my tattoo

(A friend was taking photos of tattoos for an article he's writing. I said I wouldn't show him my skin, but I'd write about it...)

Call to Ministry

Three black dots
punctuate
my torso –
Morse code in India Ink

Directing the radiation here
to just nick the edge of a lung,
to avoid damage to the heart,
to destroy any lingering terrorist cells.

Three black dots
force me to learn to
meditate,
lure me into
studying Buddhism,
show me my mortality.

I finally said --
“yes.”

In honor of the Pew report

which is all anyone at school wants to talk about...

Passed

Our masters' papers were returned today. I passed.

OK, I did well. On to the defense...

But for now - I dance!!!

More quizzes...

Ms. Kitty is also green-minded - and I'm honored to be in such congenial company. Rev. Sean at ministrare had this donut quiz thing. I'm trying to eat better - but I figured, hey - it's just a quiz. No calories. Hah! Now I really want a donut...

You Are a Boston Creme Donut

You have a tough exterior. No one wants to mess with you. But on the inside, you're a total pushover and completely soft. You're a traditionalist, and you don't change easily. You're likely to eat the same doughnut every morning, and pout if it's sold out.

What Donut Are You?

Friday quiz time

Haven't done a quiz for awhile...

Your Mind is Green

Of all the mind types, yours has the most balance. You are able to see all sides to most problems and are a good problem solver. You need time to work out your thoughts, but you don't get stuck in bad thinking patterns. You tend to spend a lot of time thinking about the future, philosophy, and relationships (both personal and intellectual).

What Color Is Your Mind?

Identity and Politics

If I were voting for someone "who looks like me" this is who I'd be voting for - a white, middle-aged woman (well - she's a bit more aged than I), who's trying to make her way in a traditionally male field. A good friend of mine assumed as much - we're the same age, this friend and I, and we both consider ourselves feminists. In a recent telephone conversation, she bemoaned the current state of politics, then said something like "but I know you'll be voting for Hillary, right?" Um, well... "You know Obama is just a spoiler - it's time for a woman to be president."

Well, no, actually, dear friend. We're going to have to agree to disagree on this one. A few days later, Weekend Edition Sunday on NPR ran this story about Gender & Race and the role of Identity in today's politics. What a relief to hear someone else thinking about the same things I'd been. If you listen to the NPR story, you'll hear a bit about the history, post Civil-War, of the debate over whether (white) women or black (men) should get the vote first. I learned about this years ago, while acquiring enough credits to major in women's studies (if there had been a major program). Pitting disenfranchised groups against one another, the dominant group retains power even longer.

My spouse and I are debating the points of Clinton's and Obama's health care plans - this is a big deal in a household dependent on the health care technology industry. We argue over whether the former president is too big a liability to his wife, the candidate. We agree that we like Obama's stand on the Iraq war better. We worry about our young adult children affording health care. We worry about any future grandchildren we might have and their education. I've already cast my vote. He will cast his this week. I honestly don't know who he's voting for - I don't think he's decided yet. The point is, we're debating issues - not gender or race.

Someday, I hope we get to the point where people aren't debating "whose turn it is." The commentators on NPR say it best: "Identity politics ain't what it used to be!"

Oh, wow!

I'm in shock over the UU Blog Awards! Shock because I had no expectations - and actually came in third in the Seminarian's Blog category - to The Journey in first and Elizabeth's Little Blog in second. Congratulations, LE & Elizabeth! Thanks to the people who voted for me - I appreciate it. To everyone - go check out the
winners, and take another look at the nominees, too.

What fun!

Dodging Bullets

A bit of a ramble tonight...

When I was growing up, I heard of very few people being murdered, except famous people.

War - now that was a different story - the Vietnam conflict raged through my formative years, with body counts on the TV during the dinner hour. I taught my own kids the history of the era listening to the local "classic rock" station. They can tell anyone who asks that the lyrics of a CSN&Y song that go "Well, your brother's bound and gagged, and they've tied him to a chair - Won't you please come to Chicago, just to sing?" refers to the silencing of Bobby Seale in the original trial of the Chicago Eight, before his trial was separated and removed from Chicago - and the remaining defendants became the infamous Chicago Seven. They can tell you about police riots in 1968. But, I digress...

Somewhere along the line things changed. "I don't like Mondays" replaced "We can Change the World." And many ordinary people, doing ordinary things, are ending up on the evening news as statistics.

It's a scary world. Just a week or so ago, I checked the CNN newsfeed - and immediately began to worry. Several women had been taken into a back room at a store in a strip mall in suburban Chicago, and shot to death. My older daughter spends a lot of time in that suburb. I breathed easier after I heard her voice and got her assurance that she was o.k., that she hadn't been anywhere near the place.

Scary world. A dear friend called me earlier this evening, to let me know her daughter was fine. A quick check of the news revealed the reason for her call. The daughter is a graduate student at Northern Illinois University. Today, a man opened fire in a class there, killing several, wounding many more, then taking his own life. Update: An email from M* reminded me that a friend of hers is also at NIU. Thankfully, this friend is also o.k.

Scary world. Less than a year ago, another young man killed 32 of his fellow students and himself at Virginia Tech. And we still don't really know why.

How do we comprehend this gasping horror - more students randomly shot, five lives ended, others critically or seriously wounded. Families and friends gather to mourn, to question, to accuse, to cry, to rage. Those of us at a remove from these events shake our heads, count our blessings, and feel fear.

Spirit of peace and life, bring comfort to the families - strength to the survivors - courage to the students who must go back to the classrooms where their companions died. Help us to not turn inward, circling the wagons against the other in mistrust and fear. Let us remember that only love will overcome this sickness of our age - this epidemic of despair and violence which brings more and more death.

Friends, acquaintances, colleagues, strangers: Go hug your children, your partners, your spouses, your friends, your parents. Cuddle with your pets. Send love letters to your enemies. Get to know your neighbors, even if - maybe especially if - they are different from you. Cultivate patience, and smile at the curmudgeon down the block. Seek understanding and wisdom, practice compassion and care. Live abundantly and help others do likewise.

Remember, we're all in this together.

Winter of Discontent - a lament

I haven't blogged much lately. I wish I could say it's because I'm ecstatically happy and busy - the busy part is right, at least.

About a week ago Rev. Sean at ministrare posted about Doubt and Disillusionment. After reading what Sean had to say, I went and read the post Sean referred to at Real Live Preacher. RLP wrote a 3 part post called "The Disillusionment Chronicles," which is quite good (and particularly interesting to me, because the mission trip he describes was to a university I'm very familiar with). I've been pondering this topic of doubt and disillusionment since...

What RLP focused on was his disillusionment with a particular sort of mission, a way of evangelizing - people being manipulated into saying particular words so the missionaries could claim to have led them to Christ. While I have some opinions about some of the practices of our own movement being equally disheartening, I will not go into them. To do so would mean I would have to tell stories that aren't exclusively mine. I'll just say that at one point a couple of years ago I called a good friend & colleague and ranted for over an hour - finally asking, "Am I really in the right denomination?" My friend assured me I was, and I'm still in seminary, still preparing for ministry, still moving forward.

For me, this has become a season of doubt. I'm lost in the wilderness, and I don't know how to find my way back onto the right path. At least, that's how it feels. I'm finding it hard to do the class work I need to do. My monkey mind jumps more frantically than ever when I try to meditate. My inner cynic is speaking way too often and too loudly - sometimes right out loud where other people can hear. I find myself questioning everything, asking again, "Am I in the right place? Am I on the right path? Where is the big red neon arrow pointing the way? Where is that bone-deep knowing? Where is the still inner voice I could always count on?" I'm second- and third-guessing myself on everything from what to pack for lunch to what paper topic to choose for a particular class.

Then there's the feeling of waiting for judgment. Waiting for the grade on the master's paper, which will tell me whether I passed the class or not. Waiting for the defense of my paper, which will test my resolve, my knowledge, my theology, my abilities, my core. Waiting for the next phase to begin, and desperately wanting to be out of this phase. And knowing that there will be more judgment to come. I'm living life in future tense - unable to enjoy what's happening now.

I'm feeling tired and alone - plumbing the depths of my being for the faith to carry me through this drought, and not finding it. My own voice sounds strangled to me, my own thoughts are scattered and jumbled, and my discipline seems non-existent.

Now, I know that part of it is the weather, which has been brutal with little relief in sight. It's cold. It's going to be cold until, oh, May. It's hard to get around here in the midwest. Ice covers most of the sidewalks, then there's snow layered over the ice, parking places are tricky to get into and out of - if you can find one. I'm overloaded with classes and work, a fluke of scheduling with which I'm not thrilled. I think I may have finally "bitten off more than I can chew," as my mother would say.

Looking for a silver lining... badly in need of a dandelion break...

Cast Your Ballots!

...for the UU Blog Awards
here. As others have said, you do not have to be a UU - just a reader who appreciates good blogs.

By the way, I'm nominated in several categories, and would be grateful for your votes:

Best Religious Writing/Theological Commentary, Single Entry for "Dialog with a Christian" series here

Best Review/Cultural Commentary, Single Entry for "Passing for Middle Class" here

Best Anecdote/Narrative, Single Entry for "On a Rock?" here

Best Anecdote/Narrative, Best of Class

Best Non-UU Themed Blog

Best Seminarian Blog

Best Writing

God-songs

Rev. Tony over at Sunflower Chalice picked up a meme from Tensegrities to list 10 songs about God. I saw this at Tensegrities, too, and have my own list. They're not all explicitly connected to "God," I'm coming at this from a different tangent. These songs feed my spirit, the divine within if you will.

This list is abbreviated from a mix CD for a good friend for Christmas. It hurt, but I followed Tony's added rule (only song per artist), even though I wanted to list more than one Bonnie Raitt...

Hear Me Lord - Bonnie Raitt with Habib Koite

I Hope - Dixie Chicks

Sacred Love - Sting

Spider Web - Joan Osborne

Anyway - Maggy & Suzzy Roche

Love and Peace or Else - U2

Morning Has Broken - Cat Stevens

Dwelling in the Garden - Eaton, Khechog, Nakai & Clipman (instrumental)

Unspoken Prayer - Bill Miller (instrumental)

Abraham - Sufjan Stevens

And remember to go VOTE in the UU Blog Awards. Here's some music to listen to while you do...

Wild Week

"It's been a wild week..."

I sit here, dazed from the past couple of days. A new semester has begun - and I'm already overloaded with projects and papers (work from a January intensive is still hanging over my head). The "fun" class I'm enrolled in turns out to have more work than anticipated - though I suspect the work will, indeed, be fun - and another required class has had a project added to it that previous students did not have to complete. Add to all this the fact that two of my classes are in the evening - I don't do well with evening classes - and the classrooms are standing room only for all of my classes. What gives? Well, a significant number of people graduating are in the required classes because they didn't take them when the school says we should. I'm there for that reason, too - the second semester of my second year I was doing my CPE unit and couldn't take these required classes. Unfortunately, this means that these classes are overpopulated and the professors overloaded.

I'm also dazed from the nasty weather. I know, it's winter. Well, the midwest got hit with a blizzard yesterday. A stretch of freeway is still closed between Janesville & Madison, WI - a lot of stranded drivers spent the night in their cars. Of course my dear daughter and I had to attempt driving 100 miles home last night, in the snow. We made it halfway before the blowing snow and wind made it too dangerous (IMO - and I was the driver) for us to continue. Thank goodness I knew there were several hotels at a nearby exit. Now we're home, dear daughter has made it to one of her appointments, we're going to go vote our absentee ballots and run errands shortly. The streets are a mess, but mostly passable.

I want to live somewhere warmer. With no snow. Except on Christmas Eve and Christmas - then it can all melt away...

On the bright side - Girl Scout cookies will arrive soon, as they always do, just as Lent begins.

Political or Prophetic?

I've been musing lately over the whole question of politics and faith. Every candidate who is still a contender has been touting her/his religious affiliation. There's a Baptist minister, a Mormon, an Episcopalian-turned-Baptist, a Methodist, and a member of the United Church of Christ. None of this should make any difference - except to the extent that any of them elevates his/her religious doctrine above the laws of this country (or scientific evidence, but that's another story).

In a parallel development in this election, at least two candidates' religious faith have been questioned closely: Gov. Romney (because the LDS faith is still relatively unfamiliar) and Sen. Obama. Again, so what? There is no religious test for the presidency. This entanglement of religion and politics is bothersome to me.

As I watch the campaigns move on, I also wonder about this practice of candidates speaking at churches. I think they've all done it, and I hadn't really thought about it before this, with every candidate touting his/her faith credentials. Sen. Clinton spoke at a Baptist church yesterday, once again reciting the only Bible verse I've ever heard from her lips, "This is the day the Lord hath made, let us rejoice and be glad in it." (Psalm 118.24) I can't find a video of her speech, though NPR was playing snippets of it this morning. It didn't sound like a sermon to me, though.

And I wonder how that squares with the IRS rules regarding churches and political activities? Are the candidates paying for the privilege of using various pulpits for their Sunday stump speeches? And why are they always speaking at big churches, not mosques, or temples? Even more fundamentally, what does this really say about our much-vaunted separation of church and state?

I don't have any answers here - I'm just bearing witness & askig questions.

In a similar vein, where is the line between being political and prophetic in the pulpit? Those IRS rules are pretty darned clear about what a minister better not say from the pulpit, unless s/he wants to risk her/his church's tax-exempt status. We can talk about issues, we can't endorse specific candidates.

But, what about what's not so clear? Is it acceptable for clergy to take verbal potshots at "all conservatives" or "all liberals" from one of our UU pulpits? (Again - bearing witness.) We praise prophetic speech - Sen. Obama is good at it, actually - but there needs to be some clarity between prophetic and political. There is a difference between bearing witness to injustice, and preaching for or against a specific group's set of solutions.

We have a free pulpit - I think we have to be careful to use that freedom responsibly. I think that means recognizing that we are a liberal religion, not a political group. Liberal in the religious sense is different from politics. Here's a quick-and-easy definition.

I'm still thinking on this - and will be throughout the coming year...

Friday Random Thoughts

I'm really tired of hearing about the Super Tuesday primaries. I know it's exciting for y'all who are in those states, but my state's primary is two weeks later. By then, I'm suspecting that the Democratic candidate will be pretty much decided. Maybe the Republican one, too. Worst of all, classmates will be asking me "Did you vote yet?" all day next Tuesday when my classes resume. I wonder how many times I'm going to have to patiently explain that I'm a resident of another state?

I've been feeling "fried" this week - probably after effects of finishing off the semester-long project/paper that I turned in last Friday. I slept more last Saturday, Sunday & Monday (nights and naps) than I do in a normal week!

My big accomplishment of the week has been to read The Children by David Halberstam: 700+ pages of detail on the Civil Rights Movement from the 1960 lunch counter sit-ins in Nashville through the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, focusing on a small group of students and following up on their lives post-Movement. Fascinating stuff, I'm glad I read it - it's a required book for an upcoming class. More than any of the AR/AO things I've been exposed to in seminary or church groups, this book helped me understand the persistence of racism, as well as classism and sexism in our society.

R was home from school one day this week. All the schools were closed because of extreme cold - they didn't want children waiting for the buses outside it was so cold. Luckily, this coincided with the day she had a dental appointment. She's now minus her second pair of wisdom teeth, and she's getting very, very tired of broth and "Whips" yogurt.

I'm thinking more than I'm writing right now. Thinking about the discussion on marriage over at The Journey. Thinking about the discussion on worship at Ms. Kitty's, ministrare, Monkey Mind, and The Journey. Thinking about a couple of sermons - one a colleague and I are tentatively planning, the other one I've agreed to for Memorial Day. Thinking about whether to continue this blog or go on hiatus during my internship next year.

As I make my way through the hoops, high points and hard places on the path toward ministry, I find myself more reticent to engage in any of the blog-debates-discussions of UU issues. Or political issues. So, I'm a little quieter.

I managed to listen to most of "Fresh Air" on NPR today - a rerun of an interview with Tom Petty, who will play during the Superbowl half-time show. Now, I know at least one of my colleagues is a diehard Springsteen fan, and one of my best friends says Bruce can park his guitar in her house anytime... but Petty has had shelf space in my record collection longer. I don't care if he is starting to resemble Roy Orbison... Here's two from the Heartbreakers:

vintage, "Breakdown" (with a great little Ray Charles lyric/riff);


and new, "Saving Grace."