Yesterday Joel Monka questioned why politically liberal UU bloggers haven’t been writing about the recent military action in Libya. I can’t speak for others, but I can tell you why I haven’t written about it yet – because I have been hiding my head in the sand trying to pretend it isn’t happening.
I believe that the strong have an obligation to protect the weak. I believe that great powers should do what they can do prevent genocide and massacres when they can. I am very glad that there are people alive today who would not have been if we had not intervened. I am glad that we prevented bloodshed in Libya. On the other hand I do not understand the philosophy or methodology by which the Obama administration is choosing whom to help. Why are not intervening to protect civilians in Yemen, or Bahrain, Syria, Sudan, Congo, or the Ivory Coast?
I am frustrated because I do not have an answer to this question and President Obama does not seem to be in a hurry to articulate it. The lack of an answer leads me to cynicism. I dread the idea of being at war in three separate Muslim nations simultaneously and the fallout that may come from that. I am angry that we can’t seem to afford social programs but we have plenty of money to attempt to save the entire Middle East from itself, as it anyone asked us to. I am disappointed that Obama neglected to consult Congress before taking us into another military action.
Most of all, I am sad - sad that I am frustrated and disappointed this way. Anyone looking fairly at this situation can see that Libya is not Iraq. When Bush took us into Iraq I was angry, but now I am sad and discouraged. I expected better of Obama. When I happily voted for him two years ago, I was not voting for expanded war efforts. I also didn’t think I was voting for no end in sight for Guantanamo, or for going to war without consulting Congress.
If I have been quiet on this issue, it is because I am feeling a bit hopeless. When protesting against Bush, it seemed like the right person in authority could undo the wrong, but now it seems like electing the “good guy” still brings a bad outcome. Where do we go from here?
Given time, I am sure I will remember that I agree with Obama about a lot more than I disagree, I will give him credit for a very productive first two years in office. Right now, I am ignoring the situation so I can forget that my side let me down. I do not claim that this approach is commendable, but it is human.
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
The Day the Glamour Died
The world got a little less glamorous today.
I am sure you know already that Dame Elizabeth Taylor died today of congestive heart failure at the age of 79. A lot of digital ink has been spilled over memorializing her today and I won’t attempt to repeat it here, but I will tell you what she meant to me.
One of my peculiarities as a child was that I fell in love with old movies around the age of 9. As I grew up Elizabeth Taylor was the definition of glamour for me. She personified female sex appeal. She was fierce before that was a term. From Dame Elizabeth I learned that a woman could be strong without having to de-sexualize herself, or conversely that she could be sexy without having to be weak. I didn’t have to be powerless to be feminine. But she was more than just her extraordinary looks and she demonstrated that a woman’s value lasts far longer than her youth when she championed the cause for AIDS treatment. At an age when many women in her line of work as tossed aside, she began a second career as an advocate. To borrow a phrase she stood on the side of love and advocated for people whom others wanted to condemn.
Heather at nagoonberry has been encouraging me to write about fashion and self love, and I will, but I couldn’t even begin to write that without acknowledging the woman who epitomized beauty and glamour for me. Now I just have to figure out which of her films to watch this weekend – right now I’m leaning towards Butterfield 8.
I am sure you know already that Dame Elizabeth Taylor died today of congestive heart failure at the age of 79. A lot of digital ink has been spilled over memorializing her today and I won’t attempt to repeat it here, but I will tell you what she meant to me.
One of my peculiarities as a child was that I fell in love with old movies around the age of 9. As I grew up Elizabeth Taylor was the definition of glamour for me. She personified female sex appeal. She was fierce before that was a term. From Dame Elizabeth I learned that a woman could be strong without having to de-sexualize herself, or conversely that she could be sexy without having to be weak. I didn’t have to be powerless to be feminine. But she was more than just her extraordinary looks and she demonstrated that a woman’s value lasts far longer than her youth when she championed the cause for AIDS treatment. At an age when many women in her line of work as tossed aside, she began a second career as an advocate. To borrow a phrase she stood on the side of love and advocated for people whom others wanted to condemn.
Heather at nagoonberry has been encouraging me to write about fashion and self love, and I will, but I couldn’t even begin to write that without acknowledging the woman who epitomized beauty and glamour for me. Now I just have to figure out which of her films to watch this weekend – right now I’m leaning towards Butterfield 8.
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Lent
So, um… Lent.
What to do with it? It is there, and it seems all around me the past few years, but it isn’t mine. It feels like it needs addressing somehow. As I mentioned last year Lent was never part of my childhood faith. Neither Southern Baptists nor Assembly of God “do” Lent. As a non-theist, I don’t do Lent now. Other than remembering not to eat whatever it was that friends had given up in front of them, Lent has always been irrelevant to my life.
But…
Last year I enjoyed the 40/40/40 challenge when I gave up eating meat for 40 days. Especially for those of us in the developed world, it is good for us to go without something for a time, to focus on how fortunate we are to have all of these luxuries we take for granted. Times of excess and celebration are wonderful, but times of denial are their balance, and I have neglected that side of the equation. Lent seems like it would be a perfect time to be in sync with others doing the same thing, so I thought about it.
But the theology is getting in the way for me. Practicing Lent, for me, would be like admitting than I am an inherently evil person who needs Christ’s bloody sacrifice for salvation, and that I need to try and share, in some small way, with his suffering. That’s not going to work for me. I realize that not all Christians view Lent this way and it is meaningful for many. This is how it feels for me.
Then I saw that the UU Ministry For Earth is continuing the 40/40 for Earth Challenge from April 17 – May 26. I will have to delay my fast another month, but it is good to know I can do it in conjunction with others. Is anyone else out there in blogland planning to participate in this challenge? If you did it last year, what did you get out of it? If you are doing it this year, what kind of fast or change do you intend to make?
I do wish a blessed Ash Wednesday and Lenten period for all those who observe it. May your fast bring you what you seek.
What to do with it? It is there, and it seems all around me the past few years, but it isn’t mine. It feels like it needs addressing somehow. As I mentioned last year Lent was never part of my childhood faith. Neither Southern Baptists nor Assembly of God “do” Lent. As a non-theist, I don’t do Lent now. Other than remembering not to eat whatever it was that friends had given up in front of them, Lent has always been irrelevant to my life.
But…
Last year I enjoyed the 40/40/40 challenge when I gave up eating meat for 40 days. Especially for those of us in the developed world, it is good for us to go without something for a time, to focus on how fortunate we are to have all of these luxuries we take for granted. Times of excess and celebration are wonderful, but times of denial are their balance, and I have neglected that side of the equation. Lent seems like it would be a perfect time to be in sync with others doing the same thing, so I thought about it.
But the theology is getting in the way for me. Practicing Lent, for me, would be like admitting than I am an inherently evil person who needs Christ’s bloody sacrifice for salvation, and that I need to try and share, in some small way, with his suffering. That’s not going to work for me. I realize that not all Christians view Lent this way and it is meaningful for many. This is how it feels for me.
Then I saw that the UU Ministry For Earth is continuing the 40/40 for Earth Challenge from April 17 – May 26. I will have to delay my fast another month, but it is good to know I can do it in conjunction with others. Is anyone else out there in blogland planning to participate in this challenge? If you did it last year, what did you get out of it? If you are doing it this year, what kind of fast or change do you intend to make?
I do wish a blessed Ash Wednesday and Lenten period for all those who observe it. May your fast bring you what you seek.
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Einstein & Heisenberg
Whew! It has taken me weeks to get through this last book I was reading, Quantum: Einstein, Bohr and the Great Debate about the nature of reality by Manjit Kumar. Since I find both science and the history of science fascinating, this book was right up my alley. But it was dense, and I was busy so it took me a while to get through. Saturday afternoon I approached those last few chapters like a marathon runner reaching out for that ribbon. We need not speculate about whether or not I actually lapped the living room with the book held above my head. Let’s just move along.
Amongst all of the interesting scientific advancements and attempt to peer into the universe’s weave was a very human story that has stuck with me. Albert Einstein and Werner Heisenberg were both highly respected German theoretical physicists who were on opposite side of the great debate over quantum mechanics. (I promise I will not bore you here with particles, etc.) Before WWII, Einstein refused to return to Hitler’s Germany and settled in Princeton, NJ. Many Jewish scientists were exiled from Germany and many non-Jews left in support of their colleagues. Heisenberg stayed and went on the head the German nuclear weapons program.
In his book’s penultimate chapter, Kumar tells a brief story about Heisenberg visiting Einstein in 1954 in Princeton during a speaking tour after the war. Einstein claimed that the men avoided the subject of politics and discussed physics. It is a brief aside in the book, but it has stuck with me for days. How do you do this? This wasn’t like reconciling scientists after WWI where people ended up on opposite sides of a continental meltdown almost by chance. How do you sit down with an old acquaintance and pretend? How does one not ask, how did you try to help this man succeed, this man who wanted to see me and everyone like me dead? After learning about the camps and the slaughter, how do you sit across from someone and sip coffee? How do you not ask if he knew what was going on and what he did about it? If Heisenberg has built the bomb first, how horrible the outcome would have been, and yet they sat, and discussed particles and old times. For that matter, what did Heisenberg say? How do you suggest that bygones be left to be bygones after the government you helped tried to wipe out the other person’s entire race? Did he even attempt to say he was sorry?
I don’t understand this. I don’t even know if I admire Einstein’s equanimity or if I am appalled as his lack of demonstrated outrage. I’ve been thinking about this story for days and I have imagined it playing out in numerous fictional ways. Physics and its waves that are also particles are complex and fascinating, but we humans are each little universes ourselves and the stories or why we do what we do is the world’s most interesting puzzle.
Amongst all of the interesting scientific advancements and attempt to peer into the universe’s weave was a very human story that has stuck with me. Albert Einstein and Werner Heisenberg were both highly respected German theoretical physicists who were on opposite side of the great debate over quantum mechanics. (I promise I will not bore you here with particles, etc.) Before WWII, Einstein refused to return to Hitler’s Germany and settled in Princeton, NJ. Many Jewish scientists were exiled from Germany and many non-Jews left in support of their colleagues. Heisenberg stayed and went on the head the German nuclear weapons program.
In his book’s penultimate chapter, Kumar tells a brief story about Heisenberg visiting Einstein in 1954 in Princeton during a speaking tour after the war. Einstein claimed that the men avoided the subject of politics and discussed physics. It is a brief aside in the book, but it has stuck with me for days. How do you do this? This wasn’t like reconciling scientists after WWI where people ended up on opposite sides of a continental meltdown almost by chance. How do you sit down with an old acquaintance and pretend? How does one not ask, how did you try to help this man succeed, this man who wanted to see me and everyone like me dead? After learning about the camps and the slaughter, how do you sit across from someone and sip coffee? How do you not ask if he knew what was going on and what he did about it? If Heisenberg has built the bomb first, how horrible the outcome would have been, and yet they sat, and discussed particles and old times. For that matter, what did Heisenberg say? How do you suggest that bygones be left to be bygones after the government you helped tried to wipe out the other person’s entire race? Did he even attempt to say he was sorry?
I don’t understand this. I don’t even know if I admire Einstein’s equanimity or if I am appalled as his lack of demonstrated outrage. I’ve been thinking about this story for days and I have imagined it playing out in numerous fictional ways. Physics and its waves that are also particles are complex and fascinating, but we humans are each little universes ourselves and the stories or why we do what we do is the world’s most interesting puzzle.
Monday, February 28, 2011
RIP Merlin Stone
Merlin Stone passed away this weekend. As usual Jason Pitzl-Waters at The Wild Hunt has an excellent write up on her impact in goddess studies. I try not to engage in hyperbole, but I can honestly say her book, When God Was a Woman changed my life. That book started a process that totally changed the way I think about religion and spirituality, their place in human history, and what all of that could mean to me.
I came across her book by accident. I was shopping in the college bookstore my senior year and it was on the clearance rack, marked down to some ridiculously low price. It looked intriguing so I bought it and promptly put it in the books-I-am-going-to-get-around-to-reading stack. When I finally worked my way around to it, I was totally absorbed. I had learned about the Venus of Willendorf, and Crete, and Catal Huyuk, but the idea that deeply matriarchal and spiritually vibrant culture was not an aberration was earth-shaking for me.
It didn’t convince me to believe in a literal goddess anymore than I believe in a literal god, but those archetypal images and symbols stuck with me, as well as a desire to connect with what they mean. Reading Stone helped me to understand how totally out of touch I had become with Christianity. I read it a second time a few years later and it revitalized in me a determination that my daughters not be brought up in a faith that taught them they were second-best.
Thank you, Merlin Stone. May you rest in peace.
I came across her book by accident. I was shopping in the college bookstore my senior year and it was on the clearance rack, marked down to some ridiculously low price. It looked intriguing so I bought it and promptly put it in the books-I-am-going-to-get-around-to-reading stack. When I finally worked my way around to it, I was totally absorbed. I had learned about the Venus of Willendorf, and Crete, and Catal Huyuk, but the idea that deeply matriarchal and spiritually vibrant culture was not an aberration was earth-shaking for me.
It didn’t convince me to believe in a literal goddess anymore than I believe in a literal god, but those archetypal images and symbols stuck with me, as well as a desire to connect with what they mean. Reading Stone helped me to understand how totally out of touch I had become with Christianity. I read it a second time a few years later and it revitalized in me a determination that my daughters not be brought up in a faith that taught them they were second-best.
Thank you, Merlin Stone. May you rest in peace.
Friday, February 25, 2011
Enabling Evangelicals
I earned some daughter points this week.
Through my work, I was able to get two tickets for my parents to attend a major evangelical Christian event next month. They are excited. They are disappointed that I will not be attending the event with them, but still, they are happy to be going.
I struggled with this a little bit. My initial reaction when a co-worker suggested I invite my parents was that I did not want to support something so totally antithetical to my personal views. Giving them the tickets felt like giving the event my blessing and I don’t want to do that. After thinking it over for a few minutes I changed my mind. I am not paying for these tickets; my company has already purchased them and someone is going to use them. Letting someone else use the tickets would not mean that the message would not be getting out. I am not encouraging my parents’ beliefs because they are not going to change them whether or not they attend.
Giving my parents the tickets will A) make them happy and B) show the respect for their beliefs that I would like for myself. In truth, I bear a fair amount of hostility toward their belief system, but I respect their right to worship as they please. I can’t really expect them to extend that respect to me if I am unwilling to give it to them.
This occasion does present the danger that my co-workers will be spending time with my parents, unsupervised – a chilling thought. I’ll have to take that risk.
Through my work, I was able to get two tickets for my parents to attend a major evangelical Christian event next month. They are excited. They are disappointed that I will not be attending the event with them, but still, they are happy to be going.
I struggled with this a little bit. My initial reaction when a co-worker suggested I invite my parents was that I did not want to support something so totally antithetical to my personal views. Giving them the tickets felt like giving the event my blessing and I don’t want to do that. After thinking it over for a few minutes I changed my mind. I am not paying for these tickets; my company has already purchased them and someone is going to use them. Letting someone else use the tickets would not mean that the message would not be getting out. I am not encouraging my parents’ beliefs because they are not going to change them whether or not they attend.
Giving my parents the tickets will A) make them happy and B) show the respect for their beliefs that I would like for myself. In truth, I bear a fair amount of hostility toward their belief system, but I respect their right to worship as they please. I can’t really expect them to extend that respect to me if I am unwilling to give it to them.
This occasion does present the danger that my co-workers will be spending time with my parents, unsupervised – a chilling thought. I’ll have to take that risk.
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Can We All Just Stop Hurting For a Moment?
Can everybody just stop hurting so much for a little while? I need a little break.
There is an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer called “Earshot” in which Buffy Summers temporarily gains the power to read minds. As the ability grows, she becomes overwhelmed with the burden of hearing everyone’s private thoughts. She explains to Jonathan, a suicidal classmate, that the reason no one notices his pain is that everyone, no matter how they seem, is busy dealing with their own.
I am feeling a little like Buffy this week. Everyone around me is carrying on living their lives, but underneath the surface is such pain. A friend found a second type of cancer after the first was successfully removed; an old high-school buddy threatened to shoot himself, a casual friend was left by her husband of 16 years and is now readjusting to her new role as a single mother; a co-worker and a sister both struggle in marriages that crush their spirits, but they are unable to fix and unwilling to leave; another friend just lost his wife to a protracted battle with cancer; a dear relative is combining the joy of expecting a baby with an emotionally abusive relationship; another friend is struggling with depression; body image issues are tampering a close friend's joy; one branch of the family is dealing with a possible drinking problem. These are just the things I know about, just the ones that come to mind at the moment.
Right now this pain is highly visible to me, but I realize that this is normal. This is life. I am currently noticing it more acutely, but I think the aggregate of pain is probably the standard. I am trying really hard to be there for the people I care about, but it is becoming exhausting. This week I feel a little overwhelmed. I am so glad that Husband S is the rock I am always depend on. He is keeping me stable so that I can be there for others.
Several UU bloggers, but especially Lizard Eater, talk about becoming a missional denomination. I admire their dedication, but I don’t usually feel compelled to join in. Lately when I look around and see all of the unfortunately mundane suffering I almost get the missional bug. I admire people who try to save the world, but that is not in my power. I just want to help ease some suffering, one person at a time. I can't fix people, try though I might (and believe me, I have tried), but I can listen, and I can accept, and I can love.
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