devotioning while...drunk?

so i'm reading today's devotional; it's about the miracle of the fishes and loaves. the devotional is put-putting along in standard fashion and then, this:

"The second part confuses me. It says that Christ blessed the food and broke it and set it down before the four thousand people, yet it doesn’t say how God multiplied the food. All Mark wrote down was that they were satisfied. After thinking, I came up with two answers. Either it was a miracle that God created more food, or, since they began with seven loaves and seven baskets remained at the end, then all that God did was make the crowd feel full without eating. When I thought about this I thought, “Why would Jesus require the disciples to go in search of bread if he knew that God’s miracle would make the people full?” I thought that maybe this was a test for the disciples. How far would they go to help Jesus?"

the tone was so bizarre, i thought, 'Hm. How refreshing (er, strange) to have a devotional that's totally up front with being confused. And what an...interesting (er, weird) way of entering the scripture.'

but then i kept reading and came to this part:

"Believe it or not, I had a lot more ideas about this passage that confused me and probably have confused some other people, too. Perhaps the Bible is supposed to confuse us and not be so descriptive in all the things that it says. If it were clear, then there wouldn’t be any good sermons in the churches."

OK, i thought, which of our pastoral staff submitted a drunk devotional?? (and i will admit i totally thought it was my friend, CM. the devotional was too weird to be american. it had to be the product of some bizarro european.)

but, no.

our candid and thoughtful devotional was written by ...
(wait for it)

a seventh grader.

he fed them first; then he ministered

I'm about to get wonky on you. Get ready. Bear down.
The point of this post isn’t to make us feel guilty for being well off or comfortable; I’m proud of what I’ve earned and accomplished. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

But I’d like us to start realizing what it’s like for people on the other side of the street. And if poverty is a complex social issue, which it is, then why are we willing to fob off uncomplicated and superficial remedies (like marriage policies, like bashing immigrants, like trickle down economics and tax breaks for the rich)?

Note: Most of the numbers mentioned in this post are from a report that can be downloaded from here.

What's poverty?
There are actually four kinds of poverty, based on our federal index which is based on what a family would need annually to earn to feed them (no, it's not a perfect measure, but it's the way we measure poverty now. If you want to read more about how the index is measured and critiques of how it's measured, go here:

Here's our federal poverty level index for 2006:
Family size - 2006 poverty guidelines:
1 - $ 9,800
2 - 13,200
3 - 16,600
4 - 20,000
5 - 23,400
6 - 26,800
7 - 30,200
8 - 33,600

You are Income Poor if you fall within the parameters of the FPL
You are in Deep or Extreme Poverty if you live at or below 50% of the FPL
You are Low-Income or Near Poor if you live at or below 200% of FPL and have trouble meeting your basic needs because of rising costs (child care, housing/rent, health insurance - if you have this at all.)
A household is Asset Poor if it doesn’t have enough net worth to live at the poverty level for 3 months - if you experience one significant life event (medical crisis, job loss or divorce) you can end up homeless or go straight into Poverty.

(While this index is based on food cost, which probably needs to be changed, here's what the index doesn't include: cost of transportation/commute to work, cost of child care, cost of utilities, or the rising cost of housing. Factor those costs and the number of those who qualify as poor would probably increase rather than decrease.)

Who’s poor?
You might be poor if you are old; nearly half of IL seniors would be in poverty if not for Social Security benefits; Social Security benefits are primary source of income for two-thirds of IL seniors; 70% of senior women living alone live near poverty. Senior men had a median income of $20,363 in 2003 and senior women had a median income of $11,845.
(Dude. Who can live on that??)

You might be poor if you are a child; 37.2% of children lived in low-income families in 2004; 15% of children in IL lived in houses where the head of household didn’t finish high school (an indicator of poverty); 11% lived in crowded housing.

You might be poor if you are disabled; in IL the monthly SSI payment is $564 (the national average is $617.02); a disabled person would have to spend more than ALL of their SSI income to rent a one-bedroom apartment.

You might be poor if you are a woman; IL women have higher poverty rates than men; 13.3% were living in poverty compared to 11.5% men in 2004; 31.4% lived in near poverty compared to 26.7% of men; compound that with the worst gender wage inequity of the 5 most populous states and you have women working their asses off for not a whole lot in return. Most single heads of households in the state are women.

You might be poor if you are Black or Latino: nearly 30% of the black population in IL lives under the FPL; 16% of the Latino population in IL lives in poverty.

Maybe most of us think of the victims of Hurricane Katrina when we try to envision who’s poor – they were visibly destitute, almost sharecropper poor. But that’s just one face of poverty; not the only face.
I argue that the more quotidian face of poverty is probably the face of someone you already see: the woman who provides you with childcare; your company’s receptionist or assistant; the security guard in the lobby of your building; the woman who checks out your groceries.

You might not be poor if 4 crucial areas of your life’s needs are stable:
Economic well-being. Are you earning a living where all your basic needs can be met? Can you live on your wage? Do you have a ‘cushion’ of some sort?
Health Insurance. Does your employer provide them? Are you relatively confident you won’t have to lose your house if your appendix bursts?
Housing Affordability. Can you pay your rent or mortgage easily and without much stress? Can you afford to live where you live? Have you never had to choose between food or rent?
Education. Do you have a college degree? Do you have a professional degree? Have you graduated from high school? Are most of your friends and neighbors literate?

Before indulging in a superficial discussion of poverty ('poor people suck!'/'poor people are saints!') I think it's important to dispel a couple of assumptions:
* poor people are lazy welfare queens who don't work and
* poverty is about bad financial planning

Poverty is about a maelstrom of bad breaks: illiteracy, generational poverty, economic downturns, cuts in social services, no education, rising costs in the standard of living; lowering wage values, no access to health care. Access to work. In Illinois, one quarter of our work force lives below the federally defined 'poverty line.' These are people (most of them single moms) who work full time jobs; they work 40 hours/week just like you and I work. And yet, they're poor. And these are people who, every day, make crucial financial planning decisions – the thing is, they’re making these decisions with less money than you or I can even think of using to even live.

I was at a retreat for an organization for whom I sit on the Board and a woman made the point that, for most of us, we think of low wages as entry-level wages; we think "Oh, I made 28k when I was out of school for my first job! That's totally livable!" But for many of the working poor, 28k is not entry level. That's a life wage. That's a wage that won't change. Ever. No bonus. No signing bonus. No relocation bonus. No holiday bonus. Through children, illness, divorce, and death - that wage won't change.

Think $30k goes a long way? I earn a little over that amount in my new non profit gig. But I don’t have children, I have health insurance, an education and my rent kicks ass. (And I have a roommate who makes triple what I make and is willing to buy me a beer or a movie once in a while.)

But how far does that $30k go for a family of 4?
Or, maybe it’s $25k.
Or, maybe it’s $19k.
If you made $19k/year and had to support a family of four (or even three), what kinds of decisions would you make?

These?

Yeah, Jesus said the poor will always be with us.
But that doesn’t mean their lives have to suck.

a modest proposal

why should churches be tax exempt anyway?
they provide services that people pay for, they take in income/revenue, some even have revenues into the milions, some have for-profit ventures, more than some are overtly capitalist in ideology and mission.

so why the tax protection? if we're all going to use our churches as marketplaces and political arenas, then why not strip off the mask and go whole hog?

Pastors' Get-Out-the-Vote Training Could Test Tax Rules - New York Times

i just deleted a comment in one of the posts below.
it pissed me off and then, after i had done it, i felt bad that i had broken some sacrosanct blogging 'rule': all comments are equal and must stand.

well, no. all comments aren't equal and comments that make me lose my temper and say something inappropriate get deleted.

blogging is like hosting a cocktail party; some guests have better manners than others. i am the hostess; this is my home. please disagree with me (jesus chick almost always does) but check the rudeness at the door or i'll have to get your coat and escort you out.

there. the hostess feels better now.

it's your fault: housing

thanks to Anonymous who gives me the perfect frame to start discussing economic empowerment and poverty issues here for a bit: It's Your Fault.

so, to kick us off, let's read about how It's Your Fault if you don't have affordable housing.

the mrs. apostle paul

i wonder what paul's wife did when he was away.

i wonder what she was thinking when, one day, after a few good months (or years) hunting down these new jesus people, her husband comes home and says, 'Don't call me Saul. I'm Paul and, by the way, I'm going to be leaving for a while. Some guy in another town is going to teach me some things. And hey! I used to be blind besause this big light thing happened and now I'm not blind, and oh, this is so cool. I wish I could tell you, but I can't. I'll be in touch.' and then he takes his cloak, his tent making tools, shuts the door behind him and goes away.

i wonder what happened to her. did she follow him? i can't recall any mention of her being with him. if she did follow him - fellowship to fellowship, town to town - i wonder what she thought. i wonder if she thought, 'you know, i never liked our old neighborhood anyway. now i get to see the world and take notes for Saul, i mean Paul, all the time. i don't have to sit in the back anymore. i just have to sit quietly. shhh.' i wonder if she thought that.

or i wonder if she thought, 'this sucks.'

there once was a boy from seattle...

over at JP's place, he's throwing a little bit of a limerick carnival. thanks to various links, his quiet blog is hopping with limerick-y genius (including yours truly). go visit and leave one of your own.
it's addictive.

here's a sample:

You Don't Know Nothing About It
by John Patrick

I'm not as dumb as you wish
Thought Alma while drying a dish
Left a note in your gear
But when Jack Nasty's near...
Ha! You don't go up there to fish.

harridans

the 10th carnival of feminists is up!
happy reading while i try to rid myself of all this phlegm.

indianwriting: Carnival of Feminists - No 10

i'm hacking up a lung at work so be miserable with me

a message from ding to all the children in middle america who think tweaking is fun: for god's sake, don't do drugs.

i wonder if it's meth that's doing all this damage or if the damage is the result of some attendant behavior while on meth.

Partnership for a Drug-Free America Faces of Meth

nope. no poverty post, yet.

i'm scrambling to get out of town to see my sister and dad (ha! my flight leaves so early on sunday i'll have to skip church services) and i'll just have to wait until i'm in los angeles. it'll be perfect, actually.

staying with my sister in sanitary santa monica will piss me off so much, haranguing against a culture of consumption and classism will be no problem.

why i love my friend jp: he's down with the poor

you don't have to read: You'll Have To Arrest Me.

moving away from the abortion posts for a while, i'll start writing on poverty and class.

let's see how many christian conservatives ream me on that.
or is sex the only issue they get upset about?

a little levity

so, before Anonymous down there finishes his sushi and then decides that God told him to track me down and stone me for being an apostate, here's a gem:

The Brick Testament

i love how he gets the battle scenes just right. the circumcision story in joshua is a hoot. really.

but even better? paul's instructions to women (in lego).

why am i feminist? this is why:

Chicago Tribune Alleged rape victim threatened with jail

so. though she's been cross examined already and has testified she has no recollection of consenting to sex with this group of men, she's basically going to be thrown in jail if she doesn't watch a videotape of her own rape.

before you write me and say something really idiotic, ask yourself this: if she was your 20 year old daughter, would you want her to watch a tape of her rape?

if you're as pissed off about this dehumanization of a woman as i am, contact the men who should know better here:

call the judge: Judge Kerry M. Kennedy at 708-974-6759
call the presiding judge: Judge Anthony S. Montelione at 708-974-6288
call the chief judge: Judge Timothy C. Evans at 312-603-6000

[update: within minutes of me posting this, the Trib updated the story - the judge backed down.]

it's official: women aren't people

echidne, a favorite blogger of mine, has a nice rundown of the anti-abortion law going down in south dakota as well as links to other writers who've been on this story all along.

ECHIDNE OF THE SNAKES

i especially like the analysis at lawyers, guns and money .

this south dakota law is huge. it skirts chipping away at reproductive rights and goes for the whole enchilada - women, no matter the situation or medical context, won't be able to have access to abortion and doctors who perform abortions are criminally responsible - not women, which is an illogical and disingenuous move on their part.

i have to hand it to the opposition - when they decide to move, they really haul ass. i thought we'd have a few years for this fight, but it seems they're emboldened by roberts and alito on the bench. the way things are going (and i've said it before) birth control access is going to be the next reproductive issue to be narrowly defined and then toppled. check out the naral map to see what anti-reproductive freedom bills are wending their stealthy courses through your legislatures.

where are we going to stand, women? if we're okay with one state, or a few states, to put unconstitutional bans on abortion on the books, thus establishing test cases for the supreme court to decide, then what are we NOT okay with?

and how about it, guys in the democratic party? still waffling that reproductive rights is a 'niche' 'womens' issue and not so important as, say, the shrinking middle class or the economy? still feeling this is something that's going to scare the poor wittle moderates? still thinking that winning in 2008 is more important than what strange men are deciding NOW about your girlfriend or wife's uterus? still thinking feminists are shrill and humorless and hysterical about concentrating on reproductive issues and not our silly war on terror?

for many of us, this is terror. it is a war waged on the landscapes of our bodies. and i'm wondering why there's not a whole lot more of us getting angry about it.

so every so often i go on technorati just to see who links here (big wave to all 18 of y'all!) and in my vanity trolling i stumbled across this french anti-feminist men's rights site! they linked to me! somewhere! once!

how funny is that?!
i have to go to bed but i can't stop giggling.

a scary article

Jesus Plus Nothing (Harpers.org)

thanks to the commenter down below about this Harper's article. this is what alarms me: the conflation of worldly and spiritual 'power.' the masculinist vision of faith and faithful practice.

it also alarms me because it reminds me of the Omen. remember that movie? little damien being ushered through the halls of power, protected, perfect and ultimately powerful. how creepy is that? a group of christian politicians and captains of industry living for a spiritual war in which christ's power would be established on earth.

i don't recall that ever happening. but, whatever.
you need to read this article and ask how this jibes with faithful living.

Sola Scriptura? Not here.

A few times here I've said either that I'm not going to debate scripture or that I want people's arguments to be about more than scripture. Here's why: too often, scripture is used by us church folk as short hand for an idea rather than allowing the idea itself to stand alone.

We hide behind scripture to cover our ass. And since I believe we should all be moving targets, let's at least try for some ideological integrity.

For instance, when I wrote about gay rights a year ago, a reader immediately gave me a whole chapter from the new testament rather than try and explain how denying life insurance benefits for a domestic partner is a christian act.

Whole quotes from scripture don't tell me anything except you sure do know how to quote from the Bible. I want to know about your ideas. Ideas are the foundation for conversation and I can't keep having one-sided conversations. It gets boring. And whole passages of the Bible as a response to a question make me think that someone's not thinking as sharply as one might.

And besides, this isn't seminary debate team!!

When I used to teach I would say to students that if they had ideas about Shakespeare, they couldn't just say 'Hamlet is about incest' and then just pull a quote about Hamlet and Gertrude and stick it in the paper. They had to argue for it - build a thesis.

I already know what Jesus says. I want to know what you think.

one for the fundies: tell me how your theocracy works

i hate to flog a dead horse but it seems that i can't assert enough that it is NOT hyprocrisy to be a Christian AND think that a faith-based government is bullshit.

(shout out to Anonymous down there)

to argue avidly for a pluralistic society is not an anti-God argument (not that i think God cares, anyway.) it's a civic argument. you cannot have a pluralistic society based on christian law (whatever that is.) and FOR ONCE i'm begging anyone who thinks that we can to really really really lay it out for me.

tell me how you think a theocratic government would work here.

and don't cop out by spouting scripture - that's rhetorically lazy!
think it through and ARGUE for it.

workaholic

i've been working waay too hard. i totally need a break. so i bought a plane ticket to LA today and i'll have my first mini-vacation in over a year.

i always have grand plans when i fly back west.
not this time. i just want to relax and not have to answer a phone or read research reports or go to meetings or plan advocacy strategy.

i want to get a manicure, have coffee with my dad, catch up with my sister and sit in a cafe and read for a very long time. LONG TIME.

(i'm bad.)

[i was going to let my post below stand up here alone for a little bit. i rather like it. but then Bad Christian found this poor guy's page and it just seemed to personify everything i was saying about obedience, conformity, and the jesus-mask. i'm sure he's a nice guy - he's soooper obedient - but he seems to want to be amish.

you have to follow brandon's link. you must. and, for the record, the christian mingle website he mentions? i totally put an ad on there and got skeeved out!!]

a badchristian blog � the definition of TMI

whither obedience?

today was a full sunday.
church services, communion, church tour, bookstore, downtown wandering and the superbowl.
(damn you, pittsburgh 'stealers', damn you! you know that ball never made it across the line!)

after my pitiful whining about being obedient my dad sent me an email telling me the tension i'm feeling is my fighting against my need to be obedient. i can live with that but obedient in what context, exactly?

to rules of behavior?
to christian groupthink?

i think of that anonymous commenter in the 'choice' post below. (the one i called a self-righteous pharisee. sigh. that was harsh. damn my quick temper.) the way they went immediately from a thinly veiled ad hominem attack (i'm selfish) to a blurt of scripture to take away the sting. i bet whoever that commenter is, they're super obedient. they don't make mistakes, they do all the right things, they say only what's backed up by scripture, and they like the apostle paul best out of all the bible guys.

i don't want to be that kind of obedient christian. that kind of obedience reminds me of all the guys on those christian dating sites: they wore the jesus-mask and they all seemed ...odd. yes, the way is narrow but why is it the only models of christianity that we see (even here) are either the rigid, legalistic puritanical freak who seems to want to put everyone in jail or the flaccid, 'let everything hang out' hippie who thinks we should all give hamas a shout out?

a while ago, a guy told me that i didn't like church guys because, well, i wasn't a christian. i laughed. who else but a christian would be so concerned about not fitting in with the christian flock? (you think any old wanker would care? please.) but if christianity means conformity about *everything* then i'm at a loss. because, to me, that's what obedience means. to conform. it means the effing 'scarlet letter' and dimmsdale!

where is our identity as believers supposed to come from? our knowledge of the Word or...what? how well we adhere to correct forms of behavior? how well we hate the things we're supposed to hate? how well we...what? what is it? if paul can say that to the weak he became weak, to the gentile he became a gentile and to the jew a jew, then what's so horrific about saying, as a christian, that to the gay person i became their advocate; to the woman who's facing an intimate, personal choice, i will be that person who lets her make that intimate choice - how is that so disobedient?

[ha. you thought i didn't have a point and i did!]

this just in: bush speechwriter on drugs

by now you've heard about our president's vow to protect us from an imminent manimal threat.
(and if you haven't heard about this, good on you. you've successfully avoided exposure to our president's asshattery and for that you should be proud.)

michael berube has his own special, harry potter-inflected take on our nation's avowed vow to keep the species separate here.

(it's worth it for the roger daltrey pic alone.)

to obey is better than sacrifice

i remember those words most clearly from a keith green song. i know they're from the bible but i remember the keith green lyrics better.

i'm having a little bit of a problem with obedience right now. obedience to patience, obedience to Another's will, obedience to all sorts of things. this lenten season is going to be completely void if i don't buckle down.

but you know what? i find it really strange that i'm feeling this pressure to 'buckle down' when there's really not that much flying out of control! i dumped a pseudo-boyfriend, i'm a total workaholic, i'm frugal and prudent and such. what's making me think that there's more to latch down? what's left to latch?

anyway, below is a post on obedience from Hugo, the b'sphere's resident manly feminist with a tattoo.

Hugo Schwyzer: A note on obedience

i'm confused

so who's this guy going after?

adult men who have sex with underage girls?
or the prom king and queen who get it on under the bleachers? huh? i don't get what this guy's prosecution is supposed to stop.

and...let's say he's successful in prosecuting teenagers for having sex. what's next? hm. i can totally see some nutbag going just one step further and saying premarital sex, no matter your age, should be illegal.

wanna bet?

Trial Opens in Challenge to Law Over Teenage Sex - New York Times

sad day in munchkin land

craptastic. alito was confirmed.
what to look forward to: an out of control executive branch and a country that swerves a little bit closer to theocracy.
let's all say a collective goodbye to our uterus.

come on, God, where's that fiery meteor i've been waiting for?!?

and sad. coretta scott king died last night.

well, that was quick

i'm bored.
i'm still awake, my knees are a little achy from yoga (hope i didn't tear my acl) and am watching 'man from snowy river.'

love this movie but i'm effing bored. just a month into the new year and already i'm getting a little restless.

and you know what happens when i'm bored? nothing good.

all you needed to know about pregnancy

N C H S - Publications and Information Products - Fertility, Family Planning, and Reproductive Health of U.S. Women: Data from the 2002 National Survey of Family Growth

it's not the most exciting piece of writing, but ever since i started working at National Non Profit, i've been digging studies, research papers and stats.

but in light of recent discussions about abortion and choice, let's get a good look at the whole picture: who's having babies, why and when.

2 things that stand out to me:
in 2002, 14% of births to women/girls between the age 14-44 were unwanted at time of conception (which leads me to wonder how accessible contraception was or how wanted the sex was - which leads me to the second thing...)

'younger age at first sexual intercourse was associated with higher incidence of nonvoluntary first intercourse' (in other words, 20% of women who had sex before age 15 were sexually assaulted)

the other stats are fascinating, too (the numbers about poverty, education level and use of contraceptives are telling). why bring these up now?

i like numbers.

hear, hear: no hillary for 2008

I Will Not Support Hillary Clinton for President

molly ivins' essay is *exactly* what i think about the next election. while i wouldn't mind a woman running in the race, i'll marry and have 10 babies before i give one more dollar to the dnc and hillary.

i think it's time for people of color and women in the party to stand up and say 'we're leaving your big tent because it's bullshit and you haven't listened to us in years.' without us, they lose. (and we've lived through two terms of BushCo. so i think we can survive another idiot republican president if we had to.)

where to go if not to the dems? hmm. not the GOP. there's gotta be somewhere else.

matisyahu

who's he? he's this guy.

he's hasidic and his live show at stubb's rocks. he's coming to chicago in march and i'm so so so there.

i don't know how to describe it. yeah, it's reggae but it's reggae about (i can't put it any other way) the old testament. it's apples and oranges to compare him to a christian artist (and i haven't listened to christian music since amy grant and russ taff crossed over - yuck) but it reminds me of listening to my parents' ken medema and keith green records when i was a kid.

i listened to 'king without a crown' in virgin and it was like my insides boiled.

his music feels like gospel.

how cool is this?

On Engine 22, It's Women Who Answer the Bell - New York Times

i think it's cool.

Blog for Choice: It's About Responsibility

I tried once before to outline why I'm so pro-choice, but I didn't like it. I was too wishy washy. I was too concious of the fact my dad reads this space sometimes and that, by advocating for choice because it matters to me personally, my stance marks a complete break with my fundamentalist upbringing. I was also highly conscious that making a personal argument of it, I might as well have put on a snappy little cami with a big scarlet F on it for fornicatrix.

Oh, well. Too late for that now. No more sqeamishness. I'm coming out:

1. I believe in the separation of church and state: whatever your political opinions on abortion, birth control or choice, most likely it’s colored by your faith (or even the absence thereof.) In other words being for/against abortion usually comes down to a religious argument. Our thoughts about zygotes, conception, what the egg thinks/feels, what it’s for, what women’s bodies are for – these are all faith-based arguments. But establishing civic authority over a woman's body based on religious orthodoxy is antithetical to the idea of church/state separation. Like it or not, we live in a secular country. And in this particular secular context, church and state are supposed to live in two different neighborhoods.

(And, no – I don’t believe that America was founded to be a Christian nation; if you do, then you have a wickity whack knowledge of history, dude.)

2. I believe that reproductive freedom is about more than abortion: most discussions among regular people (not policy nerds) begin and end at abortion. (It’s like most conversations about sex ed beginning and ending at abstinence or handing out condoms.) But imagine if your first choice didn’t have to be about abortion. Just as important to reproductive choice, if not more so, are issues around equal access to all methods of birth control, insurance coverage for contraception, comprehensive sex education for young people, information about sexual health and careful family planning. Wouldn’t it be nice if politicians and religious groups weren’t actually forcing someone to play the abortion end game, and let women and girls have access to what they’ll need so they won’t get pregnant?
:
3. I believe I shouldn’t be punished for having sex by being forced to give birth When conversations about choice or rights or women’s bodies crop up, there's always that smart-ass who thinks she’s scoring a philosophical or rhetorical point by sneering, “Well, you shouldn’t have had sex if you didn’t want the responsibility blah blah sneer sneer snit snit.”

Well, no shit. But it’s utterly beside the point. Better watch out - not only is your misogyny showing, you run the risk of toppling beneath the weight of your halo. Our biology automatically dictates that women assume most of the responsibility/consequences of sex. Any slip in vigilance impacts our lives immediately. It’s why the Christian Right’s recent moves against contraception must stop. If you take away my access to birth control, you take away my ability to be responsible for myself. That’s a heavy and ever present responsibility; to me, advocating for choice is ‘personal responsibility’ personified. And we carry that responsibility – why does Alito and his ilk think such responsibility should rest elsewhere?

The separation of religious and civic authority is at the heart of this fight and it’s the most important to me. It’s not that I don’t care what the bible says or what moral squeamishness other people might have; but, ultimately, your exegesis or your thoughts on your morality have nothing to do with whether a woman who’s not you should have the right to make decisions about what happens to her uterus and ovaries.

Her uterus.
Her ovaries.
Her faith.
Her moral agency.
Her responsibility.
Hers.

at National Non Profit, i've got four projects in the works this week so posting is going to be rather light - as it has been since the new year.

i don't know; since i've embraced my workaholic identity, i anticipate other things to sort of dip in and out of view.
bear with me.

i'm Making An Effort.

if you want a glimpse into my upbringing, check out this movie.

roomie and i rented it sunday and we were pleasantly surprised. not only was it better than the freaky movie about the rapture i saw back when i was twelve, it wasn't bad.

but, boy, did it put me through a few flashbacks about growing up in church: the loyal assistant pastor overlooked for promotion, the younger pastor protege who's way too ambitious for comfort, the senior pastor struggling to leave a legacy, the angry/supportive pastor's wife, the conflicted pastor's son who ran from the church but keeps coming back to it. yikes - it's totally my adolescence!

(um...and idris elba is h.o.t.)

every time i hear gospel, i realize how much i miss it. i miss singing it. i miss hearing it. i miss how i felt when i sang it - like nothing existed except me and God. that everything about my faith is true*, you know? too bad the Gray Dame doesn't have a kickass gospel lay choir. talk about a way to reach out to the community.

*[not false, but true as in 'sound.']

am i a heretic?

apparently, i am a Chalcedon compliant. i have no idea what that is, but good to know i'm not a heretic. my dad would be relieved.

from the rev gal pals here.

blog for choice

january 22 is the day a group of pro-choice bloggers are blogging for choice. it's also the anniversary of roe v. wade.

needless to say, anticipate a jeremiad. (and as soon as i can figure out how to put the button on my sidebar, i will!)

from a phone conversation with my sister the other night:

ding: i dumped b-.
sis: what, this is the 8th time?
ding: second. first was three years ago. this time, it's sticking.
sis: good for you.
ding: yeah. you know, the older i get the more i realize i'm turning into mom. i will swallow my feelings and bitterness and then resent the hell out of you for not knowing you're the cause. it's disturbing. i'm a workaholic like dad and a silent seether like mom.
sis: perfect combination for a heart attack.

so, since i don't want to have a heart attack, i'll come back to blogging over the weekend, when i've had some time to rest and imagine a social life that is apparently barren.

so.
i'm in the process of dumping the guy that i've been seeing on/off for the past 6 months. (it should be over in about 24 hours.) we've actually done this before. dumped each other. three years ago and it didn't end well. there was name calling and a cold cold silence that i studiously maintained for three years. why i decided to give him a second chance, i don't know. boredom, loneliness, impatience.

he is the first casualty of my new year's resolution: Make an Effort. sensing that we were really bad for each other i made an effort to be honest. i made an effort to share the feelings that i'd been swallowing for the past 6 months. i made an effort to respect him the way i hadn't respected him before. so i'm dumping him.

he and i were supposed to see each other over the christmas holiday to spend a few days together. but it never happened, for some reason. every plan we made fell through and then i got it: this isn't supposed to work. i suppose i should have called him then to tell him that, instead of waiting for now, but better late than never. that was before i was Making an Effort.

i can't help thinking about the premarital sex thread earlier this year (almost a year ago!) where you all talked about the spiritual model of intimacy. yeah, he and i didn't have that, so i'm not too broken up about losing this relationship. but i do feel bad about our mutual dishonesty; every time we were together we lied to each other - that this is what we wanted, that we were good for the other.

better to be honestly alone than a liar.

shut up, pat robertson: part 100

Robertson Suggests Stroke Is Divine Rebuke - New York Times

i want to be pat robertson.
i want to dress up in my robe, stand outside of my apartment and blather insanity to the worldwide media. i just want to be able to say anything, no matter how crazy, and then get it repeated everywhere, even insignificant blogs like this.

i want to be able to have a straight line into the mind of God, too. that would be neat. God and i could have lots of conversations about geopolitical current events. then, i could dress up in my robe again, go outside and tell you all about it.

that wouldn't be crazy at all.

block party: i got nothin'

the little baby jesus has just been born and now i have to think of something to write about for lent. can't we let the baby jesus hang out a little bit before we get all breathless for him to die?

i don't get lent. i mean, i 'get' it, but i'm so bad with it. i'm generally bad with the whole denial idea. (denial in the sense of 'doing without.') i grew up 'without'. i've already done that. not to say i'm a jabba the hut glutton, but i like my emollients; i do enjoy getting a manicure and having my eyebrows waxed by a detail-oriented asian woman. i miss going out to dinner every week. i sigh with longing when i see people throwing back a few cocktails in the middle of the week with abandon. i like indulgence! indulge me! pet me!

so what the frack am i supposed to say about lent and asceticism??

have you seen 'brokeback' yet?

this made me chuckle.
and i'm only posting it because there's nothing else really going on except cleaning my room.

i hate cleaning my room. hate it.

(how are y'all?)

just doing it: a resolution

this year, there's only one: *make an effort.*

i was a little lazy last year (except about work). i let all my relationships get a little sidetracked, i kind of slumped on my spritual butt. i coasted, frankly. but this year will be different. i will Make an Effort.

a broad resolution like this one is handy in practically any situation: walking to work, talking to boys, working on a project, going to church, sitting through a com'tee meeting. just imagine how much more useful we'd be if we all just Made an Effort.

rather than make a copious list of every single one of my failings, which will ultimately depress and anger me, this catch-all resolution will spur me to virtuous heights across the board, don't you think? don't you?

(cough)

my faves of 2005

over on his space, hugo listed a few of his favorite 2005 posts.

it seems almost silly, since he has scads more readers than i, but here's a list of my favorite posts this year:

the day i became a christian (feb 24)
letter to my father (feb 15)
the hardest easiest choice to make (mar 24)
'because i said so, young lady!' (mar 18 - the one about sex. tee hee.)
the 'women in ministry' posts (jun 4 & 6)
'amen' & snob (nov 10 & 17)
when the Other speaks (dec 8)

happy new year, people!

charity and chit-chat

you still have time - ok, a day - to give to non-profits (and remember it's tax deductible.)

some organizations i'm thinking about:
planned parenthood
human rights campaign
ywca
women employed

new year's plans? well, after getting hit on by a very weird guy at a french restaurant thursday night (which was partially my fault) i've decided to go into hiding. roomie and i are having some friends over to play mah jongg and drink champagne. then we're going to say what our resolutions are and then promptly forget them.

(top of my list: be humble. or something like that. i think it's the same as last year's - clearly, not a lot of progress.)

why our college students can't read: they're afraid of big ideas

this article about the possibility the federal government could censor university professors chapped my hide. so fair warning: i'm about to step up on my academic elite soapbox.

here's a tip to questing undergrads: if you want a valuable undergraduate education that will perhaps challenge you to be something more than a corporate cog, don't whine that your professor hurt your feelings by saying bad things about the president. if you want to have your parents' ideologies comfortably reinforced and you never want to hear something that's different from what you already think, then go to a christian university.

first, i think these stories of university professors discriminate against students based on their students' political beliefs are crap; i don't even know what that means. how are these whiny students discriminated against because they hear something they don't agree with? besides, i don't think these stories are really true.

if anything, i think instructors are offended and horrified by our students more than the other way around. was i horrified by some of the conservative ideas of my students, both at ucla and the university of michigan? hell, yes. but everyone knows you don't fail a student because you secretly think they're idiots.

i once had a student at ucla write a paper trying to justify the internment of the japanese during ww2. i gave young billy a C not because his paper was shit because it was shit AND it was poorly researched and badly argued - but i also met with him to discuss it. i told him i was completely horrified by the paper; but when we talked i understood he wanted a provocative topic and thought the more controversial, the easier i'd grade. (he thought wrong.)

eventually, after i'd been teaching for a few years, i began announcing that certain topics were off limits: abortion, homosexuality, religion/God, denial of the Holocaust, anything resembling white supremacist/pro-slavery propaganda. did i do this because i was a flaming liberal trying to suppress the free thoughts of my students?

no. i did it to spare myself the chore of grading the crappiest papers in the universe. in the clumsy hands of those barely out of their teens, those topics are hideous, awful, boring, pedantic, and narrow. if i'm going to have to read something that says the japanese deserved to be in concentration camps make it a piece of sophisticated drivel, not inexperienced and, most likely, plagiarized drivel.

second, and call me old-fashioned, when did these kids get the idea that what they feel actually matters? yes, i realize that makes me sound terribly snobbish and so very Paper Chase, but so what. i believe that a university exists to educate people for the scant four years they're there. there is time enough for the tender young subject to revert to their type and become a shallow corporate breeder. and if it means hearing some bitter physics professor (who probably hates teaching anyway because he's stuck in podunk instead of someplace REAL) bitch about the president and the stupid war in iraq, then suck it up, young person.

and if the federal government gets into the business of 'approving' what professors can/can't say in their classrooms, that's censorship. and THAT hurts my feelings more.

[edited for some much needed clarity.]

the quietest christmas

merry christmas!

in chicago, it's gray and rainy and right now, i'm eating cake while watching a movie on cable.
perfect. the streets are so empty, i'd like to think of everyone in their robes and jammies, cooking christmas brunch, sprawled across sofas, yawning while wrapping paper flies across the living room. and englebert humperdink is on the radio.

i just wish the cafe across the street was open. i need coffee...

my broom's in the closet

so, for work today, i'm reading this transcript of a panel on the black church and pro-marriage policies. it was fascinating. it was not only a frank discussion of the limits of the black church as a hive for social policy, it sort of aired the ideological fissures in what most of us monolithically call the 'black community' (though everyone was pretty on board with not trusting the current administration with anything.) and it made me think of the earlier exchange with a commenter who made me own up to my classism.

the numbers quoted about the rate of out of wedlock births in the black community were sort of shocking; i hadn't realized they were that high. and the conclusion that marriage is good for economic empowerment seemed a ... rational ... one. (seemed, i say.) but there seemed to be a gap in the discussion somewhere.

as a tactic in a larger strategy to eliminate widespread illegitimacy, marriage seems ideal. as a tactic in a larger strategy to stave off poverty for the community, marriage again seems suitable (as long as there were jobs, the panelists made clear.) as a way to reclaim young black manhood, marriage seems to be a positive, as well. (hm.) basically, for poor people who don't want illegitimate children and for young men who don't want to end up in jail, marriage is a good thing. but what if you aren't poor, don't have kids to worry about and you're not on your way to prison? what then?

i can't put my finger in the gap i sensed, but it'll come to me. i'm sure of it.

merry christmas, white house style

while we all get ready to visit family or friends this season, let's remember the displaced - who, apparently, are just too poor to have their homes rebuilt.

the rich, however, are totally deserving.

this administration sucks, you know?

there's this...

CNN.com - Judge rules against�'intelligent design' in science class - Dec 20, 2005 (a definite win for those of us who like our church/state separated) but then there's also this.

all around, i'd call it a stalemate. (you know, if i was keeping score...)

clearly, he's listening to the wrong conversations

this is what the President would hear if he eavesdropped on me and my roomie:

Roomie: uh, don't go in the kitchen.
Me: why?
R: i farted.
M: go stand over there! not here! over there!

(later)

M: i love project runway. i had a dream last night that nick was my best friend.
R: i dreamed trent lott was holding me prisoner and you killed him to rescue me.
M: you're so problematic. so would you kiss tom hanks?
R: mm, no. but he'd be a good husband, i think. but an asexual one.
M: i had a dream i was from outer space and my outer space brother and i settled in canada and, this is icky, we became lovers!! because we were from outer space!

(and still later)

R: it was totally your idea to buy the xbox.
M: it was not. you're the one who had a jones for it. i kept asking if you were sure!
R: but you weren't saying no! you seemed really excited about it!
M: because i didn't think you would do it! i would never goad you into buying something you didn't want!
R: but you did!
M: we so aren't talking about this anymore.
R: so. do you think president bush is a tool?
M: totally. (louder) president george w. bush is a tool.


[why is he a tool? because he he doesn't seem to know what the word 'legal' is: Bush Says U.S. Spy Program Is Legal and Essential]

what i did this weekend

the holiday party i hosted for my workmates made me unfit for human interaction so i spent the weekend at the cinema. here's my take:

king kong - helpless blonde femaleness sacrificed to appease the questionable lust of a giant primate by dark-skinned natives is never uplifting. however, overly long sequences of rampaging dinosours are always fun.

chronicles of narnia - ok, who DIDN'T have the words to that lame poem, 'Footprints in the Sand', pop into their heads when Aslan left the big coronation? we get it - he's JESUS! and when are the brits going to GET OVER their fascination with all things king richard and hobbit-like? really. just get over it. and HOW LUCKY for the children than narnia is has all their favorite british foods in it, right?

brokeback mountain - sad. sad. depressingly sad. if only they had lived in san francisco or new york...

the patriot's creed

Nobel Lecture - Literature 2005

earlier this month, harold pinter won the nobel prize for literature. if you've never read a pinter play, do so. they're dark, mean and brutal. you rebel against his plays.

in his scathing nobel lecture his gives voice to our nation's secret credo. i thought it worth replicating here, but you should read his whole lecture.

"I know that President Bush has many extremely competent speech writers but I would like to volunteer for the job myself. I propose the following short address which he can make on television to the nation. I see him grave, hair carefully combed, serious, winning, sincere, often beguiling, sometimes employing a wry smile, curiously attractive, a man's man.

'God is good. God is great. God is good. My God is good. Bin Laden's God is bad. His is a bad God. Saddam's God was bad, except he didn't have one. He was a barbarian. We are not barbarians. We don't chop people's heads off. We believe in freedom. So does God. I am not a barbarian. I am the democratically elected leader of a freedom-loving democracy. We are a compassionate society. We give compassionate electrocution and compassionate lethal injection. We are a great nation. I am not a dictator. He is. I am not a barbarian. He is. And he is. They all are. I possess moral authority. You see this fist? This is my moral authority. And don't you forget it.'"

woo hoo! party!: Progressive Faith BLog Con

some folks who've stopped by here in the past are involved in putting together a progressive faith blog con next year. if any of y'all want to help out, join or just drop a note of encouragement, here's where to go.

they're shooting for march in new york city.
wish i could go...

snow!

my family doesn't see snow in l.a. the way i do: they think it's scary, cold, messy, terrifying. of course, if the temps drop below 60 in l.a. it's time to put on your parka and turn the heat waay up.

i'm home to prep the house for a cocktail christmas party i'm hosting for my office and so that really means i'm avoiding making the fondue and sitting in the turret, staring at the snow flurries like a moron.

i love it.

spheres of influence: a map of the religious right

expanding universe

fascinating to see the ways that ministries give birth to media, think tanks, PACs and educational institutions. whoever said the religious right was just a bunch of country hicks was wrong.

and whoever says the religious right is persecuted is wrong, too. you can't be persecuted if you're controlling the conversation.

(but, dude. what's up with including the reverend moon?? he's a nutbag.)

brain food

Institute for Women's Policy Research -Politics, Religion, & Women�s Public Vision

so there's this online discussion thursday about why religious women activists and feminists don't collaborate more, though our goals are often the same.

so, if you're really interested, then i guess you should check it out.

[via Faith Voices. never heard of 'em? me neither.]

more on immigration: when race riots aren't

Racial Violence Continues in Australia - New York Times:

leaving aside how this story completely reinforces my problematic stereotype of australians as thuggish throwbacks of aggression and how it makes me think that this is what happens when 19th century prison colonies go horribly awry (inbreeding!) what i like most about this story is the prime minister's disingenuous refusal to say that racism is widespread in australia.

when i read that, the first thing that popped into my mind was the country's quite recent history of repression against aboriginals.

but then my little thought bubble was soothed when i read this:
"Aborigines rioted in the Sydney neighborhood of Redfern in February 2004 after blaming police for the death of a 17-year-old boy. Forty police were wounded."

well, that's all right then, isn't it? racism can't possibly exist on a widespread level in australian society, despite the ease with which thousands of white youth assault innocent brown people, since aborigines rioted.

because the two situations are absolutely the same, aren't they?

(and here's more on immigration. this time, it's 92 GOP House Reps who want to stop all children born in the us from being US citizens. i can't believe how completely fascist it is and how easily 49% of the population thinks it's ok.)

'thanks, but no thanks': when the Other speaks

Here's a question: what does it mean to be in community with others, even other people who don't share your faith?

Some months ago a committee I'm on came up with the brilliant idea of exploring the idea of the global church in our deacon meetings, rather than spend 90 minutes shuffling papers and deciding who's sitting at the volunteer table on which Sunday. (with email, there's no need to waste all this time.) We thought, Let's have little mini-lectures about the church and all the different communities. Yay! we thought. We'll learn something!

So we brought in a religion writer from the Trib and had a nice little conversation about faith in the city and how a paper covers it. Success.

Then, since we wanted to be relevant, we thought, 'Hm. Let's bring in the guy who lectures on Islam in our Academy. He can talk to us about the Islamic community and tell us stuff we don't know.'

Yeah...big dreams. You'd think having a really measured Moslem professor and lawyer come in from the burbs and talk about the Islamic community and Middle Eastern history from the inside would not be enough to push moderate, progressive Christians over the edge, but apparently it is.

You'd think hearing a mini-lecture about the ways that Christian and Moslem culture, history, commerce and geo-politics have been intertwined since something like the 11th century would be distant enough to prevent people from freaking out, but you'd be wrong.

You'd also think that hearing an articulate brown man (who was also very very attractive - very) tell a room full of privileged white people that brown immigrants who've been living here for a couple generations don't care what you think of them and didn't really come to this country to assimmilate would have made sense but, yeah, you'd be wrong there, too.

On the whole, his mini-lecture was about more than religion; it was about his culture; it was about how much older it was, how learned it was, how grounded it was in 'enlightenment' ideas. But it was also about the cultural identity of an immigrant and this was the part of his lecture that made some of us squirm.

(What? You *don't* want to be an American?? Well, that's just...just un-American!!)

When we say we want to understand, do we really? Or do we really mean that we want that other person to say something we agree with, something that bolsters our already inflated image of who and what we are?

When we say we want to be inclusive (as a progressive congregation - I don't expect conservative churches to embrace this newfangled notion of inclusion) what do we really mean and what happens when someone you want to include holds up his hand and says, 'Uh, appreciate the gesture, but we're fine just where we are'?

home for the holidays: a list

so, because i plan so poorly for travel, i am punishing myself by remaining in chicago for the holidays instead of seeing my family back in southern california, where my sister tells me it's a balmy 65. bastards.

clearly, i will need to find something to do. so here's a list of everything i could do during my fabulous week off:

1.

um, i can't think of anything. (except drink champagne every night and that's no good.)

help me out.

ah, tolerance: ford and the gays

2 Ford Brands Stop Ads in Gay Publications - New York Times

here's what gets me:

"Ford's move came nearly a week after the Tupelo, Miss.-based American Family Association canceled a boycott of Ford vehicles that began in May, when the group criticized Ford for being too gay-friendly."

what's 'gay-friendly'? glad you asked:

"The American Family Association first announced the boycott against Ford and related brands on May 31. The group said Ford gave thousands of dollars to gay rights groups, offered benefits to same-sex couples and actively recruited gay employees."

so, let me get this straight (no pun intended); in order for The American Family Association to be happy, they'd like to see Ford direct unfriendliness toward gays in the form of denying health benefits to their employees and, apparently, not hiring gay people at all.

(that's what it means when you don't actively recruit - it means you don't hire.)

hm.
i wonder, if Ford does what the American Family Association asks, would its acts be discrimination?

(or, are the gays just a bunch of whiny pansies, uh...individuals?)

blog against racism: almost forgot!

[you think this is going to be about katrina, privilege or something that makes everyone get all upset and angry. no. it's about my hair. but hang in there; it's a story then a question. y'all have to answer the question.]

The Story:
There's a man in my office who has a certain fascination with my hair. He's older, in his mid-50's, and is one of the 3 men who work here. When we first met, he complimented me about my hair. Graciously, I said 'Thank you!' And I smiled. Then he kept doing it. Every day, something about my hair. How full, how glorious, how beautiful, how fabulous, how big, how stupendous, how whatever. And then he'd say, 'I mean this in a totally non-racist way, of course.'

Hmm, I'd think.

Then, when the snow and the cold came, I changed my hair. I blow-dried it straight so I could fit it under my hat. And when I came into the office, he almost died. He edged into my career station and said, 'Your hair! It's so...so...'

I said, 'It's only hair. But thanks.' And so it's been since before Thanksgiving.

If he talks about my hair one more time I'll blow. I've endured this since May and I will seriously have to read him a lesson if this continues.

The Question:
Why would comments about hair piss off a brown girl?

[yes, it's a test. it's much more interesting than asking if someone's been a victim of racism, huh?]

oh, i'm sorry; i thought this was my uterus...

A Man's Right to Choose - New York Times

while this didn't make me choke on my coffee, this last bit made me sort of gassy with exasperation (i'll bold the most gas-inducing parts):

"Why couldn't I make the same claim - that I am going to keep the baby regardless of whether she wants it or not?

Well, you might argue that all the man provides is his seed in a moment of pleasure. The real work consists of carrying a child for nine months, with the attendant morning sickness, leg cramps, biological risks and so on.

But how many times have we heard that fatherhood is not about a moment, it is about being there for the lifetime of a child? If we extend that logic, those 40 weeks of pregnancy - as intense as they may be - are merely a small fraction of a lifetime commitment to that child.

The bottom line is that if we want to make fathers relevant, they need rights, too. If a father is willing to legally commit to raising a child with no help from the mother he should be able to obtain an injunction against the abortion of the fetus he helped create.

Putting this into effect would be problematic, of course. But while such issues may be complicated, so is family life."

so, basically, let's just have men force women to give birth. yeah, i'm all for that.

while dalton's argument is fairly even in tone, it won't prevent me from calling him a complete tool.

his toolship: dalton, i'd really like to know how you (and other men) are going to justify forcing a woman to give birth against her will. i'd really like to see how your willingness to perform your fatherly duties outside of a woman's body justifies taking ownership of her body for 9 months against her will.

at the end of his 'waah waah' essay dalton tries to slide in an obligatory 'please ignore the fact i'm talking out my ass' by saying 'of course' his modest proposal would be hard to implement. but he doesn't say the reason why his idea won't work: there's a woman attached to the other end of that fetus!

wouldn't everything be so much easier if we forgot there was a woman attached?

here's a tip from me to dalton: until we find a way to hatch a human embryo so a guy can sit on it like a penguin, you can kiss your dream good bye. (ass.)

the bar of persecution

this article, about 4 pharmacists being suspended for not dispensing prescribed medication, came to my attention today.

and it makes me ask what religious persecution really is.

really. what is it?

an article and then a ramble

American Prospect Online - Having It Both Ways

i talk about my dad a lot here. i can't help it. he's the one guy (if not the only guy) i totally respect. he was the major intellectual force for me when i was growing up. for as long as i can remember he said that he was a rampant individualist. his individualism can be seen in his ministry, one that advocates an eschewing of 'group think' and encourages a congregation to turn individually to the bible and give their fat cat preacher a big bitch slap for stepping out of line. (i paraphrase.)

it's difficult to maintain a congregation when you continually encourage them to mutiny, but such was the paradox of my dad's ministry.

while such rampant individualism is useful (innovation, imagination, sense of self in relation to others - basically, it makes you no one's fool) it's problematic when there is no community to surround the individual. for instance, i was talking to my father right after the katrina disaster and was encouraging him to tell his congregation to be more involved with the disaster efforts. he told me they were involved but he also said, my ministry is more of a spiritual one, not a social one. that was a little disturbing for me and i wondered if this was what was making me draw away from a particular kind of christian faith.

i'm not comfortable with the spiritual/social binary the church seems to be stuck on. while i love the Gray Lady, i do wish there was more...preaching. our social stances i am totally happy with. our focus on living as a community of faith is one that renews me. but there's that third thing i just wish there was more of. like, the other night my roomie and i were getting our tongues tied around the name gethsemane (it's the name of a local garden shop). i said, you know - it's the garden where they captured jesus.

she was totally blank and she called it 'catholic' to know details of the bible like that. she shrugged, we mainliners don't think about the details of the bible. we just like the ideas.

that kind of disturbed me. for me, the ideas and the details are all important. i'm not saying that bible trivia is necessary for a fully realized faith, but it sure as hell helps to know the effing basics!

and on the other side of the spectrum, where my dad's church is, i wish there was more of a sense of community. it's fine to be well-versed in complicated matters of doctrine, to know the bible like it's your best friend, but what does all of this mean when you don't recognize that those around you are your neighbors?

what's the point when all you can concentrate on is your muscular christian/individual spiritual walk with jesus when you can't think about other sojourners along the way?

wow. i'm totally rambling. but i'm serious. what's the point? and why don't presbyterians carry their own bible to church?? what's up with that?

new blog found!: Tensegrities

Tensegrities

via reverend mother. thanks!

what i want for christmas

if my family reads this (and i know my father does) this is what i want for christmas: books.

i ask for this every year and every year, mixed results.

in fact, the times made a handy-dandy list of notable books of 2005 and i'd love ANY of them. but i'd especially love this biography of mary wollestonecraft.

people sometimes ask me what made me a feminist (since it sure as heck wasn't my family or church) and it all goes back to what i read when i was in school - especially while i was in junior high and realized that i had a lot in common with plain jane eyre. women like wollestonecraft, the bronte sisters, elliott - these are women whose lives i admired for their willfulness, stubbornness (two n's?) and frank anti-authoritarian stances. these were exceptional women and i wanted so much to be like them.

so that's what i want for christmas.

or, barring that, for someone to make a donation to their local YWCA. it helps.

(i just had the thought that if i took to christian novels and books the way i did to secular reading when i was a teenager i'd have a far different sensibility now. oh well.)

thanksgiving debrief

the delights of thanksgiving...moist turkey, wine, and driving out in the early morning to a suburb in face-freezing weather to meet a friend at the end of a turkey trot and do a little pub crawl before the sun has reached a mid-point in the sky.

the burbs have weird traditions. after spending the night before drinking to excess, the whole town runs a 5k race, drinking little bloody marys along the way, and then they wrap up the morning with more drinking at the knights of columbus hall - to be followed with more drinking and breakfast throughout the morning. at one point i called my sister from an irish pub at 11 am and had already guzzled half a bloody mary, a jack and coke, a lunchbox and a guinness. what am i thankful for? i'm thankful for strong kidneys and a constitution like a cow.

i'm also thankful i have a sane family. spending a holiday, a long one, with a family not your own enables you to see your tribe in the clear light of relief. we dingers may be a little home-bound and conventional, but we effing talk to one another. we might be a little baptist but we don't load each other with freaky baggage and don't hold each other to an insane standard formed in the traumas of the past.

my family, for our myriad faults, is a kind and loving one. and a happy one. (not to mention well-adjusted - we understand that dinners are hard enough without reenacting slights from 1976.)

happy thanksgiving, everyone.

hope your tribe was somewhat normal.

squee again!! published!

so the mag just emailed me to let me know the issue with my teeny piece is running december 2!

yay! (you can't see me but i'm dancing.)

a link on Ms! squee!

A New Leif - Who Says Feminists Don't Have a Sense of Humor?

is it bad blogging practice to squee when you realize you've been blogrolled on a Ms. Magazine blog?

is it undignified and make you think that 'well, kos wouldn't do that'?

i don't care. squee!! i got linked!

snob: ok, i'll take it.

(this has nothing to do with religion or churchiness.)

about a month ago, i read an article in the paper about two korean sisters who wrote a book about how american families can learn something from korean high achievers. after the piece ran, most of the letters sent in response protested the sisters were playing to asian stereotype. most of the other letters sent in faintly protested that it was creepy and weird to ask american kids to actually be disciplined. (i paraphrase.) only a scant few letters said, hey, good idea!

personally, i thought it was a good idea.
in fact, i think achievement is a good idea.
i think making sure one achieves *something* is a good idea.

i think not to achieve makes one tacky. (ooh, value judgment.)

this brings me to a commenter down in the Amen post, who ripped me a new one for my not-so-well-hidden class bias. thank goodness she did; it was the slap i needed to face my own class issues and class anger (not to mention anger at people at my childhood church who were vastly irresponsible in their leadership.) but i'll say it: i think going to college is better than not going to college; i think having a job is better than not having a job. i don't care if it's an ivy, a HBC or a community college - just go and get some education so at least you have options. (which is also better than having no options.)

do i sound like a snob? i guess i'll have to own that.

and because i'm black i will own it until the day i die. the black men and women who believed the duty of the black person was to 'lift as we climb' do not deserve descendents who don't take that kind of pride seriously. did harriet tubman sacrifice so my community could suddenly be the poster population for underachievement? did ida b. wells risk her life to save black folk so that my black and brown sisters could get pregnant when they were in high school?

i am not saying that i don't understand how the real world works; i am not saying that i think i'm better than those girls who didn't make the same decisions i made. i'm just saying i made better decisions. i know about racist institutions and social forces that create ghettos; i know about the bad educational systems that fail to educate; i know what happens when more than half the male population ends up in prison; i know about the burden created when commerce moves out of a community and kills it in the process, dooming people to perpetual poverty. i know that and i still say that we owe somebody our achievement.

the sisters who wrote the book make the point that in the traditional asian family a child owes her family success and achievement; this is her debt. unlike bill cosby, who rails on poor black folk for being poor, i think we black people have a debt to pay. we owe it to our past, our history, to fulfill the promise we had. we don't owe this debt to white people. we don't owe this debt to our government. we owe it to our past - our wonderful, glorious, heartbreaking history.

so to that commenter: you misunderstand. i didn't make the choices i made when i was a girl because i didn't want to be like the other girls; i didn't want to end up like them. i made those decisions because that future wasn't good enough to pay my debt.

a project: December First is "Blog Against Racism" Day

over at creek running north, chris has designated dec 1st to be "Blog Against Racism" Day.

a project!
let's hope i don't forget the date.

On Abortion, It's the Bible of Ambiguity - New York Times

this is the article greg mentioned in the thread below.

i think it's interesting.

i found the blog below by clicking that 'next blog' button in the corner. sometimes you find good things. (other times you find that weird anime teenage girl crap.)

bethany is more conservative than i and ain't having any of this liberal tolerance crap, but i like her voice. and she's teaching in teach for america. anyone who does that has to be alright, right?

Mentionables

amen

sometimes you come across a post that's so solid it makes you vibrate.

this is one of those posts: Redneck Mother: Not a baby-machine

i post a lot about choice and reproductive rights (and abortion). as a christian woman, i guess that's strange to do. it looks like i'm all for a bunch of baby-killing. but that's not it at all; i just have a deeply rooted issue with authority. i've been wanting to write about my pro-choice stance but, for now, that's the best i can do.

redneck mom puts it so much better:

I think about all this in the context of pharmacists presuming to tell women whether they can prevent a pregnancy or not, of legislators trying to ban "unauthorized reproduction," of Sam Alito and all the other conservatives who want women to answer to men about what's going on in their own bodies. And I say this: You have no idea what you're trying to control, no right to do it and no way to do it to your misguided satisfaction anyway because women are not machines and reproduction is not an industrial process. Pregnancy is unpredictable, carries infinitely variable risks, and is so private that it is in many ways a closed book even to the woman herself. If she and her obstetrical team can't shoehorn it into neat, predictable processes, why do you presume you can? No one has the right or authority to compel any woman to go through what I chose for myself, and no one has the right to judge any woman for choosing not to do so.

[via i blame the patriarchy]

GOP eggs: stinky

Evolution Slate Outpolls Rivals - New York Times

looking at some of the polls from last night's election results all over the country, i'm starting to think that some chickens are beginning to come home to roost. while texas bans same-sex marriage, maine votes to ban discrimination against gays and lesbians. while the dems lose in new york, californians give the big bitch slap to arnold. and while kansas still thinks religion is science, pennsylvania decides to keep the two totally separate.

it's a small glimmer of hope for the return of rationalism. i'll take it.

should vs. must: spousal notification in brief

scalito's nomination is throwing all sorts of moral quandaries into the air, not the least of which is whether the law should force a woman to tell her husband she's getting an abortion.

my favorite angry professor has a discussion going on here.

her basic argument is:
And, as with abortion, there seems to be a sloppy elision of what people think is morally obligatory with what they think is, or should be, legally obligatory.

So. Should married women tell their husbands if they're going to have an abortion?
Yes, of course they should.

Should they be required by law to do so?
No, of course they shouldn't.

i'm trying to get to a larger question, but i think i'm too tired at the end of the day to be articulate. so i'll just let that stand there.

so what's our mission, again?

When Cleaner Air Is a Biblical Obligation - New York Times

i love this part:

Mr. Inhofe said the vast majority of the nation's evangelical groups would oppose global warming legislation as inconsistent with a conservative agenda that also includes opposition to abortion rights and gay rights. He said the National Evangelical Association had been "led down a liberal path" by environmentalists and others who have convinced the group that issues like poverty and the environment are worth their efforts.

yeah, shame on the church people who have the nerve to think that poverty and creation care are important! fie on them!

and, hey, how about that rhetorical connections between global warming=abortion=gay rights! masterful.

i guess we know what inhofe thinks is the christian mission.

feminist epistemology: from a guy!!

Hugo Schwyzer is someone i read every so often. you'll find him on my blogroll but i have to admit that the number of Men's Rights Activists (MRAs) on his site sometimes makes me puke.

anyway, when we talk about patriarchy, i like to read what hugo has to say about it. for one, he's a guy and when a guy takes the time to acknowledge patriarchy and actually unpack it regularly, well i take notice.

you should take notice, too. his recent posts on the parker and dowd articles are good, especially when he talks about our culture's inability to cultivate men who have the language and depth to explore their emotional terrain. classic. (and quite academic.)

speaking of patriarchy: Alito

an excellent op-ed piece by scott lemieux at American Prospect Online - Chipping Away.

much of the attention has been on scalito's dissent re: spousal notification in planned parenthood v. casey - and rightly so:

The core of Alito’s argument is his claim that the provision “cannot affect more than about 5 percent of married women seeking abortions or an even smaller percentage of all women desiring abortions.”

This is a highly problematic argument on its face. The reason that notification requirements (whether spousal or parental) are objectionable is precisely because, for all intents and purposes, they are applicable only to women in the worst family situations. Women in loving families will generally discuss their decision with their spouse or parents; it is women who feel they cannot who are affected by state coercion.

and further:

In addition, as the Supreme Court also argued forcefully, Alito’s acceptance of the legitimacy of the state’s interest seems to rest on quite reactionary assumptions about marriage. The spousal-notification provision, the plurality opinion correctly argued, “embodies a view of marriage consonant with the common-law status of married women, but repugnant to our present understanding of marriage and of the nature of the rights secured by the Constitution.” (As the opinion also pointed out, under Alito’s logic a law requiring a woman to notify her husband if she took emergency contraception, or if she drank alcohol during her pregnancy, would also presumably be upheld.) Alito’s reasoning sends bad signals not only about abortion but also about gender-equality jurisprudence more generally.

opposition to alito's nomination goes deeper than what he thinks about abortion; check also his record on sexual harrassment and worker's rights. consistently alito sides with power rather than those who need protection from that power.

i'm scared of a court like that.

aren't you?

feminist epistemology and you (and nature and MoDo and kathleen parker and...)

Nature.

This is the thing that feminism failed to account for, according to Kathleen Parker in the Chicago Tribune today as a response to Maureen Dowd’s Sunday NY Times piece. But while this seems like a reasonable oversight on feminism’s part, I have to disagree – again.
Nature is something feminism has always been aware of.

How could feminism not be aware of nature when Nature has been the stick used to beat women over the head? We could not work outside the home because our ‘natural’ state was in the home; we could not participate in politics because our ‘natural’ place was caregiving; we are ‘naturally’ retiring, our brains were ‘naturally’ less powerful than those of men so why should we be allowed to attend school, hold a job or even walk the streets alone – since we were so ‘naturally’ inspiring of sexual violence?

We know that none of this is ‘natural’. The rules governing female behavior back then and now are cultural constructs, meaning they aren’t intrinsic rules but are socially mandated (unconsciously and consciously) in order to support a larger social structure.

Like Dowd, Park is ignorant that behind Nature there is Patriarchy, and while Patriarchy might not always wear a male face, it is usually (one might say ‘naturally’) supported by men, who ‘naturally’ benefit from it. Quite simply, patriarchy is a way of looking at the world and understanding it; it is the dominant paradigm – it is what we assume to be ‘natural’, or common sense – conventional wisdom, almost. Patriarchy manifests itself through a system of ideas and practices that systematically disadvantage women and other subordinated groups; it is a system of ideas and practices that serve the interests of the dominant group. Who’s in the dominant group? Those who benefit from it.

The thing about Patriarchy is that it’s so damn invisible. It’s the foundation of our Western civilization so it’s completely absorbed into our culture – our icons, our literature, our government, our institutions. It’s almost second nature to us. (heh.) Because of the ‘invisible’ work of patriarchy, we take as natural that our relationship to the opposite sex is to be deferential and appreciative. I suppose that when such natural deference is absent it appears “hostile and demeaning to men”. I’d call it impatience, myself. Hostility is so…patriarchal. Impatience at the slowness of someone else’s progress is much more accurate. (Like walking behind two tourists on Michigan Avenue. Maddening.)

But not only is Patriarchy invisible, the effects of Patriarchy are invisible, too – until feminism came along, that is. Till feminism came along, unseen were the ways that Patriarchy disadvantaged women by:
(1) excluding us from inquiry,
(2) denying us epistemic authority,
(3) denigrating our “feminine” cognitive styles and modes of knowledge,
(4) producing theories of women that represent us as inferior, deviant, or significant only in the ways they serve male interests,
(5) producing theories of social phenomena that render women's activities and interests, or gendered power relations, invisible, and
(6) producing knowledge (science and technology) that is not useful for people in subordinate positions, or that reinforces gender and other social hierarchies.*
[*emphasis mine and a shout out to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy for this and the above definition of patriarchy.]

Which brings us back to Nature. Feminists are very much aware of Nature; we just object to the use of Nature as an excuse to reinforce a bullshit, oppressive paradigm that fails to see women as people and only serves male interests. Let’s consider the conservative boycott of American Girl. Why do they protest a bunch of ahistorical dolls? Abortion and lesbianism, we all thought. That’s not the real reason at all.

In today’s Trib Dawn Turner Trice quotes Ann Scheidler, the Executive Director of Pro-Life Action League: "The reason we're protesting is that American Girl appeals to the wholesome image of girls, and the Girls Inc. web site is almost a recruitment for a feminist agenda. All they talk about is science and sports, nothing about homemaking and motherhood."

Homophobia and a lack of respect for a woman’s reproductive autonomy is certainly a part of Scheidler’s boycott but the fundamental thing that makes her twitch her apron is the way Girls, Inc. advocates for a girl to transcend ‘nature.’ For Scheidler, feminism is freakish because it isn’t wholesome, homemaking or motherhood. It’s sports and science – two fields that aren’t feminine because they aren’t ‘natural’ to a woman, while childbirth and caregiving is.

What’s Nature again? Patriarchy.

So to Park I say that feminism didn’t tell half a story; feminism knows the whole freaking story. It knows the Author, the Publisher, the Reader and the little bitty ISBN number inside the front page. It knows who the Distributor is and where the Bookstores are (tired of this metaphor, yet?). We know the story and we keep telling it. You just don’t like that story. That’s fair.

You don’t like the ending, either; that's ok, too. It’s hard being a feminist. It’s hard being 'unnatural' and knowing. It’s much easier to be naturally ignorant. I get that. It’s hard to look around and see you're the village idiot, or the crazy lady crying in the wilderness about something no one else wants to see. I get that. You don’t want to be the outlier.

But you are lying. Feminism didn't cheat women; it just didn’t account for the general chicken-heartedness of our sex in the face of patriarchal disapproval.

It thought we were braver than that.

[cross-posted at Screed - and edited to correct Parker's name...]

it's all about the language: why tolerance matters

Pandagon: Caught being intolerant of oppression again

i've bitched about this several times here: our inability to really say what we mean. for instance, when we complain about tolerance (or use that old chestnut about loving the sinner but not the sin) we aren't really saying what we mean.

by pooh-poohing tolerance (racial, gender, sexual orientation) what we're really saying is "i don't mind the dominant social order being the way it is and don't really believe in social justice for people who are different from me." this is also the closet meaning of disdainfully dismissing something as 'pc.'

for the sake of discourse, let's all try to be clearer in what we mean. if you really don't like gays or single mothers or women who have sex, just say it. "I think you're icky and shouldn't have access to the full fruits of legal protection the way i (a straight/monogamous/married/whatever person) do."

it'll make everything clearer for everyone, i think, and help clear up alot of confusion.

amanda, at pandagon, does a terrific job of unpacking apathy toward 'tolerance'.

random

pete townshend has a blog.
huh!

United Methodist Church Calls For Withdrawal

why should we care what united methodist church thinks about the iraq war?

'cause george w. bush is a member there. read it here, via katrina vanden heuvel.

see also tom tomorrow's panel on The Very Bad Idea. (via wasp jerky)