More Oregonian newspaper reactions, this time to an opinion piece published by a black woman living in Oregon and feeling alone and misunderstood. It was called 'What it feels like to be Black in Oregon".
Race is on my mind with Obama's race speech so recently given.
I was hoping that her words would give me some insight but instead they reminding me, yet again, that its all so particular and subject to the 'eyes of the beholder'.
It didn't help that the piece was all about feeling and not hung on specific details. However, I do admire the writer for giving voice to her reactions to us white Oregonians.
We white Oregonians have to be odd to watch. When I was growing up, Oregon had very few African Americans, I remember when my entirely white, and fairly upper-income, high school was integrated. The black kids that were bused to our school where very different then I was expecting. I was expecting white people with black skin. I though the only difference would be the skin color.
Well they were quite different at least in the superficial ways that high schoolers notice. They were poorer and tougher than we were. I can't say I connected with any of them and it was a shock. Now looking back, I can't imagine what a shock it must have been to them.
I am a little more sophisticated now. I live in a multicultural neighborhood and for a while I flirted with the idea that racism was basically over. I saw how common and matter of fact my kids were around people of other ethnic backgrounds. They didn't ignore race but it was no big deal. Racism is over, the kids will make it go away, I thought. Plus the sheer number of different races was diluting the intensity of Black and White interaction. It isn't all about that old history of slavery I thought.
But I had an epiphany at church brought on by a story from an older white woman. She stood up and told about getting on a bus in Washington DC during world war II and having the bus driver order some black kids off the bus. They wouldn't sit in the back.
It hit my liberal phantasy about the end of racism, pretty hard. This woman is still alive and she has this memory of active institutional racism. These stories are still in peoples heads, in their memories. Even the young ones have heard the stories. And unfortunately, they probably have a few of their own.
I do believe it is better. I do believe that the young ones are the way. But it isn't going away in a generation. Maybe not in two, three or four. Racism is real if you have seen it or your father or grandfather have felt it. Its not a paranoid fantasy of black people. It should not be treated as such.
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Whiny Women
Guys aren't the only humans who don't like the whiny women.
Marie Cocco just had a column in the Oregonian that is a classic example of why you will sometimes find women running, screaming holding their ears when a full-on feminist starts to wind it up.
I am a feminist and proud of it, so my complaint is more about the style rather than the substance of Marie's argument.
Is there something to what Marie Cocco says -- that Hilary Clinton is being asked to be a 'good women' and bow out of the democratic race by the men of the party. There might be.
I wonder though if it does any good to point it out especially in that plaintive angry tone. The accusation is so far inside the territory of unconscious bias that one would have to be a scientist with a probe in your brain to know if the request was sincere or just a ploy. It certainly is an easy one to deny.
It also reminds me that any president is going to have to deal with more than a little gender bias. How about wrong headedness, veniality, psychopathology, hyperpartisanship and plain, old common-as-dirt-stupidity. He or she had better be ready for these and more. If she is not, if she is going to get all whiney about it -- I really don't want her to be my president --because she will be whining all of the time!
Being asked to be high-minded and step down for the good of the party is an almost charming, rather old fashioned, piece of bias. The very idea that women are better than men and more interested in the common welfare! Only in America is this an insult. Only in America are women eager to disprove it.
Seriously though, when should feminists complain? I think those idiots yelling 'clean my shirts' at her rally's are over the line and should be chucked out of any venue they attend. In a just world they would be cleaning her shirts.
I was offended when Hilary was accused of 'pimping' her daughter out because Chelsea was campaigning for her. I was glad that provoked outrage and backlash.
There are enough real instances of bias and prejudice that we don't need to drag out the maybe its bias arguement.
Marie Cocco just had a column in the Oregonian that is a classic example of why you will sometimes find women running, screaming holding their ears when a full-on feminist starts to wind it up.
I am a feminist and proud of it, so my complaint is more about the style rather than the substance of Marie's argument.
Is there something to what Marie Cocco says -- that Hilary Clinton is being asked to be a 'good women' and bow out of the democratic race by the men of the party. There might be.
I wonder though if it does any good to point it out especially in that plaintive angry tone. The accusation is so far inside the territory of unconscious bias that one would have to be a scientist with a probe in your brain to know if the request was sincere or just a ploy. It certainly is an easy one to deny.
It also reminds me that any president is going to have to deal with more than a little gender bias. How about wrong headedness, veniality, psychopathology, hyperpartisanship and plain, old common-as-dirt-stupidity. He or she had better be ready for these and more. If she is not, if she is going to get all whiney about it -- I really don't want her to be my president --because she will be whining all of the time!
Being asked to be high-minded and step down for the good of the party is an almost charming, rather old fashioned, piece of bias. The very idea that women are better than men and more interested in the common welfare! Only in America is this an insult. Only in America are women eager to disprove it.
Seriously though, when should feminists complain? I think those idiots yelling 'clean my shirts' at her rally's are over the line and should be chucked out of any venue they attend. In a just world they would be cleaning her shirts.
I was offended when Hilary was accused of 'pimping' her daughter out because Chelsea was campaigning for her. I was glad that provoked outrage and backlash.
There are enough real instances of bias and prejudice that we don't need to drag out the maybe its bias arguement.
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Logic Feeler meets dream time
I've been seeing a career counselor and as a result of some non-enneagram personality profiling I now think of myself as a 'logical feeler' (Myers Briggs). I like it. If I had known the expression earlier I might have used it as my blog name.
So if I am all logical in my feelings, how to explain my recent dreams? Dreams really are the anti logic.
About three weeks ago I had a dream that would have been worthy of the old testament in its command and specificity. It was a voice that said clearly to me "you will have a going away party for your son". Well it didn't tell me to take the people of Israel anywhere, but it did concern the Old Testament obsessions with lineage and journeys. My son is going to Bulgaria as a Peace Corp volunteer. He will be gone for two years, an almost biblical amount of time (seven years is the Biblical unit). I tend to blither and worry about whether to party or not to party. No problem with this one, we are having it.
Then yesterday I took a short nap and my sister-in-law called me. I didn't get up but I could kind of hear her answering me with her reasons for not coming tothe party and making some kind of request. I have good ears and I heard 1:30 and knew I would have to listen and answer.
This morning I remembered about the message. I checked the machine. No message. I queried my husband in an imperious manner. Well there are only two of us so one of us must have deleted it. I called Heidi and found out she hadn't called.
It must have been a dream, but a dream that mimicked reality in all its mundane details.
So if I am all logical in my feelings, how to explain my recent dreams? Dreams really are the anti logic.
About three weeks ago I had a dream that would have been worthy of the old testament in its command and specificity. It was a voice that said clearly to me "you will have a going away party for your son". Well it didn't tell me to take the people of Israel anywhere, but it did concern the Old Testament obsessions with lineage and journeys. My son is going to Bulgaria as a Peace Corp volunteer. He will be gone for two years, an almost biblical amount of time (seven years is the Biblical unit). I tend to blither and worry about whether to party or not to party. No problem with this one, we are having it.
Then yesterday I took a short nap and my sister-in-law called me. I didn't get up but I could kind of hear her answering me with her reasons for not coming tothe party and making some kind of request. I have good ears and I heard 1:30 and knew I would have to listen and answer.
This morning I remembered about the message. I checked the machine. No message. I queried my husband in an imperious manner. Well there are only two of us so one of us must have deleted it. I called Heidi and found out she hadn't called.
It must have been a dream, but a dream that mimicked reality in all its mundane details.
Saturday, March 15, 2008
Ingathering of new members
We have a ceremony at Eastrose welcoming new members. They stand in front of the congregation and the membership committee chair says something, then the president, then the minister, then the Congregation, then the new members and then everyone says something together. Usually the new members get a candle (our symbol is a flaming chalice) or a flower. Its welcoming, friendly and fun to see the new folk coming into the church.
But there is a one thing that it isn't, and that is inspiring. The words we use to welcome new members thud into the room (see below). We have a Membership Covenant with too many multi-syllabic Latin rooted words . Welcoming words should ring with poetry and power.
Ah those Latin rooted words like 'congregation', 'inspiration' and 'individuality'. Say one out loud and you're on a roller coaster and you have to ride it to the end. I don't have a classical education so I am winging it a bit here, but you can see how the word is constructed. Look at 'individuality', with its original word sitting somewhere in the middle. Who knows what 'divid' alone means, but it has all these mumbly syllables packed on the front and the back like pillows piled around a man on a couch. Like pillows they muffle.
The Latin isn't the only problem with the Membership Covenant -- there are also run on sentences and poorly chosen words. My favorite (as in hardest to say) is this sentences inflicted on our poor new members who must say "We join you with eager anticipation, understanding the responsibilities of membership, and aware that we are choosing this as our church home." It doesn't exactly trip off the tongue does it.
What else? It seems to be avoiding some issue -- it is so careful and abstract. If it was a body part it would definitely be a head, not a heart.
So here is the whole thing for you to read. I am going to play around with it a bit and see if I can improve it in future blogs. Join in if you want. Give it your own go, or if you want send me a link to an existing Membership Covenant you like better.
Membership Covenant
President: We welcome you with joy and pride as members of Eastrose Fellowship. We place our hands in yours, offering you our friendship and support, and receiving you as new companions on our journey.
Minister: may you find within these sheltering walls both inspiration and wisdom for daily living. May you also find here the strength and courage to go beyond these walls to serve the needs of others.
Congregation: we welcome your choice to join us in the search for truth and meaning in our lives. We celebrate your newfound commitment to this Unitarian Universalist congregation. We pledge to honor your individuality and freedom ,and we look forward to the new insight and vitality you bring.
New Members: We join you with eager anticipation, understanding the responsibilities of membership, and aware that we are chosing this as our church home. We bring to eastrose Fellowship our talents and energy, our doubts and concerns and our willingness to serve the needs of this community as we are able.
All: Let us build together a community of celebration, inspiration, sustenance, welcome, and service. In this spirit,we renew our commitment to seek the truth in love, to answer the call of justice, and to help one another. so may it be.
But there is a one thing that it isn't, and that is inspiring. The words we use to welcome new members thud into the room (see below). We have a Membership Covenant with too many multi-syllabic Latin rooted words . Welcoming words should ring with poetry and power.
Ah those Latin rooted words like 'congregation', 'inspiration' and 'individuality'. Say one out loud and you're on a roller coaster and you have to ride it to the end. I don't have a classical education so I am winging it a bit here, but you can see how the word is constructed. Look at 'individuality', with its original word sitting somewhere in the middle. Who knows what 'divid' alone means, but it has all these mumbly syllables packed on the front and the back like pillows piled around a man on a couch. Like pillows they muffle.
The Latin isn't the only problem with the Membership Covenant -- there are also run on sentences and poorly chosen words. My favorite (as in hardest to say) is this sentences inflicted on our poor new members who must say "We join you with eager anticipation, understanding the responsibilities of membership, and aware that we are choosing this as our church home." It doesn't exactly trip off the tongue does it.
What else? It seems to be avoiding some issue -- it is so careful and abstract. If it was a body part it would definitely be a head, not a heart.
So here is the whole thing for you to read. I am going to play around with it a bit and see if I can improve it in future blogs. Join in if you want. Give it your own go, or if you want send me a link to an existing Membership Covenant you like better.
Membership Covenant
President: We welcome you with joy and pride as members of Eastrose Fellowship. We place our hands in yours, offering you our friendship and support, and receiving you as new companions on our journey.
Minister: may you find within these sheltering walls both inspiration and wisdom for daily living. May you also find here the strength and courage to go beyond these walls to serve the needs of others.
Congregation: we welcome your choice to join us in the search for truth and meaning in our lives. We celebrate your newfound commitment to this Unitarian Universalist congregation. We pledge to honor your individuality and freedom ,and we look forward to the new insight and vitality you bring.
New Members: We join you with eager anticipation, understanding the responsibilities of membership, and aware that we are chosing this as our church home. We bring to eastrose Fellowship our talents and energy, our doubts and concerns and our willingness to serve the needs of this community as we are able.
All: Let us build together a community of celebration, inspiration, sustenance, welcome, and service. In this spirit,we renew our commitment to seek the truth in love, to answer the call of justice, and to help one another. so may it be.
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Crying in Church
As an adult I find myself crying in church and I never have a handkerchief. Neither does my husband. (I confess I have a weakness for men who can easily tie things on the tops of cars and hand me a clean handkerchief when I need one -- maybe I will marry one of those guys in my next life).
Other than church I hardly ever cry, but crying got me started going back to church (Faith Journal: First Entry) and it has followed me into my pew.
At first I though it was just the stress of being mother to a growing family. When I came to church in those early years I would sit in a grateful daze. It was just so peaceful -- just sitting -- with the two little lala's in the back somewhere playing with the other baby Unitarians. The words and songs would just wash over me.
If I shut my eyes I got the same feeling I had when I was a child and we used to drive to Mt. Hood to go skiing. The car would be packed with gear and family, with parents, sibs and me there were eight. If I was lucky I would get a seat near a window and lean against my puffy ski jacket wadded up against the door as a pillow. I would be in and out of sleep, listening to the conversations in the car while the Oregon woods flashed by on either side. Every once in a while a vine maple would fill the window with a green, clean light as it fluttered in unselfconscious beauty. Those vine maples gave me a shiver; on a sunny day they glowed in among the dark woods.
The crying would come because I would relax into the space of church and then something would reach me like those vine maples. A story of pain would make it to my heart, and as open as I was, I would cry.
It still happens all the time. Now it is often a story about someone in my church community who I've known for a long time. Or maybe the choir sings a song that reminds me of something. There are a million different triggers but they reach me because of a certain receptivity that I have when I am there. The same story or song doesn't have the same power anywhere else.
Other than church I hardly ever cry, but crying got me started going back to church (Faith Journal: First Entry) and it has followed me into my pew.
At first I though it was just the stress of being mother to a growing family. When I came to church in those early years I would sit in a grateful daze. It was just so peaceful -- just sitting -- with the two little lala's in the back somewhere playing with the other baby Unitarians. The words and songs would just wash over me.
If I shut my eyes I got the same feeling I had when I was a child and we used to drive to Mt. Hood to go skiing. The car would be packed with gear and family, with parents, sibs and me there were eight. If I was lucky I would get a seat near a window and lean against my puffy ski jacket wadded up against the door as a pillow. I would be in and out of sleep, listening to the conversations in the car while the Oregon woods flashed by on either side. Every once in a while a vine maple would fill the window with a green, clean light as it fluttered in unselfconscious beauty. Those vine maples gave me a shiver; on a sunny day they glowed in among the dark woods.
The crying would come because I would relax into the space of church and then something would reach me like those vine maples. A story of pain would make it to my heart, and as open as I was, I would cry.
It still happens all the time. Now it is often a story about someone in my church community who I've known for a long time. Or maybe the choir sings a song that reminds me of something. There are a million different triggers but they reach me because of a certain receptivity that I have when I am there. The same story or song doesn't have the same power anywhere else.
Thursday, February 7, 2008
It happened at 12
What is it about twelve years old that brings such insights. At twelve, your brain must grow like a son-of-a-gun. You look like a kid. All the nobs and bumps on your face grow at different rates. Maybe you have braces and you don't make easy eye contact with adults. Adults still talk around you as if you don't understand them but now you suddenly do.
Twelve was when I stopped believing in God. I used to remember the moment but I don't anymore. Just that it happened at twelve and it was a reverse of Saul on the road to Damascus, one minute I believed and the next I did not. I doubt there was a blinding light just a feeling of emptiness and the click of the world making more sense.
I remember a year later spending the night with my best friend Sidney. Her Dad was on a date so we were alone in a house out in the woods. We were in bed telling stories when someone started walking around the house shining a flashlight in. We were terrified. The light from the flashlight swung wildly around the living room. We were in a loft bed-room looking down.
Sidney clutched my hand and started praying wildly out-loud. "Oh Jesus, Jesus, save us." Even in my terror, maybe because of my terror, I thought how wonderful it would be to cry out to the Lord with that sincerity. If we were murdered she would be praying to God while I would be looking directly into the eyes of my murderer. I had God envy and decided to start believing again.
For about two weeks I held belief in my mind while my heart really saw Sidney clutching my hand and praying. It was her faith that had touched me and gave me the strength to hold off my own reality for that length of time. I couldn't do it for longer than two weeks though -- hard as I tried.
Twelve was when I stopped believing in God. I used to remember the moment but I don't anymore. Just that it happened at twelve and it was a reverse of Saul on the road to Damascus, one minute I believed and the next I did not. I doubt there was a blinding light just a feeling of emptiness and the click of the world making more sense.
I remember a year later spending the night with my best friend Sidney. Her Dad was on a date so we were alone in a house out in the woods. We were in bed telling stories when someone started walking around the house shining a flashlight in. We were terrified. The light from the flashlight swung wildly around the living room. We were in a loft bed-room looking down.
Sidney clutched my hand and started praying wildly out-loud. "Oh Jesus, Jesus, save us." Even in my terror, maybe because of my terror, I thought how wonderful it would be to cry out to the Lord with that sincerity. If we were murdered she would be praying to God while I would be looking directly into the eyes of my murderer. I had God envy and decided to start believing again.
For about two weeks I held belief in my mind while my heart really saw Sidney clutching my hand and praying. It was her faith that had touched me and gave me the strength to hold off my own reality for that length of time. I couldn't do it for longer than two weeks though -- hard as I tried.
Saturday, January 5, 2008
Fantasy read
One of my guilty pleasures is Science Fiction and Fantasy--
If I want to sound intellectual I can call it speculative fiction. It started when I was a kid and my brother introduced me to the books of Robert Heinlein. I read all the Robert Heinlein in the Youth fiction area of the Library.
I love Ursula LeGuin, The Tolkien Ring Series, the Phillip Pullman trilogy His Dark Materials, Garth Nix who wrote a wonderful trilogy called the Abhorsen Trilogy.
That out-of-body sensation you get when reading is even more intense with good speculative fiction. You are not just out-of-body you are out of the universe!
The trouble with Speculative fiction is that the bar isn't set very high for publishing, and there are a lot of so-so books out there. I don't even find a good one once a year, while good fiction, biography, and history is everywhere.
So I loved discovering The Brief History of the Dead by Kevin Brockmeier. Its beautifully written with a world that makes sense even if its not verifiable.
Laura is the heroine of the story. Stationed in Antarctica on a corporate sponsored science trip when a plague hits the earth, she lives but everyone else around her dies. The book follows her as she tries to find her way out of Antarctica. Brockmeier also keeps giving scenes from a city in flux, but it isn't a city that any of us know, it's the City of Remembered Dead.
You may have had the almost logical thought that someone isn't dead until all the people who remember them have died. This book imagines such a world actually exists. Its based on an African belief that there are three states of being: living, dead but remembered by the living, and no longer remembered.
People arrive in the City of Remembered Dead in some confusion but settle down into a different life. No one seems to need to work there although some do anyway. There's a lot of cafe sitting and coffee drinking. Life is real, with relationships sometimes extending from the old life, and sometimes with new relationships starting up.
But the plague is also throwing this world into confusion. The City is filling up with the new dead and long time residents are disappearing.
And then it begins to empty out and we realize that Laura is the last person left on earth.
The still remembered dead start to figure things out but there is nothing they can do. They even figure out that it is Laura that is holding them in place and that Laura is in trouble.
I don't want to give to much away -- but it doesn't exactly have a happy ending.
Its a book that makes you think in a humanistic spiritual way. Its really about what is lost when a person dies.
We tend to think of the world moving on after we die and we get some comfort from that. This story turns that on its head and points out, not that the world goes on without us, but that in some ways it doesn't. Its dizzying the way it makes you aware of the multiple connections we each carry around inside our memories.
When I finished this novel I didn't feel like crying but I had to sit and be quiet for a while. I let the story rumble around in my head and thought about it for days.
If I want to sound intellectual I can call it speculative fiction. It started when I was a kid and my brother introduced me to the books of Robert Heinlein. I read all the Robert Heinlein in the Youth fiction area of the Library.
I love Ursula LeGuin, The Tolkien Ring Series, the Phillip Pullman trilogy His Dark Materials, Garth Nix who wrote a wonderful trilogy called the Abhorsen Trilogy.
That out-of-body sensation you get when reading is even more intense with good speculative fiction. You are not just out-of-body you are out of the universe!
The trouble with Speculative fiction is that the bar isn't set very high for publishing, and there are a lot of so-so books out there. I don't even find a good one once a year, while good fiction, biography, and history is everywhere.
So I loved discovering The Brief History of the Dead by Kevin Brockmeier. Its beautifully written with a world that makes sense even if its not verifiable.
Laura is the heroine of the story. Stationed in Antarctica on a corporate sponsored science trip when a plague hits the earth, she lives but everyone else around her dies. The book follows her as she tries to find her way out of Antarctica. Brockmeier also keeps giving scenes from a city in flux, but it isn't a city that any of us know, it's the City of Remembered Dead.
You may have had the almost logical thought that someone isn't dead until all the people who remember them have died. This book imagines such a world actually exists. Its based on an African belief that there are three states of being: living, dead but remembered by the living, and no longer remembered.
People arrive in the City of Remembered Dead in some confusion but settle down into a different life. No one seems to need to work there although some do anyway. There's a lot of cafe sitting and coffee drinking. Life is real, with relationships sometimes extending from the old life, and sometimes with new relationships starting up.
But the plague is also throwing this world into confusion. The City is filling up with the new dead and long time residents are disappearing.
And then it begins to empty out and we realize that Laura is the last person left on earth.
The still remembered dead start to figure things out but there is nothing they can do. They even figure out that it is Laura that is holding them in place and that Laura is in trouble.
I don't want to give to much away -- but it doesn't exactly have a happy ending.
Its a book that makes you think in a humanistic spiritual way. Its really about what is lost when a person dies.
We tend to think of the world moving on after we die and we get some comfort from that. This story turns that on its head and points out, not that the world goes on without us, but that in some ways it doesn't. Its dizzying the way it makes you aware of the multiple connections we each carry around inside our memories.
When I finished this novel I didn't feel like crying but I had to sit and be quiet for a while. I let the story rumble around in my head and thought about it for days.
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