Sing, Sing a Song

I am not the world's greatest singer, but I have always liked to sing and been interested in singing as an approach to life. No matter how many times I had to watch Sesame Street, I always loved the song, "Sing, Sing a Song" no matter who sang it. It's simple, but it says a lot to me.

Lately, I've been coming across several references to singing and its link to happiness. Usually, when I start to notice the same topic occurring or catching my eye repeated, it's time to pay attention. One was Lizard Eater's post, which I've already mentioned, another was on Gretchen Rubin's Happiness Project. And there was a quote I wrote down the week before last at work.

After taking last week off from work, I sat down this morning, turned on my computer and started to read my e-mail with tea in hand when I looked down to see " 'I do not sing because I'm happy; I'm happy because I sing.' - William James" written on the top of my yellow legal notepad like it was the heading for my day. It helped re-frame my entire approach to the day and I actually was much happier to be at work.

At the risk of being a complete cornball maybe I'll make that quote into a sign for my desk so I can be reminded every morning. Sing and be happy; the worst that could happen is you'll look like a dork.

Creativity and the Recession Blues

While I am far from alone and should be grateful to have a job, this recession has gotten me down.

In April, my job asked me to take a 10% paycut, ouch. In May, our one functioning car died so we bought a new-to-us vehicle and added a car payment and more insurance, and now Tiny Daughter M's medical bills are staring to come due. The husband's job is very flexible and allows his to work around the girls' schedules, but it doesn't pay much. We decided years ago that I would be the breadwinner and now there is 10% less bread. It is not a rolling-in-money kind of time in the Attractor household.

I am very discouraged and frustrated by being back at broke. The Husband and I spent a lot of years just scraping by and it was only due to the help of fantastic grandparents that our daughters had some of the things we wanted for them, especially the older Daughter E. In the last couple of years I was starting to feel like we had finally made it. We bought the house we always wanted, while far from wealthy, we were no longer dancing on the threshhold of insolvency. We could actually think about taking a family vacation. It felt secure. Well, now we are back at barely being able to cover our bills. I hate having to deny the girls the things they want because of money over and over again. I'm already tired of saying it and they must be sick of hearing it. I know it's not true, but it feels like all the hard work has been for nothing. I try to remember that I now have a reliable vehicle and a house in a nice neighborhood with good schools instead of a crappy little car without a reliable heater and an apartment in the wrong part of town.

I have decided to change my attitude. I am now choosing to look at this financial setback as a chance to be more creative with what we do have (since we are still rich compared to most of the world) rather than focus on all of the things I cannot do or have. I'm sure I will have setbacks and get discouraged again, but if I refame this issue when I am merely frustrated I can usually stave off getting depressed about it. It would be easier to mope and dwell on it, but I don't want to go down that road. Remembering to excercise helps as well and walking is free!

So instead of taking the girls out for pastries and tea on Saturdays, I can bake more. Instead of buying more clothes, I'll be thinking about how to wear what I have differently. I will come up with creative ideas for family birthday gifts, maybe back to the baking idea. We have shelves of board and card games so family game nights can replace going out to the movies, etc. Thank you Netflix! We are already frequent flyers at the library. There will be no annual zoo pass, but we live next to the most beautiful park in this part of Alaska so why aren't we exploring it more? I still don't know how we are going to budget things like hair cuts, and school clothes, and the state fair, but we will just have to do what we can.

Anyone have any ideas to share about frugal creativity or for their own recession survival tips?

My Favorite Hymn

I was inspired today by Lizard Eater at The Journey today who has a lovely analysis of her favorite song, "How Can I Keep From Singing?" It is a wonderful song and I like what she has to say about it.

It reminded me of my favorite hymn, "His Eye Is On the Sparrow" which I play when I am down. I have three different versions on my iPod and I played them all back to back last week when I was trying to perk myself up.

It always surprised me that these old hymns can have such an effect on me. I don't believe in God anymore, and if I did it would not be the God of those songs. But I love them. Maybe it's just comforting memories of childhood, but some of them are just so beautiful. I don't really feel like Jesus is watching over me, like the sparrow, but it still makes me feel better. Mountains still make me want to sing, "How Great Thou Art". I don't really have to understand it if it works, but it still puzzles me.

A couple of years ago, I realized that I knew so few sing-a-long songs to teach my girls and I wondered why that was when we sang all the time when I was a kid. Then it dawned on me: most of what we sang as a family was either hymns or praise songs. I guess I'll continue to sing Beatles songs and old folk tunes with les filles.

Allahu Akbar and a Bias Against Islam

I read an interesting comment from a Huffington Post reader named Nicholas:

I cannot in any way claim to know what people are thinking or meaning on the ground, but for centuries, 'Allahu Akbar' has been in the Muslim world a battlefield of meaning and ultimately of political legitimacy. They are five syllables pregnant in meaning, mutability and richness, not simply a ritualistic or fundamentalist dogmatic trope. Nor is 'Allahu Akbar' simply a prayer. In fact, despite all its negative, violent connotations in the West, 'Allahu Akbar' has been uttered by Muslims throughout history as a cry against oppression, against kings and monarchs, against tyrannical and despotic rule, reminding people that in the end, the disposer of affairs and ultimate holder of legitimacy is not any man, not any king or queen, not even any supreme leader, but ultimately a divine force out and above directing, caring and fighting for a more peaceful, rule-based, just and free world for people to live in. God is the one who is greatest, above each and every mortal human being whose station it is to pass away.

The fact that 'Allahu Akbar' is echoing through the Iranian night is not only an indication of the longing of people there to find a peaceful and just solution to this crisis. It also points to how deep the erosion of legitimacy is in whosoever acts against the will of the people, in whosoever claims to act on God's behalf to oppress his fellow human, including in this case some of the 'supreme' Islamic jurists themselves. This all goes to show that Islam, far from being merely an abode of repression and retrogression, has the capacity of being a fundamentally restorative and democratic force in human affairs. In the end, so it seems, at least in the Iranian context, 'Allahu Akbar', God is greatest, is a most profoundly democratic of political slogans. So deep is this call, that what is determined out of this liminal moment may very well set the terms for (or against) a lived, democratic Islamic reality for decades to come.

Nicholas's comment is speaking directly to the protests in Iran, but it also made me step back and examine my own feelings towards Islam. I fully support the rights of Muslims to practice their religion in America and to live peacefully without harrassment or discrimination, I really do. That support of based on a bone deep belief in civil liberties. But really, I don't like Islam, and that is a prejudice.

I would like to respect Islam as a beautiful and valid religion, but it's hard. It's hard to look at everything that is being done to women and girls in this world in the name of Allah and not resent everything about it. That attitude isn't fair, but it is how I feel. I fully realize that many horrible things have been done in the name of other religions but I look at Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia and I don't care. I'm angry at people who would use that religion to repress half their population.

In Nicholas's comment I saw something, though. He reminds me that there may be beautiful and wise aspects of Islam that I never get to see. I have to own up to my negative feelings about Islam, but I don't have to stop there. I learned the tennents of Islam in school, but never looked any deeper at it to see what it had to offer in a pan-religious conversation. I know that, personally, monotheism is not for me and I don't see that changing. I don't like to think of myself as a prejudiced person and I don't want to be prejudiced against peace-loving, moderate Muslims. I will have to examine my own attitudes on the subject a little more closely now.

Still hoping for the demonstrators in Iran right now.

What Are We Hoping For in Iran?

May I be cynical for a moment?

My heart and hopes are with the protesters in Iran. I truly hope they will achieve a real change. Much thanks to Bill Baar for his coverage of the protests. I found myself getting caught up in the fervor of hope. We've all been hoping for years to see dramatic change in the politics and individual freedoms in Iran.

But what are we really hoping for here? Thousands of people are taking to the streets demanding change, but what will they really get? The leaders of the protest movement, Mousavi and Rafsanjani, were part of the Islamic revolution of 1979. These are not radicals or feminists in spite of Mousavi's impressive wife. Are these Iranians putting their lives on the line just so that they can wear colored veils instead of black? Will homosexuals still be executed? Will there be freedom of worship for religious minorities, or a free press?

I really want to get swept away in the beauty and passion of it all. The pictures of courageous young women shouting in the streets with their hair showing under their veils is inspiring and sobering all at the same time. It will just be too heart breaking for words if all of this courage and effort is just to bring about a slightly less repressive society for all of them.

Probably nobody know how all of this will end and I truly hope for the best. I want Iranian people to be able to live their lives in freedom and fulfillment. I want their government to stop threatening the U.S. and Israel. I just don't want all of the hopes of a whole generation of Iranians to be dashed if they wake up to find a their have marched and sacrificed for a marginally better leadership.

I make no claims to be an expert on Iran so feel free to straighten me out if I am way off target. It might even make me feel better.

A Reforming Multi-tasker

My name is Strange Attractor and I am a multi-tasker.

I always have been a multi-tasker and have been a little bit overly proud to be one. Focusing on multiple things has always felt as natural as breathing to me. The refraction of attention became even more intense upon becoming a mother. If the mothers of small children didn't multi-task they would never get anything done or have an adult conversion. I would never say it out-loud, but I really felt that people who couldn't multi-task just weren't as clever as those of us who could.

When I first attracted to aspects of Buddhism, the whole doing only one thing at a time really threw me. It wasn't that I thought it was impossible, I just couldn't see it as a worthwhile goal. It seemed both boring and inefficient.

Ladies and gentlemen, I am reforming. I've know intellectually for a while that I should focus more on doing one thing at a time, but it still didn't sit right with me. I had a tiny revelation tonight while cooking dinner. We had breakfast for dinner which included pancakes, chicken sausage, and eggs cooked two different ways. Now I know how to cook all of these items rather well, but tonight they just didn't quite turn out right. The pancakes were lackluster and the scrambled eggs insufficiently fluffy. Nothing was ruined and it was all edible, and amazing still warm and ready all at the same time, but half of the dishes were just not quite how I wanted them to be. I realized while staring at the blah pancakes they both they and the eggs would have been better had they been the only thing I was cooking.

I don't think I'm going to start cooking only one dish dinner every night, but it brought home the idea that really paying attention might not be such a bad idea. I'm sure I will fall off the mono-focused wagon and slip back into old habits, but now it feels like I am pursuing a goal that I have decided is good for me, instead of one zen masters say is good for me.

Cakes For the Queen of Heaven

Thursday night I started the Cakes For the Queen of Heaven class at the AUUF. This summer they are doing the second half of the program so I will look forward to getting the first half next summer.

Most of the material in this first session was review to me since I have read up on ancient goddesses before, but I enjoyed being able to discuss it with other women. Rather than just talking about the goddesses themselves, we dealt with how growing up with patriarchal religions had affected us personally and what kind of future we could foresee that makes room for the sacred feminine. That isn't a subject I really get to explore with people very often so it was good.

I've been thinking a lot about Asherah and the bum rap she gets in the Old Testament over the last few days. When I realized that all of those stories about Baal and his idols were probably much more about Asherah and her Baal, it made me feel like maybe I had been rooting for the wrong side. I have viewed the Old Testament in a whole different light since I learned about Canaanite goddesses a few years ago. I have so much more sympathy and even sadness for those who were struck down or otherwise punished for following other gods.

I may have to miss the class on the Virgin Mary due to a kid-sized conflict, but I'm looking forward to the rest of the class

Gay Rights Ordinance in Anchorage & Fundamentalists

When did political discourse in this country descend to the level of one team wears red shirts and one team wears blue? Shouldn't matters of civil rights and freedoms be decided in a way that is a little more dignified than a high school football rivalry?

Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself. Last night the Anchorage Assembly heard public testimony on a proposed municipal ordinance that would prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual preference, identity or perceived identity. I normally wouldn't expect you all to be interested in local Anchorage politics, but I think there are larger issues going on here. Expect this to be a long post so buckle up or bail out now. You were warned.

I went to the meeting, not to testify, but because I knew that the pastor of the local Baptist megachurch was going to be turning out a lot of members to protest. I wanted to make sure that they were not the only ones there so I went straight from work. The evening ended up being much more emotional than I anticipated. For a more detailed accounting of the testimony, see Mudflats as I intend to deal more with how it all affected me. When I walked up to the building, there was an army of people, mostly teens and young adults, all wearing red shirts and holding signs against the ordinance. I guess they meant for us to know that they are "red-blooded Americans" or Sarah Palin's "real Americans". Later me learned that some of them were bussed in from the Mat-Su Valley which includes the now-famous Wasilla and Palmer. They were civil and polite, but the effect was creepy.

While about 90% of the protesters wore red, once inside I discovered that about half of the people in support of the ordinance wore blue. At first this seemed really juvenile to me, but as the evening wore on it made me feel like I wasn't in America anymore, like I was a foreign country where you had to make sure you didn't wear the wrong color to the wrong part of town. I'm not used to the shirt I wear being a political statement. That is not the Anchorage I grew up in.

Most of the testimony on both sides was predictable, you can probably fill in the blanks, but I was totally unprepared for the vitriol of the crowd. Many speakers made the arguement that the ordinance prohibited the free practice of religion because it did not allow religious individuals to discriminate against gay and transgendered people. I disagree with them, bit at least I get their argument. This lofty rhetoric was at odds with the comments coming from the crowd of red shirts. The vitriol was palpable. I have been to political events before, but never one with this kind of tension in the room. When speakers would testify against the ordinance based on homosexuality being an obvious perversion, there was joy and passion in their calls and applause. It was like it felt so good for them to look down on other.

I finally left at 9:00 so I could get home to tuck in my girls. Once again, I has to work through a sea of red to reach the parking lot. That was uncomfortable for me, but I can only imagine how it must of felt for the LGBT people in attendance, especially the ones who had been called freaks. By this time hand made signs had cropped up that showed less of the love of Christ than the official ones. I asked a woman about one of them on my way out and our exchange left both of us frustrated. Determined to take the high road, I wished her a good evening and left. I had no idea how upset I would be by the time I made it to my car. I mean, totally unprepared.

I thought it was a release from all of the tension and ugliness, but as I drove I realized what it was: those agents of intolerance, they were my people. That is exactly the sub-culture in which I was raised. Those people who called my friends perverts, they could have set next to me in a pew. They could have been my teacher or classmate at my Christian school. They could have been members of my family.

I didn't think before that that is how I was raised. While I disagreed with their theology, I thought I was raised in a culture of love, of personal responsibility refore God, of not judging other people's hearts, because that was between them and God. I thought I was raised with tolerance and compassion, but maybe I was wrong.

I have left Christianity in general and evangelicalism in particular behind me, but I can't avoid the fact that they have shaped me. I know that in a way their teachings will always affect the way I think. I know how they think, and what makes them angry. I know their agenda because it was drilled into me. I know their codewords sometimes without even realising codewords are being used because they are ingrained in my thought patterns. I also know that most of those people who made me so sad last night are good people. They feed the poor and help single mothers and reach out to prisoners. They are not monsters. They are just like the people who taught me to sing, the people who cared enough to help me when I was a confused teenager. They are the kind and generous people I grew up with. They are also religious bigots.

It is very hard for me to find common ground with fundamentalists right now and that makes me sad. It means that I am cut off from my own history, from my own younger self. It means that I am cut off from coworkers and from members of my own family. Generally, we just don't talk about a lot of things, but that lack of communication is a huge hinderance to closeness that I don't know how to get past. So I feel like there is a hole where my past was. That is what hit me in the gut last night.

I have heard, but never felt before the similarity between Christian and Islamic fundamentalists. Those comparisons seemed like such exagerations. But now I see that, at least sometimes, the differences between the two groups are differences of scale and not of kind. I don't mean to sounds hyperbolic here and maybe I will feel more reasonable later, but right now I am more concerned than ever about the Christian Right.

Last night I comforted myself with the memory of a 14-year old little Strange Attractor who was the only one in her Bible class at school to support the idea that gay people had a right to a job in my hypethetical ice cream shop and they weren't worse than any other sinner. But I also remember a 15-year old Strange Attractor who went to the Pat Robertson for President rally to volunteer for his campaign. I held close that memory of my teenage defiance, that belief that being a Christian didn't mean you got to tell people how to live their lives. I treasured it because I know that that kid in red waiving those signs, cheering for bigotry, telling people that they don't count, that kid could have been me.

Managing Mindfulness

I just had the best session of walking mindfully I have ever had. I feel much more settled and refreshed than I did before. The weather was gorgeous and I was really able to focus on being here now, mostly, so apparently it isn't impossible after all. I just wanted to celebrate it. I hope the feeling lasts, 'cause I really need it today.

First Female African-American Rabbi Ordained

This makes me really happy. Congratulations to Alysa Stanton, the first female african-american rabbi ordained in the United States. One of the few things I still appreciate about my mother's religious tradition is her intense interest in Judaism. For her, it was a way to get in touch with the roots of her Christian faith more deeply. For me, it is just such an amazing tradition and culture that there is really nothing quite analogous to the survival of the Jewish people.

Recently my mother found out that part of our mitochondrial DNA is most likely Ashkenazi. We have no idea how far back we would need to go to find our last practicing Jewish ancestress, but it still made me feel good. Like some of the other things I've talked about here, it felt right.

Around the world, each of the Abrahamic religions has its group of fundamentalists resisting any change and often subjugating women. It's refreshing to see some of them doing it differently. Best wishes to Rabbi Stanton and her congregation. Mazel tov.

A Great Problem to Have

Folks, I am worn out. Tiny Daughter M is so excited to be mobile again, she will not slow down. The weather has been wonderful so there is no excuse not to go outside. In the past week I have been for walks, bike rides, played pick up soccer games, gone bird watching just outside town, picnicked in the park, gone to the outdoor market, danced, and begged for mercy and a few minutes to sit and rest.

I am so tremendously grateful for her recovery and that gratitude is the only thing getting me through this weekend. I'm tired. She wants to go swimming and skating this week so we'll see what we fit in.

Still, there are lots worse problems to have

Chaos Theory and Spirituality

I recently finished re-reading Chaos: Making a New Science by James Gleick which recounts the development of the new cross-disciplinary study of Chaos Theory. This book is highly recommended for any of you interested at all in science. One of the things that draws me to UUism is that I don't have to give up a belief in the rational in order to have an experience with the spiritual.

I can honesty say that the first time I read this book about 8 or so years ago it changed my life. This book is the reason I became an agnostic instead of an atheist. I doesn't make me believe in a god or a God, but I do believe the universe exists around an organizing principle, for lack of a better term, and I'd like to become more in tune with that principle.

Chaos theory is largely about the study of patterns. It shows us that any order we imagine or try to create will always contain disorder inside of it, but that random and disorderly things contain a strange and unexplained logic when looked at closely enough. I'm not explaining it nearly as well as Gleick does, but his book gave me a whole new way to look at the world and everything in it. It gave me a way to make sense of the interconnected web so that I could accept it. All of the Buddhist aphorism and Pagan declarations in the world could not make me feel that we are all part of the same great thing they way that this scientific explanation does.

Chaos theory gave me the name for this blog: a strange attractor is a mathematical concept where a seemingly random pattern stabilizes around an unexplained equilibrium, never repeating exactly, but always staying within the parameters of the pattern. To me, that is a beautiful metaphor for free will and the tides of history. Also, it seemed like a fun pun for all of the strange and wonderful people in my life. Any philosophy that denies free will just turns me off immediately, but you cannot deny that so many things are totally out of our direct control. The concept of the strange attractor portrays to me that the universe and history will roll on as they must, but that my particular role within all that is still mine to determine.

I never used to believe the old chestnut that every snowflake is unique. Out of all the trillions and trillions of snowflakes in the history of the world, surely there must be some repetition. How many possible shapes can there be? Now I understand why they are each unique. They are each shaped by the path they follow as they form and fall to the ground. Turbulence tells us that each path is almost random and unrelated to the paths around them. Each snowflake makes a totally unique journey from the clouds to the ground. Snowfall got even more beautiful as I read that.

I don't understand it well enough to explain it, but the Mandelbrot set is one of the most fascinating things I have ever encountered.

Chaos also shows us that many things that we think, in our Aristotelian way, have nothing to do with each other, are actually quite similar and organized along the same principles. The human circulatory system, the formation of clouds, the flow of water, the oscillations of pendula are all related. Scale becomes much more important than definition. This reminds me to look at things from another angle, to look deeper at things and people. Our common assuptions about things are not necessarily in tune with reality and connections always deserve a closer look.

It's and I'm rambling now, and I wish I understood chaos theory well enough to explain why it fascinated me so much. I do know that learning about it rang true with me in a way that my religious upbringing never did. I believed in God as a young person, but I didn't feel him. I felt the beauty of this theory as I read this book and it has forever changed the way I look at everything in the world. The miraculous structure of a leaf feels real to me. It is accessible in a way that Bible stories are not. Now, when I come across religious writing that speaks about interconnectedness, I have a frame of reference that works for me, that feels true.

It seemed very strange to base my spirituality on a scientific theory. I didn't even know if it was legitimate, but if felt right. I don't know of any other religion that would have made room for me to let reason inform my spirituality like the UU's. I can embrace Paganism emotionally, some of Buddhism and Chaos theory intellectually and feel like I am trying to understand what the world is and to find my place in it, rather than existing to worship some outside being or accept what a spiritual leader says without examination. Maybe I am the only person in the whole world who find fractals to be his or her most meaningful symbol of the mystery, but I am glad to have found a place I can explore that and integrate it with whatever else seems beautiful and meaningful. I'm glad to have found UU's.

Too Much Joy to Be Angry Today

I just watched my daughter run down the street.

I'm trying not to cry again as I write that as I wasn't sure I would ever get to see that again. I was all set to write an angry post about the murder of Dr. Tiller in a church of all places, but there is no place in my heart to hold anger right now. I just watched my baby girl run down the street.

We took Tiny Daughter M to a new specialist today who recommended a totally different course of treatment. I was more than a little skeptical when he said that her neurology had healed and was normal, she just didn't know it yet. She didn't look like her condition had healed. Only three weeks ago her mobility had a major setback when she went off of the steroids. She still can't walk right without assistance so it never occurred to me to tell her to run. Baby girl can run. The new doctor wants to discontinue her physical therapy and make her run as much as possible, including the soccer team she has wanted to join so very badly. He said the magic words to me today. He said, "these always get better. It may take up to 18 months, but they always get better." No one had been able to tell me that before today. I was scared to believe him and get all of our hopes up, but it was such a relief to talk to someone who seemed to know what was going on and who could offer hope.

The doctor and I colluded to bribe her with getting her ears pierced once she can walk normally at full speed again. She is much more motivated with a goal and we need her mind to catch up with her brain. She was able to touch her toes this evening, which had been impossible even two weeks due to both balance and flexibility. (Sorry, I was drawn away for some impromptu jump roping in the living room. Most exciting jump rope event ever!)

Going into today's appointment, I was 75% focused on how to fix the Tiny Daughter and about 25% thinking about how, as a family, we would cope with having a disabled daughter. How would we make sure her life was still rich and full and unlimited? Today is the first time in about a month that I have felt that she is really going to be OK. She made fun of me for crying as she ran back hope, but that's OK, too.

Tiny Daughter M is on fire tonight. She is so excited to be able to really play and run and to enjoy moving her body. She is not 100% there, but the look of joy on her face as she ran back and forth down the street tonight was the most beautiful thing I have seen in a long time. The world is still an imperfect and frustrating place full of inexplicable evils and sorrow, but tonight I watched my daughter run down the street tonight, and that's enough.