Iterations of angry (and seriously, WWJD?)

I am beyond angry at this point in the pandemic, especially as I see the rates of hospitalizations climb with Delta.

I know people who refuse the medical science of COVID vaccines but willingly take the medical science of cancer treatments. They refuse to put a vaccine in their bodies but will put chemo in their bodies. 

I know people who lack all empathy and imagination to put themselves in the shoes of other people until something directly impacts them and then suddenly, they experience a change of heart and "get it." 

While I don't call myself a Christian (because people who blast their Christianity all over the place have been, in my experience, sort of assholes; the bad apples have more than spoiled the bunch, I'm afraid), I want to live by the Golden Rule. 

I have tried to be sympathetic to people who are scared of the vaccine. I have tried to understand where people are coming from who think it is a ploy or a government scare tactic. 

But there are so many who spout off about Jesus all day long and yet will not in any way live by the Golden Rule to do unto others as they would want others to do unto them. They march themselves to church every Sunday but will do little to care for the least of these. 

And Lord knows, I do a shitty job of caring for the least of these, but I don't blather Jesus and Christianity all over people and then still do a shitty job of caring for the least of these. 

Irony is the opposite of what you expect, and I would expect people who claim to live under one master (Jesus) who made the ultimate sacrifice for them to be willing to sacrifice for others in some capacity. 

I have been spending a lot of time asking myself "What would Jesus think of all this?" 

Would Jesus feel proud of his Christians who reject a vaccine made with the intention of saving the lives of the sick and the poor and the chronically ill? Or even the young and healthy? Wouldn't Jesus want us to help our brothers? 

Would Jesus be proud of people who shout and yell about wearing masks if it means it keeps others from suffering? 

I am done hoping and wishing and praying for these people to act in a Christian way; I'm now praying for myself to work through this deep anger I feel for humankind. 

On the banana peel / How God is like the Trump Administration

My dad is 78 years old, and my mom is 82. The average life expectancy in the US is 78.87 years (2019).

As my mom said the other day, she's got "one foot on the banana peel."

At this point, with dad having cancer surgery, chemo/radiation, and as of yesterday, emergency surgery for a twisted bowel obstruction, he's got one foot on the peel and is doing a little jig. 

It has made me aware of how I hear of other people going through "hard stuff" and think to myself, "How do they manage that?"

The answer is complex:

1. You go through what you have to because what choice do you have?

2. I think a lot of the time you aren't aware you're going through it until it is done. (Except me, who recognizes we're going through a hot mess at the moment.)

The other night, when mom and dad were in the ER, and we didn't yet know what the diagnosis was, I laid in bed and had angry conversations with God.

Well, not really with God.

God is not my sugar daddy. I don't plead for stuff. I don't wish for things. For my own sanity, I cannot have an anthropomorphized God in my life because he/she/it makes me furious. 

My anger at that instant was directed at people who do the whole "God is good" song and dance when they get the answer they want (no cancer or whatever). But they don't do the "God is an asshole" thing when the answer is not what they want. Then they do the "God's got this" thing.

I'm not poking fun of them because if this gets them through the muck, then have at it. 

But it doesn't get ME through the muck. It just makes me think that God is like the Trump Administration--taking ALL the credit for the good stuff and none of the blame for the bad stuff. 

After lying in bed for several hours, I finally decided that for my own mental health I had to look at Dad's situation as just nature happening. His aging body doing what aging bodies do. Nature is not good nor bad; it simply is, and it does what it does. It is much more calming for me to think this way about my family's shared existence at this time. 

Of course, while all this is going on, I've been interviewing people who have been throwing around preachy moralizing at me, and it is aggravating as hell. 

I'm the doubting Thomas who never gets to put his hand in Jesus' side. I'm the Paul who doesn't have the conversion. And I'm the Carrie who resents other people throwing their "God is good" and "God's got this" into my face even though I know they have good intentions. 

The road to hell is paved with those.

White fragility and what may be an unusual conversation at the fireworks tent

I can think of a few situations, a couple I've written about on this blog, in which something happens that just seems weird like maybe its got God's fingers in it.
Or maybe it is just coincidence.
Or maybe it is me doing what my high school students say I do ALL.THE.TIME with literature, which is reading too much into something.
The blue curtains are simply blue curtains and not metaphors for something else.

Yesterday, I finished reading White Fragility, which is all about how conversations about race make white people 50 kinds of uncomfortable.
The premise is that when white people are forced into having these conversations (because they often don't willingly do so) and must recognize their own racism, they then get angry or upset or cry or do other things to not deal with their own racist thoughts, actions, or reactions.

I've been thinking about my own experiences and conversations about race and how I have acted or reacted.

Today, I went to the fireworks tent near my house to pick up sparklers and pop-its that the kids throw on the ground.
I walked up and greeted the people who were running it, all of whom were Black.

There were one adult and numerous children (I'd say ranging in age from elementary to middle school).
(They had accents which made me think they are from Africa but I don't like to be nosy and ask because it is none of my actual business.)

The middle-school-age girls were very helpful, showing me different items, and the gentleman showed me things, but I told them that we're chickens and don't like the big fireworks.

I said that I'm the one who lights the fireworks, and I can't lose my hands because who will do the cooking?

When I was paying, one of the middle-school-girls was bagging my stuff and humming.
She asked me if I knew that song.
I asked her what it was.
She said it is a Christian song.
I said, "Oh."
She said, "Are you a Christian?"
and I answered, "Er....."

Because I was raised Catholic (which is Christian) and I half-assedly attend a Disciples of Christ church (which is Christian), but I don't think of myself as Christian because, honestly, a lot of Christians do a lot of not-even-remotely-Christian-stuff, and I don't want to be associated with them.

A lot of Christians do a lot of talking about being Christian, but they don't do a whole lot of acting like Christians in the way that I think Jesus would think is cool.

The girl saw me hesitating and said, "Am I making you uncomfortable?"
And I said, "No, it's just that I have some issues. I believe in Jesus, but I don't always like the church."
The girl then asked me about gay people and trans people, and I responded that I support them.
And I said, "I don't always like how churches treat women, for example."
This then led us to briefly discuss how Catholicism doesn't allow women to have a major role in the church as priests (which is just one of many issues I had with that particular brand of Christianity.)

And then I said, "I believe in treating people the way you want to be treated."
The gentleman said that this is the most important thing.

I couldn't help but think this conversation was sort of bizarre.
I meant it's not every day that people start conversations about religion with me.
But it was also bizarre because of its timing.
I was the sole white person at this tent.
The people who operated it were all Black.
The girl asked me questions about religion and asked me if they made me uncomfortable (which relates so much to what I'd just been reading about except in terms of race).
And we ended up discussing the Golden Rule, which I think has a lot to do with how white people treat Black people in both obvious and non-obvious ways.
Many white people do not speak about or to Black people in the same way that they would want to be spoken about or to.
They don't like the idea of Black people having the same opportunities as them even though if they traded positions, white people would want to have a fair shake at opportunities.

The video above is, to me, a pretty obvious example of white people not doing unto others as they would have others do unto them.

So, I don't really know what to do with this whole thing.
But I know I'll probably think on it for a good long time. 

Finding religion in science fiction

I do not believe that religious texts are the only places to find, learn about, or struggle with god or religion.
I actually have better luck finding theology in secular texts.

I recently finished listening to the audiobook of Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler, a science fiction book that was published in the 1990s.

In this book, the protagonist Lauren Olamena doesn't understand the loving god, god as parent (even though her father is a Baptist preacher).

I have always struggled with god as parent as well.
As a child, I knew my parents got frustrated with me, and I didn't fully understand what parent love meant.
How you can both hate your child and love your child in the exact same moment?

I've always had trouble wrapping my head around god that loves unconditionally because even though I would die for my children and will love them no matter what, which I suppose means I love them unconditionally, I don't really feel like this is the same love I would want from my god.
I know what I think sometimes about my children; those mean thoughts I keep tucked inside my head.
How angry I get at them, how frustrating they can be, the feeling of resentment that sometimes pulses through me.
How I sometimes think I could literally get in my car and abandon them because being a mother is just so exhausting.
So I put those same feelings on god when I think of god as parent.
And that makes god not so endearing to me and not really anyone or anything I want to determine things about my life or my afterlife.

The other idea that I struggle with is the god of the bible offering his only son.
Again, I realize I'm struggling to not put my human parameters around god, but I cannot fathom this. To sacrifice one of my children (a flesh-and-blood one at that) for the good of my other children (who are kind of jerk heads)?
I can see a Sethe (from Beloved) decision to sacrifice one's own child to keep one's own child from extreme suffering.
(See how I revert back to non-sacred texts.)

Anyway, because the whole god-as-parent thing kinks me up, I found myself drawn to the notion of god as change, which is what Butler suggests in her aforementioned sci-fi novel.

I love this quote:
All that you touch, you change.
All that you change, changes you.
The only lasting truth is change.
God is change.

This is an idea I can understand. God as something pliable, something that I have some control over at times and over which I have no control at times.
God that doesn't wish me ill or well.

I think mine and G's OCD makes this God as change idea really powerful.
OCD wants control and creates ridiculous rules for attempting to establish control.
What the psychiatrist (with my help) is trying to do is to make change and being out of control acceptable to G.
One of my favorite prayers is the Serenity Prayer by Reinhold Niebuhr:
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

Humans want to feel in control, and the god as parent idea makes that hard.
Parents, as sci-fi writer Alix Harrow says, are plot-spoilers.
Parents want control over their children. And children rebel against this. (Which is why, in novels, having no parents in the picture makes for better stories.)

I have always rebelled around anything and anyone that tries to control me--my body, my thoughts, my beliefs, my feelings.
God feels more workable to me if he/she/it is neutral and malleable and allows me the capacity to exercise control as I can. 

VBS for people who 1. are kids, 2. aren't churchy, or 3. will probably go to hell

In a strange twist of reality, I coordinated VBS this year.

The church is scraping the bottom of the proverbial barrel by thinking having me do this was a good idea.

They have never come to book club when I host, or they would know that I am not an "entertainer."
I am not a hostess.
I am not well-planned
or well-decorated
or anything of the sort.

The first step in finding a VBS theme was to find one I could tolerate.
Some of these kits cost over $100, and I just can't spend the church's money like that.
So I found a free one about missions, but I didn't like how much it focused on kids and sin.

Kids have a lot of figuring out to do, and I really don't think we need to belabor the fact that they are sinful on top of everything else.
I don't even like the word "sin."

I have always felt that if God is omnipotent, he/she should have created me better in the first place if he/she wanted me to be sinless.
I cannot be held responsible for the acts of my great, great, great, great, great, great....and so on grandparents, Adam and Eve.
Sure, it's a matter of semantics, but I prefer "flawed" to "sinful."
Am I flawed?
Of course.
Am I sinful?
Hell-to-the-no.

So I cut that out of the VBS thing on missions, and then I cut out the part about missions (because I believe in missions that are to serve but I'm not evangelical so I can't promote preachy/preachy when that isn't my thing.)

I more or less created my own VBS about being a neighbor to others.

I lead the children's Worship & Wonder occasionally, and it really is the best place for me because my understanding of God is like a child's understanding.
I need the most basic, simplistic information because once it starts getting more complicated, I can't believe anymore.

I'm on board with 'Love your neighbor as yourself."
I get my panties in a twist with anything more complicated.

One of the best things I learned when I started teaching was to keep the rules to a very, very small number because 1. kids don't like them and 2. if you have too many rules, it's impossible to actually enforce them and 3. kids don't like them.

I'm like that with church.
Two rules: "Love God, and love your neighbor as yourself."
Done.
I'm good.

Any of these "Don't drink alcohol" and "Don't show your body" and "Don't be gay" and "Abortion is always wrong" and "Don't say the word God unless you are talking about God" rules is where I shut down.

Because sometimes saying a good and loud "G*ddammit" feels excellent and sums things up more succinctly than any other word in the world.
And if I'm going to go to hell over saying that word....
Well, ok then.

I digress.

So it occurred to me today, when a friend texted me about how VBS had gone last night, that I didn't pray once with the children.
We didn't have a formal "Dear God, blah, blah, blah."
And it's mostly because I'm not a "Dear God, blah, blah, blah" person.

But we had fellowship and fun, and the kids felt loved and welcomed.
And we talked about caring for our neighbors who experience all the things we experience, like home, and family, and clothing, and food, even though our neighbors' homes and families and clothing and food might look a little different from our homes and families and clothing and food.

Because that is its most simple form: We are all flawed people who want love and acceptance. We all share common experiences and feelings.
And I believe the majority of us want to be good but some of us struggle at it more than others.

One of the church members spoke to me last week about being gay and how his father has never accepted it.
It broke my heart to hear this because you could just feel how much pain it causes this individual.

And I think God is in the space between people's pain and what other people do to ease that pain.
That being a good neighbor part.

Because what's the point of worrying (said my medication)

If ever I've recognized that my antidepressant medication is working it is the last four months.

Dad had his open heart surgery in February and while I was concerned, I felt like things would work out ok.
I felt this way even when Mom called me back to the hospital because they took Dad back into surgery to ensure he wasn't bleeding.
They were being precautious, not necessarily indicating that something was definitely wrong.
It was better to do this before his breathing tube had been removed.

If ever I've realized my meds work is when Mom told me a few weeks ago that her biopsy came back showing breast cancer.
Unlike the first time, 22 years ago, I didn't go into shock.
I didn't put a hold on my life and plans (which is what I did when D and I were engaged).
At that time, I stopped wedding planning.
I stopped talking about the wedding.
I had to compartmentalize my life because there was no going forward until I knew what was up with Mom.

My ability to just keep swimming probably has a lot to do with being a parent now, too.
(Although I think the medication is the bigger part of it.)
Life just doesn't stop for me because I have three other people whose lives don't just stop.
Since I am the coordinator of and driver for those three lives, I don't get to hole up and die.

Our family has one more major surgery coming in June--my nephew has pectus excavatum and will undergo surgery, a hospital stay, and a pretty significant recovery period.

I am hoping that this completes the cycle of "Stressful/Bad Things Come in Threes."

During all this stuff with my parents, I have been pretty open on social media as a way to keep our family and their friends informed.

These postings present me with a mixed bag of feelings primarily because, thus far, I've had good news to report.
While I know people want to know, and it is easier for me to communicate via social media, I feel a bit of "survivor's guilt."
Dad came through surgery well and has done a bang-up job in recovery.
Mom's node is benign so we expect her treatment beyond surgery should be minimal. (Possibly even just medication.)

Posting something socially as a way to keep folks informed makes me think about the people I know who have had to report unpleasant, scary, and downright sad things about their family members.
I know my thoughts of them are cold comfort.
I don't feel pity, but I wish they hadn't gone through pain.
Of course, we all go through pain.
It is the timing and the specifics of that pain that differs from person to person.

I don't and won't say things like "Praise God" or anything of the sort in relation to my mom's or dad's surgeries.
Or my nephew's.
I have asked people at church to keep them on the prayer list (because I do believe, if nothing else, prayer allows for a sense of community and a show of support).
I'm also "out-there" enough to believe that the energy of combined prayer can have mystical effects.

However, social media easy communication makes me think overthink about what I write when I post.

For example, I have always, always felt horribly uncomfortable with the notion of praising God when news is good.
I don't do it.
I feel uncomfortable when I see other people do it.

Because if I heap the praise on God when all goes well, what do I do when news is bad?
Praise God that this whole mess sucks ass?
Because if we're honest, I'm not loving having both parents deal with such MAJOR stuff within 3 months.

How do I praise God that my dad survived open heart surgery when someone else's dad doesn't?
That my mom's cancer hasn't metastasized when someone else's mother's cancer has?

(I realize faith and logic are not the same things.)
(But I am a logical person, so faith does not come easily for me.)
(I'm not even sure where the idea of fairness is supposed to come into this dilemma.)

Which goes back to my medication, which has allowed my anxious mind to quiet, to find peace.
And that wasn't nebulous floating God from the heavens sending a nebulous floating cloud of don't worry down to me.
That was God in the form of other human beings helping me.
Because praying to nebulous floating God didn't work for me, even though I tried and tried to make it work that way.
For years.
If I believe that each person is uniquely different, then I believe that God reaches us in uniquely different ways, with uniquely different methods and timeframes.
Your way is not my way.
My way is not your way.
Each of our ways is right.for.us.

I just now found this quote from comedian Peter Holmes who used to be an evangelical, and I find this resonates with me. I don't think God is Santa Claus or a Fairy Godmother. He's not going to grant my wishes.

I see God is as awareness. And it's something that we're not equal to, but that we're participating with. And the best chance we have at experiencing it and feeling it is not just having an ecstatic experience. It's finding your dignified, inherent place in its flow, through using myth, metaphor, ritual, chanting, meditation.. We're trying to wake up not just to a new set of beliefs, but to our place in the river. And there's all this resistance. And that's all ego stuff. And there's all these, all these, like, you know, headaches and whatever. And when we're quiet, and when we quiet that stuff down, and we can feel and identify with our piece of "divine awareness" then that's when you'll kind of find your flow.

Voting

I vote in every election because I want a say in my government. No one has ever accused me of being an optimist (because I generally am not), but I believe my voice counts. Even if it doesn't make a decisive difference, it is valuable and counts because it is mine, and I think I'm very important.

I vote in every election because women before me fought to give me the right to vote. It hasn't even been 100 years since women were allowed to vote.

I vote in every election to set a good example for my children.

I do not vote in every election because my friends and family tell me to.
I do not vote because social media is blowing the heck up with people demanding that I vote or haranguing me to vote.

To be perfectly plain, it actually bugs me to see every single person I know urging me to vote.
It makes me not want to vote.

I am a bit very much hella contrarian and, perhaps, this is why I enjoy being around middle and high schoolers.
They are contrarians, too.
I understand them in this way.

Here is the thing--when I experience someone urging me to do something, and that something is typically political or religious because those are two things people often feel strongly about, I think to myself,
"Are you aware that you are strongly urging me to vote or find God because your bias assumes that I am going to vote the same way you do or find God the same way you do?"

Here is where the non-optimist part of me comes through--based on my experience on both ends of this. I do not believe that people are urging me to do things out of an abundance of neutral sentiment.

People generally urge others to do something because they expect others to do as they do and feel as they feel.

Once upon a time, I was a very strong breastfeeding supporter, and I still think breast is the best thing a baby can get. If and when I urged women to breastfeed by saying, "Are you trying breastfeeding?" or "Are you going to breastfeed?," I wasn't urging them to "just try it" or "do it for 3 weeks." Inside my head, I was urging them to do it for a full 12 months without any formula, and even longer since that is what the World Health Organization says. I wanted them to be as committed to breastfeeding as I was.

What I said and what I thought and expected were vastly different things.

When people have urged me to visit their church or seek God, they have not done so thinking that I'm going to believe in my own loosey-goosey, skeptical way. That I'm going to believe in kick-ass Jesus and not necessarily a literal translation of the bible.

They want me to full-on "COME TO JESUS" and be an evangelical and sing his praises on high and wear shirts that say, "I LOVE MY CHURCH" and believe every word of the bible is right, true, and not to be critically analyzed.

And I can't help but think that when people urge others to vote, they are doing it in part because their bias is that others are going to vote as they do.

Doing VBS in a week of incivility, hostility, hatred (Badass Jesus)

Last week was a hard week for me to do VBS at church.

We were in year two of a program about feeding the hungry, and I was in the storytime group.

Our pastor pretended to be so sleepy from having been up half the night caring for unexpected visitors whom he and his wife had to feed....because that is what you did when someone came to your door.
You washed their feet and fed them.
To do otherwise was to violate norms and be considered uncivil and inhospitable.

As you can imagine, my brain was pummelled by the cacophony of "love thy neighbor" and the Muslim ban, the ICE detention centers that separate children, the restaurants who pick and choose who they serve.

I am not a Bible thumper by any stretch of the imagination, but I love me some badass Jesus.

Badass Jesus ate lunch with Zaccheus, a tax collector who may or may not have gouged people.
Badass Jesus told Martha, who was all concerned about "looking like a proper hostess" to chill her ass out and visit with him. (Which makes me feel MUCH better about my meh hostess skills when book club friends come every summer.)

Badass Jesus politely (and sometimes not politely) gave the middle finger to "propriety" and to hypocrisy.

I suspect that Jesus, who himself was an infant refugee, would have his sandals down in Texas protesting and flipping tables and not having any part of children being separated from their parents.

I suspect Badass Jesus would be giving hell to the rich white folks who claim to be Christian and yet seem to be perfectly ok with denigrating anyone who is brown-skinned or poor.

I admit, though, that I'm not sure what Badass Jesus would say about the restaurant refusing to serve Sarah Sanders.

I really have mixed feelings about this one, as does apparently everyone.
Maybe Badass Jesus would too?

I follow Reason magazine, which is libertarian, and they posted opinions by two of their writers that had diametrically opposed feelings about the actions of the Red Hen owner.

My own feeling is that I would have served her, taken pictures of my staff serving her, giving her a really excellent evening and then posted all over social media that "WE DO NOT AGREE WITH ANY WORD THAT COMES OUT OF HER MOUTH (she is a bonafide liar), but we serve even those we disagree with."

I get not wanting to serve her, but I would choose differently.
Because if we're going to not serve people based on being liars, where do we draw the line?
Cause I've lied.

Being kind, being compassionate does not have to mean allowing people to run roughshod over you, which is often the response when anyone questions the treatment of refugees or immigrants at US borders.

It's like you can't be a kind person AND have boundaries.

"Do you want open borders where anyone can just waltz right on in?"
"Will you let people just walk right into your house without your permission?

Well, of course not.

I am procedure-oriented, not rule-oriented, and the current procedure for seeking asylum in the US states that you have to be PHYSICALLY PRESENT IN THE US, which means the procedure is to cross the border and step onto US soil and state you are seeking asylum.

So don't blame immigrants or refugees because this is the procedure.
Desperate people take desperate measures.
If I was running from persecution or violence or abject poverty, I may not care about breaking a law either.

Or if you insist on blaming them, then at least be sure to spread the blame around sufficiently.

Maybe blame politicians who don't adequately fund immigration courts, meaning there are too few judges to manage the proceedings, which means it takes YEARS for asylum cases to be decided?

Maybe blame the Americans who illegally smuggle/sell guns to cartels in Mexico, thereby worsening the violence from which people want to escape?

As with virtually everything under the sun, if you don't think it's complicated, you're not paying attention.

The sermon today at church was about how Jesus often followed the "spirit" of the law and maybe not so much the exact law.

How many people who lambast immigrants for crossing the border illegally (and therefore deserve whatever horrible things happen to them as a result, including the forced separation from their children) break the law by speeding?
Or by violating intellectual property rights by showing a film to a large group of people?
Or by not giving attribution every time they download a photo off the Internet that they then use on a flier to advertise their business?
Or drive while using a cell phone?
Or don't wear their seatbelt?
Or drink while underage?
Or sharing medication?
Or failing to update your driver's license when you move?
Or not registering their pet?

Or any of the other laws regular citizens break all the time.

I'm smart enough to know that I know virtually nothing about immigration law.
I'm also smart enough to know that our country is going to pay a heavy price for separating kids from their parents, whether it is through legal action or through the animus that will pervade these kids and, perhaps, make them do harm to Americans down the road. 

"Appropriate" dress, dress codes, and what really matters

I am not anti-dress code, but I also don't like people telling me what to do or how to think or what to believe.

I've got a libertarian streak in me that I generally keep under the radar.

As much as I want to adhere to rules and be a good little citizen, I also firmly believe that some rules have unintended consequences that teach lessons far worse than whatever the rule was supposed to teach.

After my "dress codes suck" post yesterday, a friend remarked that her son had worn camouflage pants to school, in a pattern that was so subtle my friend hadn't even noticed there was a camo pattern. He had to wait in the office until his mom could come to school and was told he could not make up whatever he'd missed during that time in the office. But he COULD go home from school "sick" and make up what he had missed.

So in upholding the dress code, the administrators inadvertently provided an incentive for the parent and child to lie in order to make up the missed work. Smart thinking administrators and way to send a message.

(By the way, I don't blame my friend for pulling him out "sick" at all. The student should have been allowed to go back to class until his mom was able to come, especially since his butt, nipples, abs, shoulders, or whatever other body parts are taboo weren't showing.)

Another friend posted about how her daughter had been allowed to stay at school until an hour before the end of the school day, and then one teacher "dress-coded" her. One.hour.before.school.ended. Every other teacher either didn't notice what she wore or didn't think it was a problem until 6th period Stan.

This is why dress codes are frequently obnoxious. The stickler and the laid-back teachers and administrators are at odds. I would be a terrible person to work in a dress-code-stringent school because my feeling is that the MOST important thing is that a kid is in my class learning. I don't care if they have a spaghetti strap or a camo pattern or if they are wearing a belt provided their pants stay up without one.

Be working hard, be learning. Otherwise, I don't care.

Today, I took my children to church, and I wore shorts, as did my children. All of our butts were covered.

I spent my entire childhood 1. being made to go to church when I didn't want to go and 2. having to wear clothes to church that my parents deemed appropriate. Jeans were NOT appropriate. I could wear shorts only one day of the year, which was the day of the church picnic. That was also the only day each year when I enjoyed going to church.

Suffice it to say, I have a long personal history of wanting to say "eff you" to the rules established by authority as they concern my clothing.

(What is MOST maddening is that now my PARENTS WEAR JEANS TO CHURCH because my mother thinks it is stupid to get dressed up for an hour to come home and change back into the clothes she just had on an hour ago. This suggests I have always had the "f*ck this sh*t" attitude of an 80-year-old woman.)

Here is what my son wore to church today:

There are all kinds of things "wrong" with him, in terms of dress codes. He has long hair. He doesn't match. He is wearing shorts. He wore flip-flops. Some would say he is COMPLETELY disrespectful to the church and to God.

I wish he would cut his hair shorter, and I wish he would dress a little nicer, but I also don't think hair or clothing, especially if butt, nipples, abdominals are covered and there are no cuss words on his clothing, are worth fighting over.

During prayer concerns today, this kid raised his hand to ask the congregation to pray for a little first-grade boy at his school who has a form of brain cancer and will likely not survive a year.

This little "non-dress-code appropriate" kid was being more Jesus-like than perhaps a lot of the people there who were dressed "appropriately." He was thinking about someone suffering, someone who needs prayers, and he had the gumption to raise his hand and speak in front of everyone.

The lesson I take from this, that I believe with every fiber of my being, is that clothes don't matter. My kid, dress code-wise, is a disaster, but as a decent human being, he is doing a pretty freaking great job.

Also, for all intents and purposes, Jesus wore flip-flops. 

Reincarnation

I recently read The Forgetting Time by Sharon Guskin and loved it. It is a fictional story of reincarnation, but it is grounded in the work of Jim Tucker and Ian Stephenson. Because I found the novel so compelling, I decided to read Life Before Life: A Scientific Investigation of Children's Memories of Previous Lives.

While I wouldn't say I'm a firm believer in reincarnation, I am a firm believer in possibilities that I cannot understand nor explain. 

Whenever I think about what happens after death, I think about the first law of thermodynamics, that energy is neither created nor destroyed. But I am not a physicist, so my understanding of the laws of physics are preschool-level (and I'm being generous). If you actually look up the first law and reincarnation, you then get sucked into a great mind-numbing debate on discussion boards that makes me wish Neil deGrasse Tyson would apparate and explain it to me in dumb-person language that I can wrap my head around.

As much as I value science and evidence, I also value that there is much that we don't yet know or understand. This is to say that at some point, we may have definitive evidence, but right now we do not. 

I don't need proof, really, because I think it is pretty fun to just ask the questions and wonder.

What is consciousness? 

What is the soul?

Are they the same?

Is there an underlying consciousness that all of our disconnected consciousnesses feed into or come from? And does that mean that there is only one consciousness and we are all just little feeder shoots off of it?

Is that what we call God?

Is memory real and trustable? (I think not)

If reincarnation does happen, what does that mean that the "me" I think of as "me" actually is? 

What does it mean if my consciousness isn't really mine? (And is that "possession" a stupid way to think of it anyway?)

One of the reasons I wonder about reincarnation is because of M and his ear-twiddling, which he continues to do now and has done since he was an infant nursing at my breast.

Is there a gene for ear-twiddling? Is that an actual trait that gets passed along from parent to child?

Because my deceased father-in-law was an ear twiddler. He didn't do it to everyone, but I was one of those people.

And it may be entirely possible that ear-twiddling is actually encoded in DNA, so it makes perfect "logical" sense that M does it.

But if it isn't, then how and why does M do this, especially since his siblings do not and his father does not?

I don't think M is his reincarnated grandfather, but I do wonder if consciousness of some kind is a plane of existence we cannot sense except in weird ways. 

My father-in-law died unexpectedly, and M was an unexpected birth control pill-conception. 

I like to think that his ear-twiddling is my FIL's consciousness reaching out to us, but I have no proof that it is. And if I did have proof that it isn't, that is ok, too. 

I also have what I have always thought is a dream, but maybe it isn't a dream. In this dream or whatever it was, I am conciousness but not corporeal, and I'm not even entirely sure that I am Carrie-consciousness. I have consciousness of being in existence but there is nothing else. Everything is black. 

If it was a dream, I don't know what the point was. 

And if it wasn't a dream, I don't know what the point was.

But I'm ok with either one. 

I'm a terrible pray-er

I have written before that I feel wildly uncomfortable when people in the extremely early stages of emotion take it to social media.

And I am not a person who easily feels wildly uncomfortable, but there is just so much rawness in what they post. It doesn't really matter if the early emotion is joy or pain.

If the emotion is the early stage of love or a new job, it is off-the-chain ecstatic, and I am waiting for them to come back to planet Earth where the person they adore is human again and prone to frailty. Or the job gets real and they screw up or have a shit co-worker or get laid-off.

(I do give a pass to new parents, though.)

I feel exactly as I did when Tom Cruise lost his mind over Katie Holmes (after marriage one and two disintegrated): embarrassed and waiting for the other shoe to drop.

If the early stage emotion is fear or grief, it is equally uncomfortable, but the worst part is that I am asked to pray...

which makes me feel even more uncomfortable because I know what they want me to pray for.

Pray for a miracle.
Pray for a cure.
Pray for complete healing.
Sometimes it is unsaid, and sometimes it is an outright request.

Unfortunately, I am not the person who goes "ok" or "screw that" and then moves on with her life.
I am the person who stews over it and feels bad because I can't pray the way the person asks me and others to pray.

Asking me to pray for what they want, even though I totally understand it, even though I totally understand the rawness of their pain, maybe, possibly isn't the right thing to pray for.
I am entirely not God, and maybe a miracle or cure or complete healing isn't part of the program.
Who the heck am I to read God's mind? Or to tell God what to do?

I can pray for their comfort.
I can pray that they find some solace in this bad, hard, terrible-to-get-through experience.
I can pray that they are surrounded by love.
But I cannot in good conscience pray for what they want.

I feel affected their grief and responsible for their loss because I didn't pray for what they asked.
Perhaps my prayer is that the person is on my mind and heart for far, far longer than the other people who said, "Lift a prayer" and then got back to the business of whatever they do.

And now to talk about Nazis

I focused my last post on race because of the tiki torches blazing in a southern town but SS symbols were plastered on t-shirts and posters so I'm going to talk about that aspect.

In late July I read and saw a performance of The Merchant of Venice, which some of my middle school students will read this fall. There is clearly anti-Semitism in it, and there is also Shylock's explanation of his revenge.....the long tradition of Jews being spat upon and his desire to be treated with dignity because he is, after all, a human being.  To read or see the play is to be made uncomfortable on many fronts, with Shylock's plea for decent respect, with his sinister desire for Antonio's death, and with Antonio's seeming smugness.

I have a long-standing fascination with the Holocaust, although fascination is the wrong word.  When I was in high school, I did a research project on the Nuremberg trials, which required me to read about the many sick things that were done to Jews, gypsies, gays and anyone else the SS deemed unworthy. I still remember my voice and body shaking while delivering this presentation because it was so upsetting to me to speak of. Not too long ago, I heard an interview with Affinity Konar about her book Mischling, and it made me feel similarly horrified and unable to pull myself away.

My ability to understand genocide is limited, just as a sane person has a limited ability to understand the illogic musings of the insane. The mass graves in Bosnia or the visual horror of the roads amassed with murdered bodies as portrayed in the film Hotel Rwanda are overwhelming. On a purely intellectual level, I can understand how the process of such deep hatred happens and how humans are psychologically pulled into doing terrible things, but on every other level I just cannot wrap my head around it. Scapegoating and mob mentality are very real and to think that we are "past that" is rubbish.

Just as I didn't know any Black people while growing up, I didn't know any Jews or gays (or if I did, I didn't know I did). Although I heard prejudiced whisperings of Blacks, I do not recall anything anti-Semitic. It took me well into adulthood to notice that some names are what might be considered "Jewish" surnames. I was also unaware that Catholics have been historically lumped in with Jews and Blacks on the most-hated list by Nazis.

I like to think that I am a pretty moral person, but this week I have considered whether, in my own small ways, I am, or appear, morally relativistic. I read this article which really hit home for me about the use of playing devil's advocate. I do try very much to consider all sides and their respective motivations as a means of understanding, but I have never considered whether this appears to others as moral equivocation.

When I teach Macbeth, or any novel with a villainous character, I strive to understand the villain, noting that most villains aren't all bad. A villain who has nothing redeeming about him or her is not a truly real or human character. There has to be, or have once been, something of value, of virtue, about the character. We watch Macbeth become evil, and we see him note that he has come so far in his evil misdoings that he has two choices---"I am in blood, stepped in so far that, should I wade no more, returning were as tedious as to go o'er." In these moments, we can feel some inkling of sympathy for Macbeth. He knows he has done horrible evil, and he knows he has the choice to go back to being a good person, to stop in his relentless ambition. 

But we cannot have sympathy for his movement further into evil. We cannot have sympathy for his actions--killing Macduff's family, killing Banquo, killing Duncan, upending his responsibilities as a host, kinsman and thane.  

I do believe there are two, or more, sides to every story, but that does not in any way mean the stories are equally at fault, equally honest, equally right or equally wrong. 

Kinky Boots as church

I am not a fan of "go every week" church.

I go when I want to go and when I feel the desire to go which, for me, means I am going there with the right intentions and with an open mind.

In my many, many years of going to church at least two times a week, I can only recall one time in which I felt truly moved.

It was the Good Friday service when I was in eighth grade, and my class re-enacted the Passion. I remember hearing the sound of the mallet hit the wooden cross. It echoed through the rafters and pushed against my chest. It brought me to tears, a moment I still remember vividly. I felt for a brief moment the horror of what being nailed to a cross might be like.

Church has made me angry and it has made me think, but only once has it made me feel deeply.

Last night, my friend and I went to see Kinky Boots, and it felt to me like what I would want church to be....the overwhelming feeling of God's grace.

I am not a sentimental, syrupy-sweet person by any stretch of the imagination, but I couldn't help but see what is truly the best of Jesus in that performance

---the stripping away of the "shoulds" to find simple people who just want to follow their hearts.
---the acceptance of others.....not in what they do or how they dress...but in who they are as fellow human beings.
---the ways in which asking people to fit into your system of life that works for you can render them miserable.

I realize that there are some people for whom cross-dressing or homosexuality or anything that is not a cut-and-dried version of boy/girl is anathema.

I get it, and I don't believe there is any point in trying to change their minds. There are many people who have a worldview that is very "this-or-that" with little understanding of complexity and gray. That is their mindset and where they feel most comfortable.

For I think an increasing majority of people, however, there is an understanding that life on every level, from the microscopic to the outer reaches of space, is highly complex in ways in which we cannot even begin to fathom.

Life is not simple and never has been. Humans have put restrictions on our world to simplify it, to manage it, to make it comprehensible, to make it feel like something we can handle.

I don't think you can be a parent of multiple children and not see every second of the day how complex and unruly life is, how little there is that fits into a black-and-white schema.

How is it that three children born of the same two parents brought up in the same un-fractured household can have different mindsets, habits, interests, personalities, physical traits, desires, beliefs, and goals?

How is it that attendance at a musical can make me feel a sense of grace, a washed over sense of love and acceptance and brotherhood amongst strangers that I have not ever felt at church?

Some might say I attend the wrong church, but I do not.
I like my church.
It is quiet and peaceful.
I have been to louder, bigger, MORE churches, and I felt fake. I didn't feel comfortable, and I didn't feel like I belonged.
I do not find God in songs about God. I do not find God in wordy praise of God.
Most of the time I find God in observing the quiet power of nature, or the sharing of time with my children, or the moments of deepest gratitude for the ways in which my life has been quietly blessed beyond anything I could ever possibly deserve.
Last night, I found God in a Broadway show about cross-dressers.

If Macbeth came to Jesus

A big part of teaching is theft.  You see someone else's good idea, and you swipe it to use with your students.

That seems like a really bad way to begin a post about Macbeth coming to Jesus.

I guess I should qualify this statement by saying I thieve things that are free online.

The point, though, is that sometimes, in the interest of not spending every second of my life creating questions from scratch for my students, I use questions that other people have been kind enough to write and share.

When we studied Macbeth, one of those questions was about Banquo, and it was kind of a loaded question.  The question was:  To what extent does Banquo deserve the death that befell him?

On the one hand, you might say that Banquo sensed that Macbeth was acting weird about the witches and felt pretty sure he had killed Duncan.  Given this, he didn't get the heck out of dodge and away from Macbeth.  Rather, he told Macbeth, "Why, yes, I'm going riding alone in the dark woods with my son, whom the witches have said will be the progenitor of a long line of kings, while you, Macbeth, will remain forever childless and won't be king for long."  This seems a little like "blaming the victim," but it also seems a little like, "use your good common sense to avoid psychotic tyrants."

On the other hand, does anyone ever deserve death?  (Another potentially loaded question, there.)

A prospective parent sat in on this particular class and made a comment about the bible, which is appropriate since this is a Christian cottage school class.  It got me thinking.

So the next week, I asked the students what would happen to the story if Macbeth accepted Jesus as his savior and became a better, nicer, less murderous human being.  One of my students said, "It would make the story suck!  I would be disappointed because it was like, 'That's it?'"

That isn't to say that coming to Jesus makes everything in one's life easy or perfect, but it does provide a cleansing of the soul (as does any religious conversion, I imagine), and one of the greatest dilemmas for Macbeth is his increased understanding that he is on a path to his soul's condemnation.  He understands that he is at a place where to turn back to good is as long of a journey as just moving forward into full-gone evil.

I admit I was sorta happy that my student offered his comment on Macbeth's conversion because this was my thought as well.  Macbeth is a tragedy and what makes him tragic is that he could make different choices and doesn't.  If he repented, I'm not sure what we would call it, but it wouldn't be a tragedy.

Macbeth's pathos stems from the fact that he doesn't repent--he keeps plugging forward even as his world crumbles at his feet.  He is a lost soul.  What is interesting to me, as a teacher, is asking my students to use their Christian world-view to dissect Macbeth's character.  Asking them about his motivations (not that they excuse his behavior, but perhaps they help explain his behavior).  Asking them to consider what choices they see being made in our modern world and how those align with Macbeth's grasp for power.  What are the dangers in ambition?  What codes of honor (against kin, king, and guest) do we see being violated in real life?  How, as moral people, do we reconcile forgiveness with the horrors that Macbeth enacts?

To say, "Because Jesus" and be done with the struggle in Macbeth is simplistic.

As readers, we have polar opposite wishes for Macbeth:  we want him to keep making terrible choices because that makes the story better, but we also wish that he would do differently.  We both know that it is a story and lose our selves enough in it to feel like it is real life.

From zero to fifteen in almost 4 years

Almost four years ago, I wrote an article in a local magazine about whether I should attend church with the kids.  Soon after its publication, I started going to the Disciples of Christ church where they all attended preschool.

Our attendance has been consistently haphazard, but I'm okay with that. There is nothing like attending church two times a week as a kid (and three times a week if there happened to be a Holy Day of Obligation in addition to school mass attendance and regular Sunday attendance) to make you hate the routine rut of regular church attendance.

I was trained to be a Worship & Wonder storyteller, so I volunteer periodically to do that.  And I'm helping lead VBS this week.

At VBS the kids are learning about the beliefs of the DOC denomination, which has actually been very helpful for me personally.  Yesterday was the first time I'd ever seen the baptismal font.

After his group saw the font, G said to me, "I'm not ever going to be baptized.  I don't want to be a different person."  He, obviously, has a very simplified understanding of how baptism "changes" a person.

I very briefly felt concern when he said this, but then I had to remember that I, even after attending this church for almost four years, have yet to officially join.  I haven't made my confession of faith to join the church, and I'm not entirely certain I ever will.

Of course, the main reason for this is because I don't want to feel obligated.  This is all kinds of convoluted psychology, but I want to be at church because I want to be at church....not because I feel like I have to because I will feel guilty or obligated if I'm not.  That is not the spirit in which I want to attend.  

So I haven't joined, but I am involved.  For whatever that's worth.....which I sorta think is something. As much as I love words, I tend to think actions are way more important.

And that thinking is one of the things I really like about this church....that it values thinking about belief.

I always thought belief demanded feeling, and feeling certainty in your feeling.  And that certainty of feeling has never, ever come easily for me, especially as it concerns God or Jesus or religion.  The questioning, the considering, the evaluating....that part is natural for me, so I'm glad to be somewhere that not only allows thinking but encourages it.

Into a fold, even if it's not the original fold

Many of my posts seem to begin with "I just finished reading....." and then I write about how the book relates to my life.  I'll do that later.

This one begins with....

My mom told me that the local Catholic church is having a "return to the fold"-type effort, whereby they ask attending members to give the names/contact info for Catholics in exile (that is my term, not theirs).  Fortunately, my mom has the good sense to not give my name.  

Had she given my name, I would have been ticked off for a variety of reasons.  First, I know where to find churches, so if I wanted to return to the Catholic fold, I know exactly where to go.  Secondly, this effort is just too much in the way of "telemarketing."  Thirdly, I tend to me very much middle-school oriented:  if I am going to do anything, it is going to be my own decision, not at the urging of anyone else.  I hate to feel guilted, cajoled, or forced into doing anything, which is why evangelization just drives me bonkers.  

At the same time, I wouldn't have been mad at her, really.  I suspect that even though she is glad I attend a Christian church however randomly, there is some level of feeling rejected.  The feeling that what she and my dad gave me as in infant, the community of Catholics, isn't good enough, isn't something I want.  I get that.  That is a normal parent experience....

(and here is where I segue to a book I've read.....)

I finished reading The Chosen by Chaim Potok, and it simply devastated me, as both a child and a parent.  

When I think back to my earlier years, attending church and bitching about it the entire time, I suspect my parents knew that I would eventually do my own thing.  The older I got, the more "black sheepish" I became.  I seem to recall questioning the role of women and the dictates of the Catholic church, what I considered the narrowness of the dogma.  I didn't like the guilt associated with church, nor did I like the "have-tos."  Perhaps this is what drew me to D, in part.  I liked that he wasn't associated with any of that.  I liked that he had his own totally non-religious perspective.

It cannot be easy for a parent who very much subscribes to a way of life to see his/her child choose something different.  Even if it is not a rejection, it feels like a rejection.  A person almost can't help but take it as a rejection, and there is sadness and loss.

But if a parent is paying attention, it is probably not a surprise.  A child lets a parent know very early on, I think.

This December marks 3 years that the kids and I have been attending the nearby Christian church where they went to preschool.  The kids are getting a foundation in some kind of organized religion, but I don't know where that might lead them.  If nothing else, it gives them something to question, something to consider as they grow up.  Going to this church, although we are not every-week or even every-other-week attendees, gives me some of the ritual that I missed from attending Catholic church.  And I like that there aren't hoops my kids have to jump through to attend and participate in "communion."

The other day G said something like "Everyone should believe in Christmas" and I had to explain Judaism and Islam to him, that not everyone believes in Christmas, and that is ok.  That these other religions have their own special holidays and holy days.  At 8 years of age, G has already shown me that he is a questioner, a doubter, a skeptic.  He said he doesn't believe Jesus is the actual son of God, but rather that he was God's helper.

If he grows to be an adult who "rejects" anything and/or everything that I have tried to instill in him, it would not surprise me.  And even though I have always wanted my children to figure things out for themselves, I would probably feel like he was rejecting me and what I thought important enough to give him as a foundation and point of reference.

I would have to reflect on my own choices and the things I rejected or reconfigured from my parents in my effort to be the person I am.  

The news, where I stand, and why I'm quiet (oh, and being married to an atheist)

So much big news, and I'm still considering where I stand on much of it.

The older I get, the less likely I am to voice my opinion to people beyond D, my neighbor H (with whom I can discuss topical/controversial ideas without getting into a row), and my best friend, K.  And my mom.

There are many reasons for this.

One is that nobody beyond me actually cares what I think.

Two is that I think I vacillate most of the time in the narrow space surrounding the middle ground.

Three is that most issues, and especially those that have made the news lately, are too complex for there to be one solid, complete right answer.

And if there is one solid, complete right answer I don't know it or have it.

I think I'll go with the easiest topic for me:  the Confederate flag.

I think it should be removed from South Carolina's state capitol for the sole reason that by being in the state capitol it is suggesting that the Confederacy and what it stood for is what the state as a whole and the state's government supports at this day and time.  There is so much negative symbolism to the Confederate flag that its removal from state grounds is needed.

I listened to a public radio program in which it discussed The Cornerstone Speech by Alexander Stephens.  I had never heard of this before, but he lays out exactly what the Confederacy was founded upon:  Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner- stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition.  

The Confederate flag, in symbolizing this then, symbolizes this now.  It wasn't at the South Carolina state capitol until 1961.  

However, I don't think statues of Confederate generals in South Carolina or in other states should be removed.  I don't think military forts or streets or anything else should be renamed unless there is a grassroots movement within that community to make changes.

There isn't symbolism (or nearly as much) in a statue of one man or many men who fought for what they believed in.  However wrong we may think their choice, there is something to be learned from their choices.  We cannot rewrite American history entirely, nor would be want to.  How many people, after all, would even recognize that men other than Ulysses S. Grant or Robert E. Lee fought in the Civil War?  I suspect a large majority don't even know who these two fellas are either.  (I had never heard of the aforementioned speech, and I like to think I'm a pretty enlightened individual.)

[Earlier this summer I read Hallowed Ground: A Walk at Gettysburg by James McPherson, and it reminded me of what a horrible war it was.  So much bloodshed on both sides.  I'm teaching my middle school students Across Five Aprils by Irene Hunt, a novel which really shows the difficulties of the civil war regardless of what "side" a person or family was on.]

I also think it is BEYOND ridiculous for all sorts of businesses to stop selling Confederate flags.  I'd be curious to know what much money places actually make in the selling on the flags?  There is a big difference, to me at least, in what symbolic gestures a state makes (which represents or is supposed to represent a large group of people) and what symbolic gestures an individual makes.  Should my personal freedom to purchase what I want be trumped?  In this instance, I have to go with personal freedom.

And the removal of The Dukes of Hazard on television?  That is plumb, balls-to-the-wall crazy!

Ok, next:  ACA

Was it a poorly written law?  Maybe.  There are lots of poorly written laws.  I look to the tax code as perhaps the prime example of such.

Is health care something that is unlike any other type of "product" or "business?"  How do we put a value on our health?  Is my health more valuable, more important than your health?  Why?

I am a supporter of universal health care coverage because of its unique nature.  It isn't like a cell phone or a handbag or a pair of shoes.  It isn't like a car because it doesn't have replacements (like a bike, subway, bus, or a pair of legs).  If my health is destroyed, I am out of luck.  I can't get replacement health that is Dollar General Store level or boutique level.

There are plenty of people who take shitty care of their health, but there are also plenty of people who, through no fault of their own, have terrible health.

Because of health's unique nature, I think a for-profit model is not the right one for governing it.  I would prefer a system in which health care is like the grocery store.  Tests or visits cost what they cost, and those costs are public and don't differ much between Alaska and Hawaii.  A 10-day supply of medication X costs pretty much the same everywhere.

Have you ever called a pharmacy and asked what a medication costs?  Or asked a hospital how much ear tube removal and replacement costs?  I have, and if you enjoy Dr. Seuss-like conversations, I suggest you try it.

This is not the way it works, and until or unless it starts working in that way, I'm going to have to support allowing everyone to have a reasonable shot at getting health care insurance coverage they can afford.  The ACA is the closest thing to it at this juncture, however flawed and imperfect it may be.

Ok, now gay marriage.

I am not gay, so this law has no impact on me personally.  My marriage to D isn't affected one iota.  The Supreme Court's decision does nothing to minimize the importance of our marriage to me (and us) any more than Ben Affleck's and Jennifer Garner's marital demise impacts our marriage and its importance.

With that being said, if any or all of my children are gay, I would certainly want them to have the same rights and protections as any other person in the country.  You read about people who have very strong religious beliefs about homosexuality until their child comes out as gay, and then suddenly there is a shift.  They may still believe the same, but their love for their child softens them.  I listened to an interview with Matthew and Monte Vines, a father and son who struggled with this very issue, and it was compelling.

I'm no bible scholar.  This is the biblical law that guides me most, Matthew 7:12:  So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.  Wait, no, it is this:  John 13:34--A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.  

Those are pretty much the same, aren't they?

Most people pick and choose the parts of the bible that mean the most, that resonate with them.  I doubt there is anyone who doesn't.  I don't know if you can exist in the modern world if you try to follow every single one of the laws and rules throughout the Old and New Testaments because many of them contradict each other.  Turning the other cheek is the complete antithesis of taking an eye for an eye.

I don't think people choose to be gay, any more than I chose to have OCD and GAD, any more than a person chooses to be black.  I have been wired this way from birth.  Due to stereotypes and prejudices about being black, gay or having a mental illness, some people might think, "Well, it certainly would be much easier for me if I wasn't black/gay/mentally ill," and it would.  But I haven't had much luck with changing reality.  It is what it is.  So you live your life as a black person, as a gay person, as a mentally ill person with as much dignity and kindness and honesty as you can.  And living in such a manner, you hope that any rights granted to everyone else are also granted to you---to live, to be free, to pursue your happiness.


*********
I very much have a "you believe what you want, and I'll believe what I want, and let's try to live peaceably together" mentality.  I think some of this is from being in my relationship with D for 20 years.

He is an atheist, and I am a whatever I am, a believer in God and Disciples of Christ church-goer as of the past few years.  I don't think he fully understands where I come from, and I don't fully understand where he comes from.  I don't ask that he attend church with me, and he doesn't ask me not to attend church.  He is ok with me raising the children with some type of Christian background if for no other reason than it will make them comfortable within a religious setting, something he is definitely not.

Our marriage would be terrible if either of us tried to force our belief system (and atheism is a belief system after all) on the other.  We do have conversations about religion, about church, about God, but we keep things respectful.  Both of us recognize that it would be futile to try to change each other's view.

I am fortunate to be married to an atheist, which sounds pretty weird, but I think it would be much harder for me to be married to a deeply religious person who felt compelled to evangelize and save me.  I would fight against this and resent it.

D and I try to respect each other's right to think and believe what we think and believe.  Negotiating this relationship for two decades has made me work very hard to accept people's beliefs for whatever they are, acknowledge their freedom to believe what they wish, but also diligently strive to ensure that my right to believe what I want doesn't infringe on their right to live how they wish.  

Serendipitous death

I've written before about feeling like life/God is telling me something....those odd coincidences that just feel more purposeful than random.

I'm in the midst of one of those.

Looking back, I see its progression.

My neighbor told me about a book she wanted to finish reading called God In a Box by Marion Pember.  After reading a bit about it, I decided it sounded interesting so I got a copy and read it.  It was a bit mind-blowing for me, especially its discussion of what heaven may or may not be.  I've never been really comfortable telling my kids that heaven is in the sky because that feels too concrete for something as nebulous as death.  Plus, I want my kids to determine what they believe and having some choices, some possibilities within a framework, feels right to me.

Soon after I read the book, G commented as we drove by a cemetery, "There's thousands of people who've died, right Mom?"  I decided to tell him about the book and its suggestion that maybe death, what we think of as an ending, could be movement into another dimension that our brains can't perceive.  He seemed to like this idea, the idea that those we've loved and lost are closer to us than "out there" in heaven, wherever that is.

A week or so after the book and my talk with G, a former colleagues' boyfriend died of cancer.  She has been on my mind for many months since she reported his diagnosis.

This past Thursday, we euthanized Shanks with the help of a most compassionate vet, and that same afternoon I received an email from one of my magazine editors asking me if I'd like to write an article about preparing for a loved one's death when you know it is coming.

My inner anxious instinct wants to go off the rails on this one, wondering "Am I going to die soon?  Is THAT what life is trying to tell me?  Maybe D or one of the kids is going to die soon?"

I'm trying really, really hard not.to.go.there.

I'm trying to see this as purposeful, too many connective strings for me to ignore.  That this is not a warning, but that I've somehow, in some way, on the right path at the right time.

Euthanasia blues

The week before our Good Friday and Spring Break vacations from the cottage school, I asked my students to respond to the creative writing prompt:

You try a button on your new cell phone and it opens up a channel of communication between you and the Lord. What do you talk to Him/Her about?

I was surprised by the responses of my 11th/12th graders.  I guess I assume that most Christian homeschooled kids are pretty firm in their beliefs, so I was a bit shocked that rather than praising God, they were questioning, asking why are things this way?  Why do things feel unfair?  Would you really deny salvation to those who have different beliefs?  They sounded like questions I would pose to God.

We talked about how faith, how living, is all about hard questions, complexities that are not easily remedied.  Well, I guess they would be easily remedied if we could all just snap our fingers and "be like Jesus," but that isn't very easy for regular ole humans.   I told them that one of the most maddening things for me, personally, are those people who claim to have a sure answer.  Answers are easy, at least in theory, for them.

For me, life is far too complicated and weird for there to be a pat answer to anything.  We like to think we can live in a black & white world, but most things are grey.

How, for example, do I decide when and if to euthanize our 17-year-old cat, who is absolute skin and bones, and has been in decline for months?  Last night, I came to the basement to find every cushion on the two couches and one overstuffed chair with large urine splotches on them, and Shanks lying in one.  His tummy rumbles like it is going to explode, like I may not want to sit too closely or I might be bathed in cat digestive juices.  He is wobbly on his feet, although he can still make it to his food.

I spoke to an end-of-life vet today.  She says most cats his age have kidney failure.  Cats with a history of chronic vomiting (as he has) often develop intestinal lymphoma (which may be the crazy rumbling/gurgling).

He is not going to "get better."  We're on the downhill slide, and as I know from when Gonzo passed two years ago, there is a very short slip between "seems tolerable" and "Get a vet here this second to put him out of his misery."

There isn't an easy answer to this.  If he couldn't walk or eat, it would be simpler, although Gonzo got like that and it still took us 2 days to call the vet because there is always that hope....that "maybe he'll rally and have a little bit of time left."  I spoon fed Gonzo soft cat food and water trying to help him stick around longer.  I didn't want to make a hard decision.

No one likes to make hard decisions...the grey decisions...the ones most of life is about.  The ones I might like to ask God about if my new smartphone ever opens up that special link of communication. 

A post about literature, teaching, religion, frustration, and philosophical parenting differences

I put a lot of time, effort and energy into selecting books for my cottage school students.  They have to be classics, first of all.  I check Sonlight, a homeschooling curriculum to see if it uses these texts.  I check Common Sense Media to see what it says.  I run it by the directors of the cottage school.

Originally, I had suggested Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck for my freshmen/sophomore English class.  What would an American Literature class be if it didn't include Steinbeck, the Nobel Prize Winner in Literature in 1962?  One of the directors said she would prefer The Grapes of Wrath, which was fine by me.

I read it and planned lessons around it.  Of all the books I've taught in the cottage school these two years, this is one of the most Jesus-y ones.  The whole book is strewn with biblical allusions and demands that readers consider how Jesus treated the poor, the destitute, the uneducated, the "unsavories" and, therefore, how we should treat these people.  All of my journaling questions are asking students to consider what Steinbeck is suggesting about how society treats these people.  I never, ever in a zillion years thought parents would find it problematic because it is very much Christian in terms of content.

But a couple did and do have problems with the book, and they complained, asking if I could select an alternative book for their kids.

I have many and mixed feelings about this.

On one hand, it makes me angry.  We posted this year's reading list in May 2014, so parents have had months and months to research, read, investigate.  I suspect some of their anger is not with me or the directors but with themselves for not being as diligent as they want to be.  It also makes me angry because I have already done all the planning, and asking me to select another book when I've already begun teaching The Grapes of Wrath is asking me to do more work without any warning, without any extra pay, and honestly, without any guarantee that they wouldn't take issue with another book, another classic, I selected.

I am also frustrated because while I respect the parents' choice on what their children read, it makes it difficult for me to teach a novel if 2 out of 5 students aren't reading the book.  I feel I am doing a disservice to the students who are reading the book if I tiptoe around topics because some parents object to the book.

(I am not, however, nor would I, nor did I ever intend to discuss masturbation in class, which one parent thought I might do. Apparently, there is a reference to masturbation in the novel, which I don't even remember.)

I am also sad because I work really, really hard to make my classes challenging, appealing and about finding morals, meaning, and God within secular texts.  Even if the parents are unhappy with the book and not me personally because I am teaching the book it makes me feel like they are unhappy with me.

On the other hand, I can understand the parents' dilemma.  I personally think that by the time a kid is in high school, parents should be allowing them certain freedoms, and one of the biggest and safest, in my opinion, is the freedom to read widely.  However, if the parent is not doing this, then reading The Grapes of Wrath probably does feel like sending their kids into a den of iniquity.  There is profanity, there are allusions to sexuality, there is violence.

I shelter my own children so I get it. We do not watch television news of any kind, but we do get the newspaper.  I am ok with my children reading about world events, many of which are cruel and scary, but I am not okay with the sensationalized spin and constant repetition that televised news media puts on the cruel and scary.

Even though I am frustrated, I am trying to look at this situation as a learning experience for me.  I am finding that there are groups of parents who claim they want their children to read classics but haven't read the classics themselves and really have a much narrower view of what constitutes a classic than I do (and what the College Board does and what virtually any university in the country has).

In order for a book to be a classic, it has to be many things.  It has to be extremely authentic to the time-frame about which it is written and be chock full of themes and concerns that can resonate with readers forever.  In order for something to resonate it is often controversial.  There has to be something there with which people can relate, can grapple.

There is a segment of homeschooling families who hold very tightly to this idea from Phillipians 4:8:

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.

They do not want their children reading content that is unGodly.  I have heard people say they only want their children to read things that "strengthen the heart, mind and soul toward Spiritual thinking."

At its essence, I do not disagree with them.  I, too, want my children to read things that strengthen their hearts and minds, feeds their souls, and help them to be the kind of loving people who live compassionately with the Golden Rule guiding them.

But I can think of few things that could strengthen a person's heart, mind and soul toward spiritual thinking than a novel that struggles in its entirety, although indirectly through symbolism and theme, with what Jesus would make of the 1930s Depression and treatment of Okies and others who traveled to California seeking work, many of whom starved to death due to economic and environmental forces beyond their control.

If I try to emulate a Jesus who ate with tax-collectors and forgave prostitutes, who was revolutionary in his thinking that the poor and unsavory have dignity and value, then I feel there is much that is honorable, commendable and excellent in reading classics like The Grapes of Wrath.

Even if it has profanity or sexual reference or violence.  The novel, whether we find it distasteful, is true.  People are profane, are sexual, are violent.  It is a fact of living in this world.

It is funny that this debate hasn't anything to do with Jesus or God but in how widely or narrowly people read Jesus/God and the Bible.

Finally, and perhaps the cherry on top of this whole cake, is that in this particular case it has resulted in one group of people questioning how good or bad of Christians other groups of people are because of their book selections.

Now this doesn't bother me personally.  I was raised Catholic and consider myself a Catholic-in-recovery even though I attend and participate in a Christian church.  I don't really care if someone thinks I'm not a certain kind of Christian because I've never claimed to be a certain kind of Christian.
But it bothers me that people I like and trust who try to be good, kind thoughtful Christians are getting their feelings hurt by other Christians who seem to be suggesting that selecting these type of readings makes one a crappy Christian.  It seems rather un-Christ-like to me.

As I mull over and muddle through all this, I am constantly wondering, "What would Jesus think of all this rigamarole and what would he think of The Grapes of Wrath?"