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For the troubled and the sleek: a prayer with a little Freire

Part of the title for this Dose of the Good (and Not So Good) Words is pulled from a prayer found in the New Zealand Prayer Book: He Karakia Mihinare o Aotearoa, published by the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand Polynesia. The prayer juxtaposes paris of conditions (hungry/overfed, victims/oppressors, silenced/propagandists) followed by requests for benediction.

For the hungry and the overfed
May we have enough

The “and” between the juxtaposed conditions first appears simply to be the connection of opposed positions in which one suffers and the other does not. But the “and” can suggest that the conditions are not mutually exclusive. Someone who is overfed in one way might be hungry in another.

For the homeless and the cosseted
May our homes be simple, warm and welcoming.

The blessing asks us to re-evaluate the categories, to look closer and to cultivate a more nuanced understanding of what it means to be in either position. We are asked to see how both sides are harmed by the dichotomy. Someone who is homeless has no shelter, but someone who is cosseted is over-sheltered. The blessing ask for a balancing that helps not just the “poor” position but also the apparently “rich” one.

My favorite of the pairs is the one I used for my title, mainly because of the word “sleek.” Sleek slips out of the mouth but is brought up short by that “k” at the end. Sleek is the more reputable cousin of slick. Slick lives on the wrong side of the tracks. Sleek is moving on up to an apartment in the sky. Sleek brings up other images and words: vitality, shiny, oily, twisty, surface, finish, smooth. Sleek, depending on context, quickly shifts from positive to negative and back again.

The benediction for the troubled and the sleek is “May we live together as wounded healers.” This is a reminder that a sleek surface can hide deep wounds, and that that someone with easily seen troubles can be called upon to offer healing to others.

For the silenced and the propagandists
may we speak our own words in truth.

This prayer with its blessings that complicate made me think of Paolo Freire‘s Pedagogy of the Oppressed. “Human existance cannot be silent, nor can it be nourished by false words, but only by true words, with which men and women transform the world” (Freire, p. 69). It might seem that bringing Freire’s work of “old school” revolutionary education together with a prayer out of the Anglican tradition, once part of the backbone of the British Empire, is destined for dissonance. Besides the difficulty of comparing a short prayer with a book, there are plenty of ways that the ideas and/or values of the two pieces do not mesh well, where they cannot be aligned. But there are a couple of places where ideas resonate.

“Dehumanization, which marks not only those whose humanity has been stolen, but also (though in a different way) those who have stolen it, is a distortion of the vocation of becoming more fully human” (Freire, p. 26). For Freire both sides of the oppressor-oppressed dichotomy are dehumanized by the system though the oppressed bear a much larger burden because of that dehumanization. The goal in freeing the oppressed is not to flip the system and make the former oppressor into the new oppressed, though Freire points out that how oppressors “feel” when they lose their power and privileges is not the same thing as actually being oppressed.

When I look at this world of wonder and woe, sometimes all I can see is the woe. We do so much harm to it and each other. But sometimes I am brought to wonder through the woe. While I do not agree with everything Freire writes, the ground of his vision is a revolution based in love that refuses to replicate the worst, as Audre Lorde put it, tools of the master.

For the victims and the oppressors
May we share power wisely.

Besides being enjoyable and helpful and beautiful in its own right, the benediction from the New Zealand Prayer Book reminded me of Paulo Freire’s work. Re-reading bits of Freire reminded me of my youthful enthusiasm for social change work. My enthusiasm is tempered by hard won wisdom about the difficulty of enacting change in the face of the real world limitations of both the power structures and of “radical” organizations. But it is good, now and again, to recommit to hope, to believe that a better world is possible, to put love- for saints and sinners, for friends and enemies- into action.

In this 2012 campaign season, when more hate than love is being slung and when it is so easy to see someone with an opposing viewpoint as less than, I need this reminder.

For the mourners and the mockers
May we laugh together.

2012 01 23 admin Communities
Politicks and Socials
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A bit of a Stretch: rambling followed by something like a book review

After a couple of weeks of prodigious readings, I have read five or six books and parts of several others. It has been a long time since I gone on a reading binge, though this recent spate of reading wasn’t so much a binge as a way to help me rest and de-stress. I’ve been sick (mild flu with some chills, moderately bad PMS followed by heavy flow and somewhat painful cramps) and stressed (job hunt not going well, spending lots of time with my mentally ill mother, uncertain about what the hell I’m doing with my life). Normally, I exercise 60 to 120 minutes a day, which would help with the stress, but one of my New Year’s resolutions is to slow down or even stop for a day or two when I am sick or injured. I am working on being consistent without being compulsive.

While I did not go on a reading fast, in the past six months I cut way down on my reading because much of it was tied to patterns unhealthy for me- often staying up to 7:00 a.m., using prose to deadening the shriek of my distorted thinking and feeling (anhedonia, self-hate, despair, suicidal ideation, etc.) and ignoring the world and its (at times of mood disorder madness) skin shredding demands on me by literally spending days upon days immersed in The Land of Magic HooHaa or Out In Space or on the Gritty Streets of the Paranormal City or Duking it out with Rakes.

While I am looking forward to getting back into my normal, semi-productive groove, a week of reading has fed my brains in lovely ways and helped me see that I need to add daily reading back into my life. I have to pay attention; I already am spending too much time reading, but then again, reading a lot means I have more to write about and, if I am careful, actually means I write more. Not that I write very much about what I actually read (as this Dose attests) but that reading makes me want to write (in a I can do that sort of way, which is a mixed bag of positive and negative motivations) while providing great writing prompts for my tangential style of meaning making.

I am in the midst of reading Stretch: The Unlikely Making of a Yoga Dude by Neal Pollack. I started reading the book last night but noticing that I was letting myself stay up too late, I stopped reading around 1:00. Today, I ate breakfast at Civilization while reading a few chapters. Then I jotted some rough draft scribbles for this particular Dose of the Good (and Not So Good) Words. I walked home, gave my parents my leftovers (I live next door to my folks), began typing and re-arranging those scribbles, then read some more of his book. I went to get my hair cut. I read while waiting for the hair stylist, who entertained me with a conversation about the disadvantages and cultural meanings of shaving underarms and pubic areas. I came home. I sat on the can where normally I would read (the bathroom is also known as the library in my family), but the bodily functions demanded that I be present to some significant activity from more than one orifice. I did some more reading, getting annoyed with the author, so I putzed around online for a few minutes. I realized I would rather write and so now am putting words in occasionally pleasing and only moderating annoying (to me) configurations.

I have begun to be on the look out for books about yoga and other spiritual or discipline based practices written by my generation, 35 to 45 years olds who back in the day supposedly were hip, ironic, disaffected Generation Xes. Now we are middle aged adults trying to figure out how to let go of youth and be half way decent people, so like the Boomers before us, we have begun to write and/or read books about finding spirituality and/or religion. I am a bit of an “outlier” because I’ve been reading these sorts of books since I was a little girl, the Dewey 200′s have been one of my favorite sections to browse since second grade, but it is refreshing to read these sorts of books written by people with similar cultural references and for whom sarcasm and mockery, including self mockery, are vital for humor.

Stretch delivers in this particular regard, though it also why I need to take breaks from the book.

While I read it between hands of online poker, the Gita profoundly affected my mind. At the moment, I started to practice detaching myself from grief, sorrow, and the relentless buzz of activity that plagues our lives, as well as the fact that some guy from Germany was kicking my ass at Texas hold ‘em. I learned about the seven stages of yogic wisdom and began to make a conscious effort to tamp down any outward manifestations of selfhood. Sometimes, I updated my Facebook status to let people know I was doing this (p. 107).

I am enjoying the twists and turns of a meat eating, pot smoking indie dude’s spiritual journey. Besides being laugh aloud funny, the writing style is the opposite of the annoying as all get out soft-so-it-must-be-spiritual tone adopted by some who follow one of the Eastern traditions.

I returned to the conference, my belly full of pork. This felt a little blasphemous, but all that yoga and talk of vegetarian ethics made me very hungry. It could have been worse; my appetite had craved a steak or double burger. I showed great restraint in only ordering a BLT with deliciously marbled Niman Ranch bacon (p. 215).

Over time, Pollack becomes a dedicated practitioner but that doesn’t not stop him from pointing out the absurdities of yoga in America “the overarching feel at Wanderlust was: We’re youngish and fit and happy and we’re going to live forever! Lies, I thought. All lies (p. 295) or the visceral realities of being body in motion, “it didn’t prevent the sweat from flowing off of me until I felt like Paul Newman in Cool hand Luke after he’d spent the night in the box” (p. xi).

Pollack capitalizes on his cringe worthy behaviors, which is another reason I haven’t been able to read this book in one sitting. Seized by envy and competition after talking to another writer interested writing a pilot about yoga:

And then I did it. I tore his application in half, folded up the halves, and tore them again, and again, until there was nothing left but little shreds. When this was done, I went outside to the Dumpster and put half of the pieces in one side and half in another. I wadded a few pieces into a ball and placed them in my mouth, mashing them into an unrecognizable pulp with my salvia. I had to destroy all the evidence. I went back inside and immediately felt horrible. My conscience began to scream. That had been one of the most quietly venal acts of my life (p. 110).

Pollack fucks up all the time, but the framing of all those (often) funny fuck ups makes his successes cultivating his “best self” stand out. “I realized something. I hadn’t stormed out or otherwise called attention to myself; I’d been respectful to the people who actually liked AcroYoga. This, to me, represented promise for my best self (p. 229).

It is not that I did not occasionally get tired of Pollack’s intense use of humor and self-mockery. And more than a few times I wished that he didn’t smoke so much pot because the humor of his writing about being stoned just adds to the marijuana mystic, and I’m willing to go on record and say that too many intelligent, talented people, especially men, of my generation have spent way too much time fucked up. Those quibbles aside, I appreciate the window into Pollack’s beautifully imperfect practice.

I ended up finishing Stretch a bit later in the evening. I wanted to find some last quote from his book, another nugget to entice you to read it, but I don’t want to spoil any more of the jokes or the ending. If you enjoy some snark with your spirituality, then it is well worth spending a stretch of time with Pollack.

2012 01 15 admin Bookish Bookie Books
States of Mind
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The Power of Almost, Not Quite Neutral Thinking

In our “you should try to be all that you can be” society there is all sorts of chatter about positive versus negative thinking. Positive thinkers purportedly are happier and healthier. Pessimists supposedly have a more realistic and nuanced understanding of real world limitations and their own abilities or lack thereof. If I were kind, I would give y’all some links, but I’m grumpy as all get out this morning, so I’ll leave wasting time on the internet aka internet research, to you.

Several of the self improvement social networking communities that I have been participating in for the past five or so months put a heavy emphasis on positive thinking. I have mentioned before that some days this Pollyanna “cando” gags me with a chainsaw. Now I can enjoy a little “think I can” chug up that hill. But I also have been known to spend an awful long time trudging through “I know I can’t” chasm.

For me, both overly postive or negative thinking are signs of mood disorder gone awry. When hypomanic, I promise the moon and the starts to myself, to others, to random strangers on the street (that last one may be a slight exaggeration). When depressed, I have trouble brushing and flossing my teeth since I am such a loser who doesn’t keep the promises I made to all those people, and we are wrecking the planet and anyway, the Earth someday will by swallowed by an expanding Sun and then there is the heat death of the Universe to think about, so why bother?

As my mental health has stabilized, I find that I aspire to what I like to call “almost, not quite neutral thinking.” (I’m going to write a book and make millions, just you wait and see. And that my faithful and faithless readers is not a hypomanic, though it may be a hyperbolic, promise. Cross my heart and hope not to die anytime soon). Truly neutral or objective thinking is not possible, but by striving to see my situation, problems, behaviors with as little added drama (negative or positive) as possible, I feel more centered and more capable. It is not that I don’t have grand hopes or big passions. I am a woman full of moods and great green gobs of greasy grimy goph. . ., I mean, feeling, great gobs of feeling. But I (metaphorically) hold those feelings in an expansive landscape. I don’t try to suppress extreme feelings; I aim to soften them.

I have spent the past six months laying down a foundation of healthy behaviors- routines for my sleep and eating, improving my diet, increasing my exercise, etc. Once I got my sleep settled, I have focused most of my attention on exercise. I had (and continue to have) specific fitness goals. I haven’t met all of them, but I have met most of them. But all of the goals, met or not, involved some amount of “slipping up,” of not getting it quite right, of needing to try again or rework a goal.

This is where the almost, not quite neutral thinking comes in. When I have difficulty with a goal, I take the time to pay attention. I simplify my focus. My feelings, positive or negative, contain useful information, but because I know that emotional extremes distort my thinking, I turn down the volume of my emotional response.

I resist the “positive thinking power through” urge. Having a high pain threshold means I can keep on pushing until I make myself reach that goal despite the difficulty. I once finished a performance after tearing my calf muscle. There are times to push, and part of learning when to push is occasionally pushing a bit too hard when I shouldn’t. But when I gotten compulsive about “I think I can so I will,” I have hurt myself or made an injury three times worse. This often means it takes longer to get to the next goal.

I occasionally get frustrated and impatient, which is normal, but I do not let my brain wallow in abusive self-talk. I am not a waste of breath if I cannot yet do something. I am not a loser if I find out that I might not ever be able to do some things that I want to do. I am worthy of love (and air) even if I never improve or change something about myself.

I believe I am capable (which is sort of positive), but I need to be realistic about my body’s limitations and willing to adapt when I discover something that may take more time or might not be doable for my body (which is sort of negative). In December, I had a goal of being able to jump rope ten minutes straight by the end of the month. I could jump ten minutes in two minute increments each followed by a minute or two “dancing” recovery, two more minutes jumping, one to two minutes dancing recovery, etc. By the end of the month, I still couldn’t jump more than two minutes straight. My legs, due to various injuries, need more time to adapt to the movement. I somehow bruised the bottom of my right foot badly and still can’t do too much jumping.

It may take me months and months to be able to jump rope for ten minutes straight. It took me over a year to be able to run a complete mile. I may find that jumping rope for ten minutes straight is not doable for me. Or because I also have goal of being able to run three miles straight, which stresses most of the same muscles, that jumping rope cannot be incorporated as often into my exercise plans, which means I won’t see much improvement.

I am willing to be flexible and to take my time. I remember that there are trade-offs. I would rather do fewer things very well than everything half-assed. And because I enjoy jumping rope, if in turns out after a really good try to increase my time that I need to limit it to shorter bursts, I will be content with jumping rope in two minute increments.

My almost, not in anyway quite neutral hope for y’all is that you find ways to incorporate almost, not quite neutral thinking in your self-improvement (and society improvement) projects.

Here’s to the power of almost, not quite neutral thinking.

2012 01 09 admin States of Mind
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Placed for enjoyment

Yesterday, I wrote at Civilization, a restaurant less than two blocks from my house. Today, I walked to the post office to mail a package for my sister and then stopped at Publix, a supermarket, to pick up some bananas. I can walk or bike to the public library and church. Many coffee shops, at least 8, and restaurants- I stopped counting, but it is way over 40, most of them local businesses- are within walking or easy biking distance. If I need to get the car worked on, I can drop it off and walk home. There are four bike shops that I can bike to, two of which in close walking distance. One is a tad more than half a mile from my house; the other less than a mile away. I can get via my own locomotion to stores of books, clothes, gadgets, furniture, art, electronics, automotive parts or second hand goods.

I love living in a “mixed use,” somewhat rough around the edges area of town. I love being able to walk to the grocery store, even if it is a huge Florida based corporation. I would hate living in one of the suburban style developments on the West side of town. I always feel a bit trapped in those car-centric spaces. I think about this today, because I so enjoyed my walk this morning and because tonight my husband and I are going to a dinner party in one of those West side homes.

Every once and a while my husband and I talk about moving somewhere else in town. We live in The Bishop Family Compound next door to my parents. My parent squabble quite a bit. Sometimes it seems like our house is the front row at a very rough performance of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf. (I come from a loud people, which explains my own ability to easily project my voice). We look out our windows at evidence of my father’s compulsive hoarding- possibly fixable appliances, stacks of windows and lumber, broken bikes, half fixed lawn equipment, scrap metal and piles of (not even at a stretch useful) junk.

Despite significant drawbacks, we find it hard to seriously consider moving. Anyplace we could afford probably would not be in the central core of town. We also tend to be frugal. We would be unlikely to find anything nice, regardless of location, for only $500 a month. The Bank of Daddy holds the mortgage; the interest rate is only 4%, and there are no late fees. This house is where I grew up and where Nana, my grandmother, died. I sometimes hate the view, but I love the house and its history.

It helps to realize that part of what makes it hard to contemplate moving is my deep appreciation for how living here puts me in close proximity to most of the goods and services I need or want. It is not just about my family or our frugalness; it also is about other values that are important to me. By living here, we minimize our reliance on the car. We physically move more because we bike and walk a lot. We spend less time running errands whether in or out of the car because things are close by. I enjoy my place.

My wish for y’all this day is that you may enjoy how you’re placed; that you can make a home that allows you to thrive. My wish for the world is that we might get better at implementing (we know what works) mixed used zoning and city planning that keeps in mind that having most of our necessary and desired goods and services within a 1.5 mile radius makes for more sustainable, healthier and, I believe, happier communities.

May we all be placed for enjoyment.

2012 01 06 admin Communities
Politicks and Socials
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Greedy resolutions

The holidaze is/are mainly over, though I imagine that some still may be recovering from the late (all) night debauchery of New Year’s Eve. Granted, the twelve days of Christmas aren’t over until January 6th’s “The Epiphany of Our Lord Jesus Christ.” While the lingering days of Christmas are important in some Christian traditions, for most folks tis the season to get back to normal. The decadence delights of December are exchanged for the less alliterative ordinary routines of January.

Except a lingering liminal spirit remains in the air. Right now, as people slide their lives back into the daily groove or grind, depending on your perspective, they are making (and already breaking) resolutions, goals and commitments for the coming year. They look at what has been, at what is and imagine what might be. I like the subjunctive flavor spicing people’s conversations.

What if I . . .

It is true that many of these resolutions are about losing weight and gaining money. Many resolutions, motivated by guilt or self hate, intend to sacrifice a “sin” as atonement for past misdeeds. A few prohibitive resolutions come from a calmer place in which the resolver understands that s/he has to let go of some things/behaviors to make space for other things/behaviors.

What if I didn’t . . .

Appropriate to the season, there are lots of articles about what separates those who keep their resolutions and those who don’t. To save you time, I give you the gist. Focus on fewer resolutions. Create measurable goals with due dates. Break large goals into sub-goals. Break the sub-goals into small, do-able daily and/or weekly tasks. Expect set backs and conflicts. Be willing to adjust. Avoid all or nothing thinking/doing. Periodically assess your progress. Give yourself rewards for reaching goals – small and large.

How can I . . .

To those who mock the high failure rate of people embarking on new resolutions, I would offer that most resolutions are thought experiments, not plans of action. Being a rather theatrical person I like the subjunctive tense. I think it is good for our brains to spend focused time imagining different possibilities- whether by watching a play or dreaming up resolutions. I also enjoy the profligate quality of our resolutions; making one leads to making another which leads making to twenty more. I also think it helps, from time to time, to let our hopes be greedy. To dream big and wide and wool gather our way to new ways of being/doing.

What if I got my dream job . . .

If you want to change something, eventually you have to make choices and deal with real world limitations and often enough accept that you do not have control of all, or even most of, the variables; frustratingly enough this includes your own body and mind. You cannot do or have it all. This realization may make what you end up doing/having/achieving even sweeter. To get there from here requires focus, commitment and daily actions.

But for a few days more, I ask you to let yourself dream a little dream, float on a sea of possibilities. Imagine what could be. After a few more days of what if, then you can ask yourself now what. But until then, be gloriously greedy for yourself. Be greedy for the world.

What if everyone was well fed, well educated, well housed, well clothed, well loved, well taken care of, and had good work that made communities into thriving, sustainable places. What could I do . . .

2012 01 04 admin Book of Love
Communities
Holidaze
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For what I have not done (an art gloss)

Today, an eflux email about a new work by Otto Berchem commissioned by the H+F Collection caught my attention. For those of my faithful and faithless readers not in the know, eflux sends out emails about exhibits and calls for submissions from all over the art world. Most of the time I delete these emails after a cursory scan because I am bored by much of what passes as art and find the self-congratulatory, intellectual posturing increasingly grating.

I paid attention because of the photo of the piece. A large, rectangular section of a wall is painted grey-black. The only thing on this section is a sentence of raised metallic text. The text is five or so feet up from the floor. I’m guessing by relating it to a nearby door that I assume is about six feet tall. There is more painted space above the letters than below. My guestimate is that the letters are between seven and nine inches tall. The text is in all caps. From the photograph, I cannot tell if the metallic surface of the letters is reflective. I want it to be reflective, which I will explain in a moment.

The metallic metal sentence reads, “FORGIVE ME FOR WHAT I HAVE NOT DONE.” The curator glosses the piece, explaining that it inspired by a tattoo seen on a prisoner in a Puerto Rican jail, which makes me wonder how and why the artist saw this tattoo. The tattoo said, “Perdoname madre por lo que he hecho (Mother forgive me for what I have done).” We also are told that the sentence focuses us on the future, on “actions that have not (yet) been committed.”

I am going to quibble a bit with this. The sentence does not necessarily focus our attention on potential future wrongdoing. It just as easily calls to mind our sins of omission, the things we chose not to do that can be just as harmful as the things we did do. In the Episcopal tradition, the confession of sin includes this little gem, “by what we have done, and by what we have left undone.” (Book of Common Prayer, 1979). The metallic text is more powerful when we read it more completely. When it offers up for our assessment not only possible futures but also present realities.

In more nuanced readings of this piece, the “you” flips. I want the metal to be reflective not only only so viewers see themselves implicated by the statement, which is a meaning the curatorial statement emphasizes, but also to show how the artist is culpable for what he has not done (or will not do) in relation to others, specifically the viewers of this piece. In one reading, it is the viewer caught in the metallic shine. In the next reading, we notice how the artist fails to capture us. It seems purposefully poetic to capture the viewer’s reflection in letters measuring less than a foot placed on the wall at a slightly awkward height for a “mirror.” It is a willful distortion. This statement cannot capture the complexity of our failures- past, present or future. It lacks the depth of our remorse. It only begins to assuage our and his guilt. It leaves things undone, which makes its meaning richer.

Otto Berchem, I forgive you for what you have not done. I forgive for what you will do not. Forgive me for what I have not done and will not do in this little bit of writing about your piece. Take care and keep on keeping on.

2011 12 20 admin Art
Communities
Religion
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Expectant of A Merry Magpie

I suspect that at some point I enlightened/bored y’all with the story of my damn December Doldrums. Historically, even in more sunny than not Florida, I have had a hard time in December. My sleep schedule flips; I play hours and hours and hours of computer games, which is not part of my “normal” life at all; I read obsessively, staying up all night; I can’t deal with eating; I generally feel crapirific; I get sucked down into a swamp of despair, anhedonia and suicidal ideation.

This year, so far, the December Doldrums have not ganged up on me, which I attribute to a rigorous self-care program I started in June of this year. They hang out in the back alleys of my mind, smoking cigarettes and trying to look cool and occasionally shouting a few rude words at me as I look at them out of the corner of my eyes. They push at the edges of my thoughts and emotions, but they are not shaping the overall tenor of my experience this December. This is the best December I’ve had in over fifteen years.

An example of how well I am doing: this morning I heard damn disappointing news on the job front. I thought I had something nailed. It would have paid very well and while not exactly in my field, it involves one of my abiding non-art interests. I was looking forward to having a full time job, which I haven’t had for quite a long time, as a way to test my self-care strategies. I want the challenge of work that uses more of my brain than data entry (my current pick up job). I am a wee bit tired of qualifying my work life to my peers, who all seem to have good jobs. I also wanted enough money to fund some of my art projects. My work is almost good enough to get grants but not quite. I want to do fewer projects but ones that take a bit more in the way of resources, the kind of projects that would make it more possible for me to get grants. At one point the job was an almost a sure thing for me, but things, as they are wont to do, have gone topsy turvy, and now it is an almost sure thing for someone else. I came home and cried, but I am okay, not perfectly happy but okay. I am not devastated. This is huge.

Perhaps, it helps that I am observing Advent this year. Advent is about waiting. Advent is about hope for things to come. Advent, sort of like a melancholy pre-Christmas, is called Little Lent in some Christian communities. In the liturgical year, Advent is supposed to be a time of meditation and reflection- a time to think about the change to come, a time to prepare for a miraculous birth.

As an atheist/mystic, I do not believe the Christmas story is factual. I am not worried about facts. The story of incarnation resonates in powerful ways for me. My inner mystic is down with the Word made Flesh. Logos becomes a squalling infant full of piss and shit and vomit. Light is made (in)to matter.

I am not worried about authenticity. I like the lights and the decorations and trees and the feasting and the raucous exuberance, which pre-date Christianity. Jesus never was the reason for the season even after he was grafted onto various winter celebrations. I appreciate the greedy magpie nature of Christmas; the way it borrows all that glitters from all sorts of regions and religions. The way in which our celebrations are Christian and Pagan. In Christmas: A Candid History, Bruce David Forbes titles a chapter “Christmas is Like a Snowball” to capture the rapacious nature of the Season to Make Merry and Bright.

I also like Advent, which is quieter than the hulabaloo surrounding Christmas, so quiet that tends to be drowned out by the hectic gaiety. But when we pay attention, when we take the time to quiet down, the bold flourishes of Christmas are made more vivid by the juxtaposition with more subdued gestures of Advent. More subdued Advent become more concentrated in relation to the rushing boldness of Christmas to come.

Advent is a time of waiting, hoping. We are expectant in Advent. I purchased an Advent wreath, a cheap piece of crap from a craft store, and while I don’t light the candles every night, I do light them about once a week- adding a candle each week. The first candle I lit, during the first week of Advent, brought me a quiet joy and an amazing sense of peace. I felt hope that what December could be did not have to be what it had been. A ritual process helped make all those day to day changes I have put in place more potent. A ritual process retrains my brain.

This ritual ties me to my deep and long exploration of Judaism. I spent close to seven years seriously investigating the possibility of become Jewish. Hanukkah may be a minor holiday jerked into major prominence by the Season to Make Weary and Tight, but candle lighting for eight nights always was powerful for me. Now, I light candles for Advent, and I remember who I was when I lit Hanukkah candles. I remember what I hoped for. I remember how much I hurt. The trappings of my religious life have changed and the hurts have faded, but the hopes remain largely unchanged. I hope to give more than I take, to be of service to this world of wonder and woe. I hope to love, to give joy, to make peace.

This ritual allows me to be Pagan and Christian and Jewish all at the same time. The Advent ritual reminds me to work for Joy instead of wait for/on Despair. I light the candles and am expectant of a merry magpie.

2011 12 18 admin Holidaze
Religion
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Home cooking: filling the thank-full first Sunday in November

Today, I give thanks for the many things that make it possible to cook tasty, often healthy food at home. I give thanks for: a working stove and fridge, my cast iron skillet and other pots and pans, my knives, my measuring cups and spoons, my cutting board, my large kitchen, help in said kitchen, running water, storage space and containers, electricity and gas, cookbooks- on and offline, my ability to read and do figures (which lets me read and adjust recipes), my senses of taste and smell and sight and touch.

I give thanks for: an abundance of food and spices, for the people who worked to grow and harvest and transport and sell that food, for the ability to afford quality food, for the health to plan and shop and cook.

I give thanks for: the time to cook, finding great pleasure in cooking, having people to feed.

I give thanks for the great joy I have eating my own cooking.

2011 11 06 admin States of Mind
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Vomit a little, Penis Crystals and Compline

Filling the Thank-Full: Second Sunday in October

Three disparate things from the past two days for which I give thanks.

Vomit a little
Satan in Devil’s Ink: Blog from the Basement Office by Jeffry C. Pugh on humans: “Many of them pursue what what they laughingly call “the good life.” The truly ‘good life’ is not found where they think it is, though, and the fact that they could even have one makes me vomit a little in my mouth.” p. 100

This book is a a joy. I may write more about it another time. But just so you know, it is a “blog” written by Satan for the edification of his minions, a contemporary homage to C.S. Lewis’s Screwtape Letters but quite a bit more left of center and funnier, though it might just be that it has been so long since I’ve read Screwtape that I don’t remember the humor. I’m considering recommending the book to some of my non-religious, politically active friends because the social and political commentary has a beautifully nasty bite. The kind they would appreciate.

Penis Crystals
We had to rush one of our cats to the vet on Saturday afternoon. Turns out that his urine has a high PH, which creates crystals that feel like sand as they try to pass through his urethra. Painful and unpleasant and if untreated, can lead to life threatening blockages. Luckily it is easily treatable, though he’ll have to be on a special diet for the rest of his life. On the way back home- two hundred dollars poorer, with special cat food and a couple of days worth of kitty dope, a drugged up cat mewing piteously about being in the car and a bit giddy with relief, things got silly. My husband yelled at other drivers, “Get out of our way, don’t you know, we’ve got a kitty with penis crystals.” I laughed and laughed and laughed. It got more absurd from there. Penis Crystals now is a running gag.

I am grateful that my cat is okay, and thankful for a small silver gag lining. Because now, either one of us can work the phrase “penis crystals” into a conversation and cause no end of amusement.

Compline
I sit in a darkened sanctuary before the Compline service. Candles are being lit. Besides the people setting up, I am the only one inside. I hear voices in the courtyard,stragglers from the regular 6:00 service catching up on a week’s worth of news and gossip. Compline won’t start for another twenty minutes. I sit in this darkened space tapping quietly on my iPad, writing this moment into words. The music to come, a Capella singing and chanting, will be lovely and at times breathtaking. But being almost alone in this quiet- quiet enough that the creaks of the door, the swish of pants are significant- large, dark space, this is magnificent.

2011 10 09 admin Uncategorized Comments (0) Permalink

Filling the Thank Full: Last Sunday in September

Well, despite the best of intentions, I did not Fill the Thank Full last week. But I am today, so onward and upward and other such bits of positive pep talk! Without further ado, today I am thankful for:

The vibrant and varied colors of vegetables: the orange of carrots, the green of celery, the yellow-beige of garlic, the white of onion, the dirty cream of parsnips, the red of tomatoes, the brown of lentils, the dark green of spinach (even though I didn’t add it to the soup pot).

The strength of my muscles (and being able to do way too many reps of biceps curls, which means it is time to increase the weight).

Ceiling fans.

The consistency with which my younger cat, ELF (Evil Little Fucker), supervises my workouts even though it often means that she rubs her head against my face while I’m trying to hold modified plank or superman pose.

Well structured rites of passage. I saw two this weekend. One the retirement of an almost 80 year old from active involvement with a decidedly secular and activist organization, the other for young teens beginning the journey toward adulthood at a church.

Goofy team challenges on what my husband refers to as SparkCult. (SparkPeople).

Being able to sit with a grumpy mood and not feeling like I have to fix it.

Working out to songs like: Bust a Move, Bucky Done Gun, I Like it Rough, Goody Two Shoes, RockTthis Town, Modern Love, Work It, Head, Boom, Give It To Me Baby, Gold Digger, If That’s Your Boyfriend (He Wasn’t Last Night), Respect Yourself, Girls Just Want to Have Fun, Freak Nasty- Da Dip, Back in the Day, Sugar Daddy.

Not getting in the car once today even though I went out and about.

That Richard, the older cat, did not puke today. He regularly pukes due to an intense fluffy undercoat- he’s part Maine Coone, so I’m told). He pukes so regularly that we have become inured to the sight and smell. So I’m damn grateful he didn’t puke today.

Getting clearer on what kind of volunteer/service work I need to do and what kind I shouldn’t do ever again.

Cracking the whip on my own ass so that I spent some time writing.

The opportunity to watch someone on major pain meds for a horribly painful health problem manage to gracefully deal with public speaking even though the meds made this person spacey and prone to sentences full of odd pauses and unintentional switches that meant the opposite of what s/he wanted to say.

May you find time to fill the Thank Full.

2011 09 25 admin Book of Love
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