions for fans to take: buy the HPA's new fair trade chocolate frogs (which come with campaign information, too), create and send "Muggle Howlers" (YouTube videos expressing that we find WB's actions unacceptable), and, my personal favourite, mail WB cease and desist letters.

I love the HPA because it doesn't function at all like most other activist organisations. We are dead serious about what we do—none of our campaigns would have succeeded if we weren't—but the activism the HPA does is creative, unexpected, and fun. We kick off campaigns with parties, Quidditch matches, and all the sorts of "stupid" things for which Harry Potter fans so often get mocked and ridiculed. I imagine, at the risk of further infuriating every Christian who swears Harry Potter is the anti-Christ, that Harry Potter fans are currently holding onto whatever it was that possessed grown people who should have known better to defy both Roman authority and Jewish leaders and spread the Gospel.

Maybe the early Christians didn't play sports on broomsticks that couldn't fly; maybe they point sticks at each other and say funny words, knowing full well nothing would happen; maybe they didn't have costume contests and Jesus conventions—but they, like the HPA, seemed to believe that love really does win. They believed that they possessed the incontrovertible truth that love is too powerful to ever lose, and they believed that their hero, Jesus, lived on through them, just as Harry Potter's lost loved ones lived on through him. They believed in resurrection.

Christianity in the 21st century doesn't believe in these things, no matter which side of the political and theological divides on which you find yourself. Either the God of Wrath will spitefully wipe out and destroy the wicked, or the God of Forgiveness is just too passive to infringe upon the so-called "rights" of others to spew hate. The God who makes "justice roll on like a river and righteousness like an never-failing stream" (Amos 5:24, NIV) has been forgotten by the majority of Christianity.

Yesterday, as the NIHN campaign re-launched, I played an intense and muddy Quidditch match against a rival team in pouring rain. Our very presence at the park in which we played was an confession of faith: some of us had travelled for hours to get there, it was freezing, it was wet, and we were on broomsticks that didn't fly. Only radical faith could have possessed us to do something so seemingly pointless.

Both teams, our refs, and our spectators crossed the street to the nearest coffeeshop when the game ended. "Stand up and preach!" my captain told me, when the conversation turned to NIHN and some of those in attendance had yet to learn about it or the HPA. Somehow, the foolish act of travelling for hours just to playing a "fictional" sport in the pouring rain became an opportunity to work for justice in creative ways. Someone told me today that they already sent in their cease and desist letter, and another asked me for more information on how to get involved.

We have no reason to believe that fair trade chocolate frogs could change the world. We have no reason to believe that children can free slaves. We have no reason to believe that our small voices could ever make a difference, but we know that, like Harry, have "power the Dark Lord knows not": love.

Unethical labour practices are a pretty huge issue to tackle, but we carry with us the stories of Harry and his friends, stories of chocolate frogs which changed the world, of children freeing slaves, and of small voices making a difference. We carry with us the story that love wins, and that is what Christianity has forgotten. We have forgotten the stories which once fueled early Christians, but we only need return to our beloved tales to reclaim that power the darkness of our world knows not: love.

Glory or Criticism?: Music and Violence

2011-09-23T21:51:00.000-07:00

I was listening to "Pumped Up Kicks" by Foster the People, a song I have heard a couple of times and generally enjoyed, when I decided to pay attention to the lyrics: "All the other kids with the pumped up kicks, you'd better run, better run, outrun my gun. All the other kids with the pumped up kicks, you'd better run, better run, faster than my bullet."

I immediately wished I hadn't paid attention. Ignorance is bliss, after all. But as someone who claims to be so very against the glorification of violence in our media and culture, could I willingly listen to a song that glorifies violence? Of course not.

Except there is a very big difference between talking about violence in a way that glorifies it versus talking about violence in a way that addresses the issue. Where is that line? Listening to the song, it felt satirical. The dark lyrics seemed to be ironically juxtaposed against a cheerful and bright melody and beat. Could the artist have intended to use that juxtaposition as social commentary on our glorification of violence? Or was it simply a glorification of violence?

Said Mark Foster of Foster the People on the song:

'Pumped Up Kicks' is about a kid that basically is losing his mind and is plotting revenge. He's an outcast. I feel like the youth in our culture are becoming more and more isolated. It's kind of an epidemic. Instead of writing about victims and some tragedy, I wanted to get into the killer's mind, like Truman Capote did in 'In Cold Blood.' I love to write about characters. That's my style. I really like to get inside the heads of other people and try to walk in their shoes.

Even reading what he thinks of the song, however, doesn't seem to settle the question for me. Would I accept any song just because the artist thought what they were creating was social commentary? I could easily agree with the commentary that isolation among our youth can certainly lead to horrible violence—it's happened many times, most recently when a young teenager took his own life—but what does listening to this song and songs like it actually do for me?

I don't want to listen to only cheerful songs. That's surely not my point. Listening only to cheerful music would be like sticking my fingers in my ears, shutting my eyes, and hoping that if I simply am never exposed to unpleasantness, it will cease to exist. That's not how it works.

I want to be critical and aware of what media I allow myself to take in. Just like I don't want to fill my body with junk food, neither do I want to fill my soul with "junk food" like the glorification of violence. Neither provides real nourishment. But denial of the existence of junk is not only ignorant, but dangerous. If I don't even acknowledge the issues in our society, how can I work to fix them?

I don't know what my decision about "Pumped Up Kicks" is right now. I won't protest the song, nor will I tell anyone not to listen to it. But it is a song about something ugly in our society; it requires that I think critically about it, that I decided for myself what this song is really about and what it means to me.

What is clear to me is that kids should never feel so isolated that they are driven to the violence expressed in this song. Regardless of what the artist meant, this song's violent themes are a reminder of all the work that still remains to be done in our society and a reminder of what I am supposed to be doing with my life: working to put an end to all of the violence, hatred, and isolation in our world and fill it instead with love.

When Ceilings Collapse

2011-09-10T10:01:00.000-07:00

I remember being shaken awake, urged out of bed, and told not to worry—everything was going to be okay, I was going to be okay.

It was June. The sunny skies of Southern California unexpectedly turned to grey, and torrents of rain began to fall over night.

And then the ceiling collapsed at 5AM—directly over my parent's bed—destroying the entire room as water and debris flooded in. My parents were lucky—they had been up all night trying to keep up with all of the water which was leaking into our home through the exposed ceiling. We had just begun construction on our house, and we had no roof. No one had expected rain in sunny California, especially not in June.

When their ceiling collapsed, my parents shook my sister and I awake. We were soon out of the house and safe from being crushed by debris. We, too, were lucky: the ceiling directly over our bunk beds collapsed shortly after we left.

But everything was okay. Our ceilings collapsed, but no one was hurt, and our house was put back together again.

Two years later, on September 11th, 2001, I was shaken awake with the same fearful urgency and reassured that everything was going to be okay. I watched in horror as the ceiling of our entire country collapsed and those mighty buildings fell. I watched the planes crash, the flames consume, the bodies leap.

But I trusted my parents. I was nine; of course I trusted them. Everything was going to be okay. I was going to be okay.

I still believe them: everything is going to be okay. Our house is not the same as it was before the ceilings collapsed. There are still a couple of cracked windows all these years later, reminders of the terror of that June morning when my whole world caved in. Furniture was destroyed and never restored. When our ceiling leaked in last year's huge rain storms, the fear of the memory sent shockwaves of panic through us. But everything is okay. Our house still stands. Though earthquake or fire or storm or violence could strike at any moment and bring my house down once more, destruction does not have the last word.

But the destruction of 9/11 was much worse than physical destruction, much more than an attack on a building. It was an emotional and spiritual destruction, violence which pierced through our very souls. It was, and still is, unfathomable.

Yet our reaction to the unfathomable violence of 9/11 has been just as unfathomable. Like repairing our collapsed ceilings by destroying our neighbour's, our violent reaction does nothing to heal our wounded souls. We will never bring back the lost lives, and the towers, even if they were to be rebuilt, would never quite stand as they once stood.

But our souls can heal. We have witnessed violence beyond what any of us could have ever imagined, but witnessing does not require mimicry. Witnessing demands action, but the action we choose is up to us. Lessons can be learned from Norway's reaction to the terrorism in their own country.

"I think July 22 will be a very strong symbol of the Norwegian people's wish to be united in our fight against violence, and will be a symbol of how the nation can answer with love," said Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg.

The Amish, too, could teach us something about how we react to senseless violence. Writes Donald B. Kraybill:

Amish faith is grounded in the teachings of Jesus to love enemies, reject revenge, and leave vengeance in the hands of God. As a father who lost a daughter in the schoolhouse [shooting] said, "Forgiveness means giving up the right to revenge."

Everything will be okay. I believe in the possibility of our liberation and the power of love to heal and free us from the pain of the horrific violence with which we are still struggling to deal ten years later. But destruction does not have the last word. Rather than being extremists for war, we must be, as Martin Luther King, Jr., writes in his Letter from Birmingham Jail, "extremists for love." Only through extreme acts of love can we conquer destruction, re-build our nation, and heal our terrorised souls.

My Favourite Culture

2011-09-02T08:07:00.000-07:00

I have just started my semester, and already I have written two essays, given a 30-second speech, and sputtered out Spanish I was unaware I knew whilst under pressure. The semester is going great. Today, I'll meet the last teachers I've yet to meet. There's a lot going on this semester, and it really feels like real college now, unlike last year which felt . . . weird.

My first major assignment is a "cultural artifact" speech. Basically, we have to bring in some item that represents a culture to which we belong, and give a short (2-3 minutes) speech on the artifact, the culture, and the significance of the artifact to the culture and the culture to us. It's a short little thing, and the options are endless. The example speech was about knitting needles, if that helps you understand how broad the term "culture" is being used.

Culture is a weird thing for me though. Biologically, I am white, but most of the "family" I actually know and see most often is from Honduras, my step-mom's family. From my step-dad, I grew up with Polynesian cultural influences. Growing up in culturally diverse Los Angeles gave me bits and pieces of other cultures too, so I don't consider myself any particular race. I decided I didn't want to do any sort of race-based culture for my speech.

I thought about theatre arts, about Harry Potter, about environmentalism and political activism, about all sorts of culture to which I belong, but nothing screamed "Pick me! Pick me! I am your culture!" like my faith. Forget race, forget arts, forget books and politics; I identify with the very long history of my faith, from ancient Israelites all the way to today. They are my ancestors, and their culture is mine.

Except how do you get up in front of a bunch of college students and tell them about how much you love the Bible without boring them all to death? Or worse, leading them to think you're some crazy right-wing, Bible-thumping nut who uses the Bible as a weapon? As much as I know my faith to be something beautiful, despite all of its flawed history—or perhaps because of those flaws even—the idea of standing up to say that and risk the burn of being judged for it terrifies me.

As I tried to find another culture about which to share, I could not help coming back to my faith. The more I thought about it, the more I realised that talking about my faith and its culture is exactly what I needed to do. It is the only culture about which I could talk with such passion—something I'll need if I want to engage anyone and get a good grade—and, I realised, talking about my faith is exactly what being a priest involves. While writing on this blog and talking to friends about my faith is nice, standing up to give a speech about my faith is something entirely different—and a skill I need to practice. If I am too afraid to even tell college students about my faith, who can I tell?

My cultural artifact? The Book of Common Prayer, the book which, in the 16th Century, sought to bring a divided nation together without sacrificing anyone. As Catholics and Protestant reformers fought viciously for control, a brilliant Queen declared that we could, somehow, be both Catholic and Protestant. Without killing each other. It is a book which connects a 19-year-old college student living in 21st century Los Angeles to 16th century Europe, to 1st century Israel/Palestine, to the slaves of ancient Egyptians, and to so many others, living, dead, and not-yet alive, whose cultures may differ so vastly from my own. Yet we pray the same prayers and we eat the same bread and wine. Despite whatever differences we may hold, we share the same humanity, and that is, really, what my favourite culture is all about.

Genesis 9: Never Again

2011-08-19T11:00:00.000-07:00

Genesis 9. I was going to include this in the last post, but this (like everything else) is one of my favourite parts of the Bible. I grew up with the story of Noah and with God's promise to Noah, but the story was taught to me with one small but major difference in comparison to what I read in the story now.

As a child, I remember learning about how evil and wicked humanity had become and how angry God was. Noah sure was lucky God was able to cool down enough to save Noah and his family, even though God was still very angry at everyone else. After the flood, God promised Noah, almost grudgingly, not to ever flood the whole earth again. Mostly because it just didn't work out, not because God was sorry people died. For all the reassurances that this God was a loving God, this God sounded pretty unstable and wrathful.

When I reread the Bible for Lent, I was surprised, again and again, to find that the God in the Bible wasn't actually such a horrible being. In fact, Noah's ark quickly became one of my absolute favourites as an example of the loving God about whose rumoured existence I had so much doubt. Instead of the "Well, now you realised how pissed off I was; hope you finally learned your lesson!" sort of speech from God to Noah after the flood, God (I was shocked to read) starts off by blessing Noah and his family.

"I give you everything," says God. "Only you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood." (9:3-4) Instead of scolding or warnings, God gives all of creation to Noah and his family, reminding them only to respect the sanctity of all life. It might seem hypocritical, but God follows up with a promise to Noah: "Never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth." (9:11) It's like God's repentance almost. Never again, God says. Enough with destruction; even the lives of so-called "sinners" are sacred.

But my absolute favourite part of the story is the rainbow: "'When the bow is in the clouds, I will look upon it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth.'" (9:16) Until rereading the story last Lent, I had never known that the rainbow was a symbolic reminder to God, not us. I always thought it was a reminder that we had done wrong, but God forgave us, that God was overwhelmingly forgiving. But that's not how (at least in the English translations) it's written. It is a reminder that God had "done wrong," and that God was truly and humbly sorry.

God can really seem like a jerk sometimes. Things don't always seem fair. A friend commits suicide, and you question how God could possibly let such a terrible thing happen to such a good person, how God failed to protect them from the struggles they faced, why God burdened them with more than they could bear. If God is so perfect, so infallible, so all-knowing and all-powerful, did God just not care? Or was it for some stupid "greater purpose" that God decided to throw away a life just like that?

When I see rainbows, I think of Dumbledore, whose obsession with working for the "greater good," no matter how many lives it cost to obtain it, cost him the life of his sister. "Where your treasure is, your heart will be also," he has engraved on her tombstone. It is a quote from Matthew 6:21.

I can't tell you whether God makes mistakes or not—that's a bigger discussion than this story really is about—but I can tell you that it very often feels like God has made a mistake. I get angry with God and demand an apology and an explanation. Suffering is incomprehensible.

But rather than tell me it is fair, I deserved it, or I'm too stupid to understand, God says sorry and asks me for forgiveness. God says, "Never again," and puts a rainbow in the sky to remind Godself of the promise made. "I give you everything," only learn from my mistakes, says God. Respect all life as holy.

And just as God humbly asks our forgiveness, just as we must forgive God, so to must we ask each other forgiveness and forgive each other. Never again, we must say, even though we know we are imperfect and will forget. The story of Noah's ark is about forgiveness.

Resentment

2011-08-16T08:37:00.000-07:00

I was beginning to resent my job. I mean, I love my job. I work at a small, family-owned restaurant with wonderful people. The customers are nice. I get food. I get tips. When I screw something up (which I did recently), my managers are gracious and patient, happy to help me out rather than just scold me for being imperfect.

But resentment began to creep in as my work schedule meant I would not be able to participate in my favourite thing, the thing which got me through the hard parts of last school year: choir.

I tried to accept that this year would just be different. I tried imagining myself sitting in the pews each Sunday, part of the congregation. I thought of the freedom that would come with not needing to go to rehearsals each week and not needing to be at church for five hours straight on the Sundays my choir (there are two, and we switch off each Sunday) would be singing.

Like Taylor Swift said though, "It turns out freedom ain't nothing but missing you." I couldn't, try as I might, avoid feeling resentful toward my job for preventing me from singing. I realised I would be less motivated to go to church; depression would be given more chance to creep in without the weekly choral defense.

Quitting my job, however, is not really an option. While technically, yes, I could walk out whenever I felt like it, and no one could stop me, I need the money, the work experience, and the world outside of school, church, and family. And I promised my dad.

As we've struggled to have a good relationship through my "I'm an adult now; I don't need you; I know everything" phase through which most new adults seem to go, breaking my promise and flat-out defying what he asks of me will not make me happier at all. Fighting with him has worn me out enough as is, and I know, despite my 19-year-old arrogance, that he has a point in pushing me to have this job, rather than just earn money through odd jobs.

But giving up choir for work will lead only to me resenting not only my job but my dad too. I cannot, I realised, go to work resentful. Only two options exist: get rid of the resentment or get rid of the job. Getting rid of the job is simply not an option right now, so, somehow, I had to address the resentment and find a solution with which I could be happy.

The solution, which I came across last night, is so simple it hurts. It should not have taken me a month of growing, festering resentment to find such a simple solution: tell my boss I just can't work Wednesdays nights, the night my choir rehearses, once September starts. If I can't pick up a different shift at that job, I can handle one less shift for a few weeks while I search for a second job. Funny thing about having a job, it somehow makes people more willing to hire you (which is maddening when you don't have a job).

The world, miraculously, is not over. I can work and still do what is most important to me. Even if I've had to give up some things I really did not want to, as long as I still have my choir, I think I'm okay with giving some things up.

Housing the Hundred Thousand

2011-08-12T17:38:00.000-07:00

This past week, my alarm was set for 2 o'clock in the morning each day. Dark blankets were draped over my windows to block out light so that I might nap during daylight hours. When my alarm went off, I quickly dragged myself out of bed, groggily attended to emails while preparing to leave, and then found myself, miraculously, at "headquarters" by 3.45AM, grabbing a quick bite of particularly flavourless fruit and planning our route for the morning with my teammates before beginning the morning's work.

The work, however, was worth being up before dawn: we were surveying the homeless in our community in order to find the most vulnerable and begin the process of getting them off the streets and connected with the already-existing resources they need. We were taking part in The 100,000 Homes Campaign, a nationwide campaign which "brings together change agents from across the country to find and house 100,000 of the country’s most vulnerable and long-term homeless individuals and families over the next three years." (from their home page)

The zone my team was assigned to cover was one of the least populated areas. While I was disappointed to not have the profoundly moving conversations friends from other teams shared each morning when we all returned to headquarters, one of my teammates kept reminding us that it was a good thing that we weren't tripping over the homeless with every step: it means the community's current programs are already making an impact.

Every morning, however, was filled with heart-breaking stories. The youngest person surveyed was 19-years-old—my age! Of the 131 people surveyed during "Registry Week," 58 had a "high mortality risk." In other words, these are the people the community is going to push to get into housing and medical care right away. The city committed to housing the first 20 right away, and a total of 40 minimum by 31 July 2013, the "deadline" for the 100,000 Homes Campaign. One person has already been housed.

Homelessness, admittedly, was never my "thing" about which to be crazy. It seemed to me just a tragic fact of life: homeless people will always exist. Not only were the homeless "those people" to me, but they were those people whose problems were beyond my ability to help. Worse than blinding myself, I fully accepted that they were there and suffering but decided they just simply weren't worth my time to help. "That's not my ministry."

There was a contagious energy at headquarters each day. I had walked in for the first time Sunday afternoon, vaguely skeptical that much could be done or that this effort would be all that different from any other effort by guilty, privileged, white people trying to act charitable, but I walked out Friday feeling like something was really happening. One person already housed, and all those people involved ready to keep on working to really make something happen. It was like fire, spreading through headquarters and lighting every single person with the drive to make change.

The world has been looking dismal lately. It seems no one is willing to do the frightening work of making the change we so badly need. Our political system is a mess, the economy feels like it might just completely vanish at any moment, and natural disasters seem to be becoming more and more frequent and destructive each day. It's been hard to look at the world and feel like there's any hope.

But there was hope in that room. Not just vague hope or some far-off, sentimental nonsense about "one day," but a very concrete and determined hope that something was happening, right here, right now, and we were going to be the agents of that change. There was contagious, almost desperate energy in that room of catalysts, not mere spectators. We didn't just talk to the homeless or count them; what we were really doing at 4AM was taking the first crucial step in the path to housing: determining the needs of the people. With one person already housed within mere days, I know something is actually happening, and I know I am a part of that.

I am a part of the miracle of the housing of the hundred thousand.

Genesis 5-8: Come out of the Ark

2011-07-23T22:57:00.000-07:00

(Technically, this post also covers the end of Genesis 4, which was left out in the last post.)

Genesis 4:16-26 is the first of what becomes a trend in the Bible to list off detailed genealogies (though usually only sons, thanks to patriarchy). Just wait until we get to Chronicles! Actually, in order to give Noah the proper attention he deserves, I will. As tedious as the genealogies dispersed throughout the Bible may be, I still appreciate them, and I'll explain why when we get to Chronicles.

Genesis 5 starts by reiterating the Genesis 1 concept that Adam, the first human, was created "in the likeness of God," and then extends the idea to human reproduction, as Seth, Adam's new son, is born "in his [Adam's] own likeness, after his image." (5:3) While this could easily lead to thoughts like "descended from the gods," divine right, or many other potentially arrogant ideas, that's not how I read the Bible, nor does the Bible even say that. The Bible, as usual, just isn't an installation manual for your new Christianity software, sorry. Try aisle 9.

What strikes me about this particular verse is the context: this is after the so-called "fall" of humanity, and yet Adam is still described as being made in the likeness of God and, what's more, his son Seth is in Adam's likeness. The divinity is still there; God didn't take it away. For some reason, we can still say, "God dwells in you." In light of Cain's murder of his brother Abel, thanks to this "fall" and the presence of "sin," humanity is still "good," still God's creation.

After more genealogies, tracing from Adam to Noah over many generations (and full of rather long life spans! but more on that when we reach Chronicles), Genesis 6 opens with the heading "The Flood" in my Bible, which, of course, I crossed out and replaced with, "Australia!" in light of the massive floods there earlier this year. I don't know or care if the whole earth was flooded, or even if it rained it all, actually, because the Bible is not a history textbook either. Those are in aisle 3.

The story of The Flood goes a little something like this: people were living lives, the earth was getting populated, and, apparently, humanity had turned to evil. God was pretty upset. Except there was this guy, Noah, who was a pretty all right dude, and God decided that, while God definitely was going to wipe out all the horrible, violent people on the earth with a great flood, Noah ought to build an ark to save himself, his family, and biodiversity. (Dear self-professed "Bible thumpers," please reread Genesis 6: God is very keen on saving all of the animals from extinction. Maybe you should be too.)

The story details the very specific instructions God apparently gave Noah for building this ark, interspersed with things like, "Noah did everything just as God commanded him." (6:22) Genesis 7 is the flood itself, describing with narrative detail the tragic destruction of the Earth. What a scary time to be alive; sometimes, I wonder if I, like Noah, am about to witness the destruction of all that I know. Words like "global warming" and "climate crisis" and "deforestation" are scary; what will become of our earthen home?

Yet Noah follows God. The waters recede, and dry land appears again. (Genesis 8) "Come out of the ark," God says. (7:16, NIV) "As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease." (7:22)

Come out, God says. There is evil, yet there is also good. Even when all of humanity, it seemed, had turned to evil and violence, one good man, Noah, made a difference and saved not only his family, but all of the creatures of the earth from great calamity and natural disaster. And after the rains, after the storms and the floods, the waters recede, and dry land does appear once again.

Noah lived in a frightening time, no doubt. Noah probably looked at "Congress" and thought it looked like a bunch of toddlers throwing tantrums and starting senseless wars, but Noah persevered. Noah had faith and hope and trusted God, trusted the sort of thing that seems crazy to trust, and Noah survived. It doesn't take a literal destruction of the entire earth for this story to have meaning to those of us who fear the flood, who fear the destruction of our world, because it is a story of faith leading one man to do something great, something heroic, and it is the promise that earth, that life itself, will endure no matter what.

Come out, God says. Out of fear, out of despair, out of darkness. Hope! God says. Have faith! Believe that not all is lost, that the storms will end and rainbows will appear. Whatever the storm, no matter how flooded the world around you, the waters will recede, and dry land will appear once again. That is God's promise.

(Amen!)

Genesis 4: Every Man for Himself?

2011-07-21T10:48:00.000-07:00

Toto, I don't think we're in Eden anymore!

Genesis 4, as you may or may not know, is the story of Cain and Abel, another familiar story. Brothers Cain and Abel bring their offerings to God—Cain, the older of the brothers, brings "an offering of the fruit of the ground" (4:3) and Abel brings "of the firstlings of his flock and of their fat portions"—and God, much to Cain's unhappiness, likes Abel's offering but not Cain's. So Cain kills Abel.

There is much that can be debated in this chapter, ranging from God's favourite foods to the importance of family to God's justice to sin and foolishness to—well, you get the point. It is a story with which we are (almost) all at least somewhat familiar, and about which we all seem to have opinions. In these verses is the first real conflict of the good and evil within human nature, the first time we see the results of our new awareness of both good and evil, of our free will.

"If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is couching at the door; its desire is for you, but you must master it," says God. (4:7) We have a choice, God tells us; we always have a choice. The freedom to choose well, to do what is good, is always ours, and yet that freedom, that knowledge of good, lies in tension with sin always crouching at our doors. Knowing goodness means knowing evil. We must be masters of ourselves.

Cain falls prey to sin; he kills his own brother. "Am I my brother's keeper?" he famously says. (4:9) Much less famously, yet just as profoundly, God says, "The voice of your brother's blood is crying to me from the ground." (4:10) Cain, in defense of his jealous hate, says it's "every man for himself"; he is not responsible for his brother. Yet he is wrong.

"The voice of your brother's blood is crying to me from the ground." The very ground, the dirt, the soil itself, cries for justice, cries out against Cain's heartless action. Abel is dead, and yet the world itself speaks, gives voice to his spilled blood. The story of Cain and Abel is, to me, not a warning against a fickle God with particular dietary tastes, but a reminder of how deeply connected we all are to each other and to the earth.

And the justice administered in this story is not "an eye for an eye": Cain cries out, "I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will slay me," (4:14) yet God says no. "'Not so! If any one slays Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold.' And the LORD put a mark on Cain, lest any who came upon him should kill him." (4:15) Rather than add to the bloodshed, God leaves Cain to suffer the guilt, to experience, as Dumbledore might say, "a fate worse than death": he is alone, disconnected, outcast.

Poor Cain. The story of Cain and Abel serves as an example of what we are really choosing when we choose hate, jealousy, and evil. Cain, led by the deceit of sin, chooses to suffer a fate much worse than death. The story says much more about us and sin than it does about whether God likes her steaks rare or well-done; it tells us that sin latches onto our weaknesses, our insecurities, and leads us to harm and to hate. God tells us we must choose, but we really can choose. It is both our freedom and our burden. Genesis 4 asks us to choose love, not hate, to be our brother's keeper, not murderer.

Saved

2011-07-16T08:56:00.000-07:00

In my Evangelical Christian K-8 school, people said things like "born again" a lot. We were supposed to be born again. Once we accepted Jesus, accepted the Bible as a flawless history textbook that needed no interpreting, we would be "born again" and "saved." The idea was tied closely with baptism: when we were baptised, we were supposed to be "born again." Until then though, we were sinners going to hell. If you didn't "have Jesus," you were going to hell, and the only way to "have Jesus" was to be born again.

I was never baptised as a kid. My parents couldn't agree on anything, let alone where and when to get me baptised. If anyone was going to hell because I wasn't baptised, I figured it should be them, not me. I wanted to get baptised, but they just couldn't stop fighting long enough to let me. I liked Jesus, and I was all for having some Jesus in my life, but I wasn't "born again." I never felt like I died and was miraculously resurrected. As the years wore on, I just felt dead.

Little more than a year ago, I went to my first church service in years. It was a strange thing to do. Christianity had choked and strangled me; to walk into a church, any church, felt akin to committing psychological suicide. I don't really know why I went. I said I wanted to get baptised, but it felt more like an inescapable need to reconcile and get over my strong anti-Christian prejudices. I wanted to stop feeling like clawing my eyes out any time someone mentioned anything close to Christianity or even religion in general.

I went to church with tough skin and strong defenses. Months wore on. The next time I actually even went to a Sunday morning service was November. I felt every instinct telling me to run away, to go anywhere but church, every time I dared go to anything related to church, worse yet an actual service. It was a scary place to go because church had a way of reaching in past all of those defenses and ripping out my heart. I hated it for months.

In February, I finally fell apart. My façade of endless strength crumbled away, and I found myself completely defenseless. I felt, more than ever before, like I was dying, like my lungs had turned to fire, like my very soul was being ripped apart. Everything I had run from in my life, everything I had buried deep beneath what I thought were impenetrable defenses, was at once freed to suffocate me, to maim and torture me, to kill me.

I don't think the people who told me I needed to "accept Jesus" would consider this being "saved" or "born again," but that's exactly what it feels like. I died long before I walked into church last summer. I died when the teachings of my school first taught me that I was hopeless with God and then taught me that God didn't want anything to do with me. I was unbaptised, too stupid, too lazy, un-Christian, sinful, not girly enough, not man enough, gay, not a Bush supporter, different. I died hopeless. Jesus wouldn't save me.

Jesus didn't save me. Church didn't save me. Being strong didn't save me. Life was not found in any magic solution or fairy tale. Life was found in the face of death, in the face of my own fears and insecurities which sought to destroy me. Life was found when my new community gave me the courage to foolishly face death armed only with hope. Life was found in my own resurrection, my own liberation from fear and death. Jesus didn't save me: he never swooped down out of the sky, never gave me a shield to defend myself, a sword to fight back, nor even the hope that help really would come. It was what Jesus represents that saved me: faith, hope, courage, compassion, freedom, justice, and love. It was the Jesus within the people who surrounded me as I crumbled, the grace and mercy they showed me even at my ugliest, that saved me.

So thank you.

Dreams

2011-07-12T09:37:00.000-07:00

My favourite dreams are not the ones I remember, nor are they the ones I forget. The dreams I remember are detailed and complex, full of information and mystery; the dreams I forget are lost to me.

I like remembering my dreams. I try to keep paper and writing utensil near me whenever I sleep, so that when I wake up, I can capture the dream on paper before it disappears and fades from reach. If I do not hurriedly pour out the dream onto paper, it vanishes, leaving only the lingering taste of it on my memory, though none of it remains.

These dreams have meaning, have mystery. I desperately cling to the details, even as they fall though my fingertips like sand, because something can be learned from them. This is my subconscious speaking, desperately trying to reach through to consciousness with its knowledge and wisdom. Sometimes, all is lost, but sometimes, I gleam one grain of understanding, one tiny new insight into who I am and how I relate to the world.

The dreams I forget are dreams I never even knew existed, but for the knowledge that I, like all humans, dream. I awake from these unaware that my mind has been in never-ending motion whilst my body savoured its much needed rest. The dreams I forget are a kindness: though my subconscious has spent the night wrestling with my fears and anxieties, my hopes and dreams, my conscious remains untroubled, unconcerned by this exhaustive work. The dreams I forget are the gift of ignorance, for some things I simply do not need to know.

My favourite dreams, however, are neither remembered nor forgotten. My favourite dreams have no plot, no story, no details to be recalled, and yet they are not lost or forgotten. They cannot disappear for they do not appear. My favourite dreams are a feeling, a powerful wave of something indescribable which consumes me and fills me up as I slumber, dreams which, when I awake, remain just as present. They become my day dreams.

I awoke to find myself lost in the embrace of my favourite kind of dream this morning. I awoke in peace, without the worry of trying to capture mist in my hands or the lonely silence of already forgotten dreams. I awoke unafraid, untroubled, and yet not ignorant. I understood the dream: I dreamt of nothing but of peaceful rest, of safety, of liberty. My subconscious gave no warnings nor shielding from its labour: with full honesty, my subconscious spoke only of peace.

A Story about Stories

2011-07-09T12:35:00.000-07:00

Have you ever struggled to explain how something feels? Like when there are just too many different things going on that you just can't find the right words to explain it? And then, finally, it hits you: this is exactly like that one scene in that movie, that book, that song, that TV show, that poem, that story! You feel just like that one character must have felt! . . . But the person you're trying to explain it to never saw that movie, read that book, played that game, heard that song, learned that story. If only they understood that character! Then you wouldn't have to struggle to explain how it feels.

I think this happens much more today than must have happened in "the olden days," when stories were all shared by oral tradition and carefully passed down to the next generation. Communities were smaller and all had the same stories, so you could expect that whoever you talked to would understand a reference to any of your shared, cultural stories. It gave you a shared language beyond just words, a way of communicating without needing to be perfectly articulate.

In our global society, it seems increasingly impossible to find anyone who knows all of the same stories you do. And I don't mean facts or historical events, but the spirit of stories, the soul of them. We all know the Holocaust was a horrible point in our history. We pass the story down through our education system which teaches kids things like which country fought on which side, but the story of Anne Frank gives us something much deeper than just facts, figures, and death tolls. It is only through the story of individuals whose lives were deeply affected by WWII that we understand the horror of the Holocaust. Anne Frank gives us a way for our hearts, our guts, our very cores, to comprehend the tragedy in ways that history books never will.

As a young child, I had a book full of Bible stories told in ways that were accessible to a young child. It wasn't literal, but it made me fall in love with the Bible. Not because it explained theology perfectly or articulated the dogma and doctrine of the church flawlessly, but because it gave me stories and culture. It gave me a shared language beyond just words, a way of communicating without needing to be perfectly articulate.

I think the point was to make me believe the stories to be perfectly factual, a sort of history lesson, but that's not what I got at all. It didn't matter whether any of the people I read about really lived; what mattered was that, suddenly, I could relate to people, I could connect. If Anne Frank wasn't "real," would mean that no one had ever lived through something like what she lived through? Of course not.

I am well aware that Harry Potter is not a factual story, but it is not the facts that inspire me or give me strength and courage, just as no historical fact in the Bible or The Diary of Anne Frank has ever inspired me or given me strength and courage. It is the stories and the human experience that they articulate that fills my soul, that helps me connect to, understand, and explain the complexities of our confusing world.

I found myself trying to explain how something felt very recently, and it occurred to me how much being a part of a very specific community has helped me feel a little less hopelessly desperate to explain the things I just cannot. My community happens to be a church (though we've been accused of being nothing of the sort over the years, most recently after reading from the Qur'an [in both English and Arabic] and having Dr. Maher Hathout preach from our pulpit on a Sunday morning for Faith Shared), but what we share is not so much beliefs but stories, both the stories of our shared Biblical text and of our community's shared history.

Whether it is Jesus overturning the tables in the temple or our previous rector overturning tables in the greater Christian community when he blessed the union of two people of the same sex for the first time in our church nearly 20 years ago, the Saturday after I was born, or Moses asking, "Who am I?" when called to the unfathomable purpose of leading the Israelites out of Egypt, I am surrounded in rich stories, not just facts, dogmas, or "souls saved" quotas.

It's so much easier to deal with struggle when you have such rich, shared stories with which to connect.

The Ladybug

2011-07-06T19:54:00.000-07:00

Today, I watched a ladybug die. I simply watched, unable to do anything to help it. At last, it was very clearly dead and very clearly in the middle of a walkway. I realised that it would soon be stepped on and crushed. The moment this realisation struck me, I was overcome with an outgrown instinct from my childhood: I wanted to give it a proper burial.

Taking great care not to cause any damage to its body, I picked it up and stared down at the lifeless creature in my hands. What I saw was not a bug, but, strangely, a friend, a loved one. It was a strange feeling to look down at something smaller than the nail on my pinky finger and realise it was a part of me.

I buried it in the small area of earth, woodchips, and plants that fill the small garden area just outside of the main office of my church (where the ladybug died). I dug a small grave, laid the ladybug in it with its feet beneath it, and whispered a prayer that came from somewhere beyond me or somewhere deep within me, perhaps both.

It wasn't until after I had finished the burial and finished my hushed prayers for the ladybug and for the world that it occurred to me how strange what I had just done was. It was something I had done many times as a child, unknowingly acting as a priest at the funeral of nature's tiniest creatures, but had stopped doing when I grew "too old" to do something so childish.

Yet, somehow, in the act of whispering prayers over the grave of this tiny creature, my soul felt no longer young, but old. My prayers over the lifeless ladybug, I realised, were also prayers over the lifeless friend whose death I was grieving. It was not, as I had suspected, naïvety nor innocence which compelled me to pay respects to the life of a ladybug, but a very real understanding that life, whether that of a ladybug or a human being, is sacred. I understood this as a child when I performed burials for the creatures that died and when I carefully extracted spiders and all manner of bugs from my shower before turning on the water that I knew would drown them.

In growing older, I forgot how sacred life is. Age, it seems, stole my childhood wisdom. And yet, age, it also seems, allows me to still find childhood wisdom again, even when I seem to have lost it completely, and grants the opportunity to learn new wisdom too. Age is a funny thing, often deluding us into the idea that we are too old for some wisdom and yet too young for others.

Blesséd be you, dearest lady bug, creature of the earth and of God.
Let your spirit be freed now and let it bring nourishment to the Spirit of the world.
From earth sprang you, ladybug, to fly through the mysterious air and walk the unknown surfaces of leaves, and to earth now you return, to give wisdom and nourishment to that which gave you life.
May your body peacefully return whence it came and let it bring nutrients to this earth in which it now rests.
May you have peace, now and forever more, that those who still breathe too may one day return to the earth and to God in peace.
Amen.

(Definitely not the verbatim prayer I gave earlier today; I could only remember the spirit of my child-like whispers, not the actual words.)

Marriage in New York: A Sobering Moment

2011-06-25T00:40:00.000-07:00

New York passed a bill making what some people are calling "gay marriage" legal. "Historic" is the word I'm hearing (well, reading) everywhere. It's a "historic" bill. My Facebook newsfeed was flooded earlier with all sorts of joy and elation and celebrating. I imagine, had I been in the same room as those joyous Facebookers, I would have seen people leaping for joy, heard their cheers, maybe been hugged excitedly.

So I found it incredibly strange, at first, to find that I wasn't really all that excited. It didn't feel particularly historic. It just felt . . . like old news, I suppose.

I'm spoiled. I don't even know what "gay marriage" is. Isn't that just redundant? Merry marriage? Why would anyone want a marriage that wasn't gay, wasn't happy and merry? I mean, I get it: "gay marriage" is supposed to mean "marriage between two people who have the same reproductive organs" or something like that. But really? Marriage is about reproductive organs? You have to reproduce? Well, there goes my wedding. You know, the one that's not going to result in reproduction.

I always knew that, if I decided to have kids, I would most certainly adopt. There was a very short period of time during which the horror of denying the human species the continuation of my wonderful genetics made me reconsider, but Dumbledore had some powerful things to say about that like: "[I]t matters not what someone is born, but what they grow to be." So much for my genes.

It seems so strange to me that there are so very many people who understand marriage as dependent upon the reproductive organs of the two people getting married. "Really?" I find myself asking. Not an angry or impatient "Really?" though, but a sad, somber "Really?"

I feel sorry for the people who opposed this bill. Maybe that sounds condescending; I don't mean it to sound such. I truly feel sorry, because opposition to this bill is based out of fear. Real fear. It doesn't matter what you're afraid of, fear is fear. It is a powerful, consuming, and painful feeling. It grabs hold of your mind and takes away your ability to reason or, worse, to empathise. I am very afraid of fear, of the power it can wield, of falling prey to fear.

At first, I was vaguely happy about the bill passing, but as I struggled to understand why this should even be a news story at all—after all, I always understood marriage to be completely independent of reproductive organs, so making it law wasn't particular exciting—I found myself sobered by the reality that not only is this struggle not over for those working for full equality, but that this is a painful and frightening time for those on both sides. I cannot imagine being on "the other side" right now. It must be scary. So I hope I can find the empathy necessary to get over my own fear of "the other side" and instead reach out in love and patience to help both "sides" find more peace and less fear.

Little Miss Real Adult

2011-05-23T13:33:00.000-07:00

It is Monday afternoon, and I have come to a conclusion. A few conclusions, actually. I've been in the middle of a sort of job crisis recently, as plenty of other people all over have. My crisis is a little different than a complete inability to find any job though.

See, I was hired as a canvasser not too long ago, and I was on track to getting promoted to leading other canvassers once I got familiar enough with canvassing myself. It didn't pay huge amounts, but it was better than minimum wage, actually. And, more importantly, the work I was doing was in the name of progressive organisations I liked. It had all the markings of the perfect job.

I hated it.

I've been trying to figure out why I hated it so much, all the while applying to jobs I thought I might enjoy more. It was far, so I applied for jobs in my own city. I worked long hours (13 hour days, with commute time), so I applied for jobs with shorter, reasonable shifts. It was impersonal, so I applied for jobs where I'd actually know my employer. And yet none of the jobs I applied for felt right either.

The voice in the back of my head had an answer I did not like.

I have an almost murderous desire to be "grown up." I always have. I have always wanted to be what my peers have all called "old." I called it wise. I wanted to be a real adult. I still do. And part of being a real adult is having a real job. Or so I've been told. About five million times.

The thing is, I'm wrong. What you do does not define who you are. Even if I had a "real" job, it wouldn't make me any more grown up. Working as a canvasser didn't make me any more grown up than being unemployed did. In fact, it just made me cranky, irritable, and immature. I have been beating myself up and trying to squeeze myself into the societal mold of "real adult" when I just don't fit. Amidst all of my own self-accusations of laziness and immaturity, all my attempts at "fitting in" have only pushed me backwards in maturity, not forward.

I am a self-employed, freelance sort of person. Maturity means recognising and accepting myself for who I am, not forcing myself into who I am not. Maturity also means doing something about it though too. Self-employed, freelance sort of people still have to work in order to be real adults. Maybe even a little harder. (Though non-"freelance" work feels infinitely harder to me.)

So here's my new plan, my new conclusion: instead of trying to find a job at a McDonald's sort of place, it's time for me to find ways to put my creative talents to use . . . creatively. Step one, advertise. Tell people. Reach out. So, besides using Craigslist to advertise things like piano/theatre lessons and dog walking, I am resolving to mention at least one "service" I offer at least once a week. Once on here, once on Facebook, once in a real conversation.

Dear blog readers, I can proofread for spelling and grammar issues.

Update

2011-05-19T22:32:00.000-07:00

I'm behind on my posting. I know, I know. I've been a bit busy this week and am bracing myself for a horrendously busy weekend, so bear with me. I should have something up either Monday or Tuesday.

That's So Gay

2011-05-17T09:17:00.000-07:00

Today is International Day against Homophobia and Transphobia. There's a lot you could do today, but the simplest would be to watch what you say. We (myself included) don't even notice the things we say sometimes or realise how they might be hurtful to others. The NBA's Phoenix Suns, GLSEN (Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network), and Ad Council recently teamed up to make this PSA which first aired during the Chicago-Miami game Sunday night:

There's also a petition on the International Day against Homophobia and Transphobia website (along with other opportunities and information regarding the fight against homophobia and transphobia) which is aimed specifically at "reparative therapy" in Latin America and the Caribbean. The petition has the support of organisations, institutions, and public persons from the area already, so it's not just another example of Americans sticking their nose in places without permission. There's a section for adding your own comment, and this is what I said:

As a survivor of "reparative therapy," I have personally experienced the feelings of guilt, shame, and self-loathing that result from such destructive "therapy"; I attempted to take my own life as a result of those feelings. "Reparative therapy" did not "repair" me in any way, but broke my spirit and destroyed my sense of self-worth. Only the voices of support, of people who have stood up fearlessly in the defense of "reparative therapy" victims and in the defense of the outcast and the oppressed, have provided true "repair" to my spirit and my self-worth. I urge everyone to raise their voice in support, to defend the dignity of every human being, and to bring an end to these destructive, so-called "reparative therapy" practices.

I urge you also to do whatever you can, no matter how big or small of an action, to stand up against homophobia and transphobia. It is the small acts of love and kindness which make the biggest difference, so please, take a moment today (and every day!) to spread a little more love and a little less hate, judgement, and intolerance. We'll make the world a much better place that way.

Genesis 3: Adam Goes to College

2011-05-16T09:27:00.000-07:00

At the beginning of Genesis 3, my NIV Bible has the subtitle "The Fall of Man" which I crossed out and wrote, "Man grows up, goes to college, makes mistakes, LEARNS, GROWS—no longer under parents' protection." I'll admit that the NIV has a much catchier title than I do, but it's a misleading title.

Everyone knows this story (or almost everyone). God says don't eat from this tree, the snake convinces Eve to eat from the tree, she eats and shares with Adam, and then they realise they're naked and hide from God. So God kicks them out of Eden. This story is the basis of all kinds of theologies and ideologies I don't subscribe to which say that humans are inherently evil/sinful/bad. If you've been following my blog much, you might have already picked up on how very much I disagree: I believe humans are inherently good-seeking. This story is just as much a "crucial point" in the story of humanity though, even when not read as the moment when we condemned ourselves to hell. So here's what I'm reading:

Just before Genesis 3, we read: "And the man and his wife were both naked, and were not ashamed." (Genesis 2:25, RSV) Ignorance is bliss, isn't it? Adam and Eve are two young people, living a pretty easy life with everything given to them by their parents (God), and they don't have to worry about anything, not even their own nakedness. The relationship they have with God is that of a very young child and their parents: do what you're told, and your parents will take care of you. God is a pretty liberal parent, giving Adam and Eve only one rule: "You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die." (Genesis 2:16-17) And it sounds reasonable, right? Probably just a poisonous fruit.

But along comes the snake who tells Eve that not only will it not kill her, but it'll actually make her smarter, wiser, and like God. What kid doesn't dream of being like their parent when they grow up? So she and Adam eat, and their eyes are opened. Adam and Eve eat some magical knowledge-granting fruit, and all of a sudden they realise they're naked—ignorant. No longer are they little kids, and yet they're naked. Instead of instant wisdom, what Adam and Eve get is the realisation that, holy crap, they don't know anything. Along comes God, and they do what any human would do if they were naked: they hide.

So after God finds out what happened, God declares some frightening punishments on Adam, Eve, and the serpent which seem to be coming from a wrathful God, but what I read looks a lot more like God explaining the rules of the game to new players. Adam and Eve decide to leave behind blissful ignorance and the protection of home in favour of labouring for knowledge and the struggle for wisdom. God can't magically hand wisdom to them, since it's not a tangible gift, so God tells them the truth about what what lies ahead: it's going to suck. It's going to be hard. They're going to groan and cry out. But there's no going back. And the snake, the catalyst? Adam and Eve are going to hate that jerk forever; they're going to hold a grudge.

It's part tribal explanation for why they hated snakes so damn much, part thought-provoking allegory. Here, the Bible challenges us to question our relationship with God. We don't have the "pre-Fall" relationship with God anymore, but wisdom didn't just fall out of the tree either. We're in that tough, awkward phase of our relationship with God between blissful youth and "real" adulthood. There is a Mark Twain quote (which varies depending on the source) which humourously describes this change in the relationship of child and parent nicely: "When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years."

Just before sending Adam and Eve out of the garden, God makes them some clothes ("garments of skin"). Even in this moment that is so often referenced as the moment in which God turns from a loving God into a God who is disgusted by us, reviled by us, even hateful of us, God has not abandoned us.

This story isn't perfect. God didn't write it down for us, and even if God did, we still wouldn't magically understand. And that's the whole point here. The Israelites who kept this story in their oral tradition, and then at last wrote it down didn't understand everything either. Adam and Eve started the journey, and it is far from over. We're still learning, still journeying. In this ancient story, the Israelites tell of humans just like them who chose the pursuit of knowledge and wisdom over blissful ignorance. Adam and Eve chose to develop a conscious of their own and think for themselves rather than assume that what they were taught is right. In Genesis 3, moral conscious is born and we become a little more "like God" and a little less like animals. We become aware of our own foolishness and mortality and of the difference between good and evil. What we do with that knowledge is now up to us. God gives us clothes, but this is our journey. God will provide us with the tools we need, but it is our job to make use of what God offers, now that we have left the blissful ignorance of Eden.