Another kind of testimony - City Council

I testified at a recent Portland City Council meeting that was held in East Portland, not the usual downtown council chambers. The city council was voting to accept a special report on East Portland. Here is my (very short) testimony. It goes remarkably well on a religion and spirituality blog since its all about equity. Warning, there is some wonk talk in among the equity talk! It's my secret side.

After thanking the council I said:

The East Portland Action Plan has a whole section on equity. The plan asks for equity reporting and audits. We want our fair share of investment in our neighborhoods and opportunities for the children and adults in East Portland.

Equity is about fairness and our desire to improve our neighborhoods, but it is also about our desire to be fully and wholly a part of Portland. You are familiar with those t-shirts that say, "this is what 50 looks like" and "this is what 60 looks like", well this is what Portland looks like. As proud as we are to say East Portland, we aren’t just East Portland.

Equity is one of those concepts that can come across negatively as "getting ours", but equity in the positive sense is about connections, about being a part of the larger whole. There is a sense of being cut off, when equity isn’t there. This symbolic city council meeting, like the earlier events of Sam Adam’s and, even before that, Ted Wheeler’s Parkrose inauguration, builds connections. The new East Portland swimming pool addition to the East Portland Community Center builds connections. I believe, that if the connections are there equity will automatically follow.

I invite you to continue to build connections with this part of Portland; and one way to do that would be through equity reporting. The equity audits and reports that are recommended in the East Portland Action Plan, need to become a part of the decision making culture at city hall. I was delighted to see Mayor Adams linking neighborhood equity reporting to the bureaus and to the future Portland Strategic Plan in one of his earliest announcements as Mayor. Someday the East Portland Action Plan will be old and outdated, but it won’t matter if you are systematically using equity in your decision making.

Thank you Mayor Adams: thank you Counselors, it was a pleasure to serve on the East Portland Action Planning Team.

Pickle-making

The new look of my blog is inspiring me to write more. Just looking at that picture of Waldo Lake and remembering that I was actually there on a dazzling day in July is an inspiration. Yes the quality of the light was that magical and the water was an incredible clear blue.

I am writing my first exegesis paper for Marylhurst. Doing this is fraught for me because I have to take a LOT of Bible classes to get my MDIV. It isn't so much this particular paper, but the fact that I will have to repeat the process over and over. I wish very much, that the DIV part was more interfaith and I could fill my head with the theology of all the world's great religions.

I cringe a little when my teachers say bright little aphorisms about all that we will learn. The depth etc. I imagine that I could study pickle-making and take some meaning out of it. If you delve deep enough in any subject you learn something that you can take with you and apply somewhere else. Naturally, I have already learned much from this Bible look-see. I am saddened though by the opportunity cost. I have this time to study and I am going to have to spend it on the Bible. I am not denigrating the Bible so much as wishing for more balance in my studies. It saddens me. I am old enough to be sad, and a bit angry, about wasted time.

My original prejudice that the Bible is no more divinely inspired than any other spiritual writing is being confirmed. Once you know how copied, translated, changed and selected it is its hard to see God's hand there. Yes, there is faith and religion, which I respect. But each generation is yanking the book in one direction or another depending on the politics of the day. There is this great human need flowing through it. I am convinced it is a holy book, but more because of the faith and tears, and sometimes blood, of the readers and writers than because of some grand plan. And of course there are some beautiful passages.

Here is my pickle-making insight from the Bible. I was reading about Dick Cheney and his criticisms of Obama because he was closing down Guantanamo Bay and I though "He's a Roman!". Dick Cheney is all about empire and in empire its OK to level whole towns to preserve it.

In the Belly of the Beast

I just signed up to get trained as a Trauma Counsellor through Trauma Intervention Programs of Portland Oregon. For my MDiv we are being asked to do practicums. I think that means get real and be practical. Its the doing rather than the thinking part of my program.

I tend to get lost in the thinking. I tend to enjoy the thinking. Many of my Marylhurst cohort (the folks I am travelling through the program with) are getting a slightly different degree called Applied Theology. I love the name of that degree and wish my own degree had such a nuts and bolts name. There is something nutty about acquiring a degree called Master of Divinity when one has so many doubts about said Divinity.

However, Trauma Counselling is a nuts and bolts skill of the Minister and I am oddly looking forward to it. Partly because I felt my intuition kick into gear when I read about it in the newspaper. 'I could probably do that' is what I thought. I confess I have been wondering about the pastoral side of ministry. Can I deal with other peoples problems? I feel I have the compassion gene; I am pretty sure I don't have the sympathy gene.

There is a part of me that probably needs a little roughing up, that needs examination, that needs a regular dose of humility, that does not like garden variety people problems. I try not to complain a lot myself, and there must be something in me that just shouts that to the world. People tell me nothing!!! They think I am going to disapprove! I don't think I do that, but sometimes I probably look puzzled, like huh, why are you telling me this. What can I say, I blame my mother. Why not, she doesn't have a computer. But I got to say, I don't think anyone tells her anything either.

I don't think I am going to need sympathy for Trauma Counselling. I think I am going to need empathy. It's scary and I hope I am strong enough for it. It feels a little like going into the belly of the beast. Or rather, like signing up to walk through the valley of the shadow of death.

The Question

I am beginning to think of it as The Question. Appropriately capitalized, because the convention of piety means that all references to God are capitalized. My question is, of course, 'is there a God'? It's starting to take on the urgency of 'does he love me'? It too, is a question we ask ourselves when we are young and in love.

I am surprised by this. I never thought I would get my stomach clenched over an existential question. The whole question of God was in my head before. It was a question as out there as anything, as remote and distant from every day as anything I could think of. I love my UU church but it keeps God at arms length in a comfortable fuzz.

Now that I am in this MDiv program I feel that I need a steady orientation toward God. It feels as if how I take in the information will be determined by this orientation. So now, it's thumbs up or thumbs down. What's it going to be?

It doesn't help that the Christians in the program point me to scripture as a way learn about God. Scripture is very interesting but I am a post-modern gal. I actually said that to someone, I am a 'post-modern person'. I couldn't believe those words came out of my mouth. It sounded so fat-headed but how else to put it? I want to do more wide reading, not focus narrowly on the Bible. I feel heelish saying that, but it is true for me.

Even my meditation practice with its age old passages points insistency at The One. Every time I meditate it grates against The Question like the wind flapping a lose tile back and forth. God, no God, God, no God. The wind blows.

My brother owns a Snowplow

Portland is snowed in right now and my brother just sent me an e-mail saying he owned a snowplow, but had to use it at night so his whole neighborhood wouldn't require free service.

Here is my reply:

Indeed. We in Portland salute you, you are our God, by the way do you want to stop by and um, plow my driveway.

Yesterday I went starkers and made Michael take me out shopping just to get out of the house. He pretended to be concerned with my welfare so he agreed, but he had that gleam in his eye. I knew it wasn't for me when we went rocketing out of the carport at 30 mph! That is apparently how they do it in Anchorage (where he grew up). It has something to do with the laws of physics, the faster you go the more you can fake the laws out. These Anchorage physicists probably also get stuck in a big hump of snow like we did.

We finally made it past that impediment using shovels and old rubber mats laid down for traction. The worst part of the drive, was of course, our street. After that it was physical interaction with the world, oh baby! Ah Fred Meyer's my other God. Such friendly hubbub and and many treats and things to buy. We were able to pick up Scott (our 22 year old son), who was hibernating in his apartment and bring him home for a birthday dinner. We had Fred Meyer carrot cake and salmon and I gave him practical gifts like a coat and gloves which he promptly put on. He owned neither article. Poor, young men are so easy to buy for!

I am in the middled of writing a paper for my MDiv about my personal theology. Its due the first week-end in January. I keep telling my teachers, they don't want to know! Does He exist, oh wait, not He. Does It exist, hmm, that is kind of cold. Ah the Force, wasn't that in some movie? Ah -- the Force must be with my teachers because I am stuck in a snowstorm with nothing else to do but work on this paper and ponder the existence of God. I really wish it would stop snowing. Not a bad subject for the season however.

May the Force be with you!!

My Life as a Dog

For my M Div program I need to do a lot of navel gazing. Over the next week or two I am writing a 20 page paper on myself!!!

It makes you kind of gag but its also satisfying in ways good and bad. Usually when I am obsessing about 'why I am the way I am'. I feel a little guilty about it. Not that again, I think. It's more of an adventure when you are a young-un and you first realize that yeah! mom screwed me up. Its really not so interesting when you are over fifty. Yeah, yeah, she screwed me up, the way every mother EVER screwed up their children. Like I undoubtedly screwed-up my children. She also turned me on to libraries and reading, politics and cooking and was a pretty good role model on how to be a bossy woman. The bossy woman training I have put to some very good use.

So what is good about it. Well there are new insights. Writing also clarifies the mind and deepens the thought. I am forced to put a narrative spin on my life, find connections where I haven't before. Sometimes I even appreciate myself more, I certainly understand myself more than I ever have.

So what is bad? I am not sure if bad is the right word. It is still sometimes occasionally hard to look at parts of my life. It seems as if the bad emotions, resentment, hurt feelings, heartbreak are in some special timeless place. Some fade but others take you right back, like a smell, homing back to the feeling. And you feel it all over again.

Generic Religion

I have begun my Master of Divinity program at Marylhurst University. It has me hyper stimulated and happy to be thinking!

Unfortunately, while it gives me great ideas for blogging, it also brings on a case of that old familiar student's guilt when doing anything, ANYTHING, other than writing my papers. Expect slower posts.

While reading for my class on western mysticism, I read these words by Reb Zalman, a living Kabbalah mystic, "I see myself as a Jewish practitioner of generic religion." Those words knocked my socks off. They startle for a lot of reasons. For one thing generic isn't what most people aspire to. We all want unique expression, or deep expression, or perfect expression. Generic! who wants that? To hear such words from a deeply learned Rabbi is odd.

I picked him to write a paper on though, based on those words. I believe he is saying something important here. For one, he is expressing an appreciation for the oneness of all religions. We are all responding to the same phenomena. We all have the same questions. All religions are aimed at the same heart. He is basically saying, 'I use the Jewish Kabbala to see God. What do you use?' While the Fundamentalist have noticed that there are other religions and see them as misguided at best, and in some very well known sad examples, see others as evil even worth killing, the Mystics have been looking around the world and going 'huh -- you guys are doing the same thing as me. We are all alike.' The Dali Lama and Reb Zalman would have a gay old time together, if they haven't already.

Ok, that is fun, nice, interesting. But it also has meaning for me. As a Unitarian Universalist I belong, essentially to a 'generic religion.' Our lack of creed and our culture of inclusion makes us kind of generic. I have often felt ashamed of that. Is there any 'there' there? That is the question the rest of the religious world asks us. I may start proudly proclaiming it as Reb Zalman does "I am a practitioner of a Generic Religion!" Maybe not -- however there are still questions I want to explore.

Reb Zalman says he is a Jewish practitioner. Can UU's be a religious people without some practice. I imagine Zalman would say no. So should we all be triple hyphenated? Jewish Unitarian Universalist, Buddhist Unitarian Universalist, Wicckan Unitarian Universalist. It still leaves me with questions but I liked the feeling of recognition when I saw Reb Zalman's words.