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    • Jul

    20

    Got to Wake Up!

    Filed Under uu culture | 1 Comment

    The other day I wrote about being bored by some UU sermons and speeches, describing them as “carefully selected … community wallpaper.” Today, Lively Tradition published a blog post that identified exactly the problem that I have with all these “words.” It isn’t the words themselves, but what the words are not saying. After relating the tendency of UU worships to be places of “refuge” from the rest of the world, LT offers the notion of “preaching for a decision,” a phrase ze* picked up from Methodist co-seminarians.


    Instead of using the language of refuge and comfort, we might want to
    use the language of decision and commitment. Every week, we are preaching
    toward a decision, that individuals will commit themselves, maybe for the first time, and maybe for the 100th time, to live out their sense of the most ultimate next week.


    God bless LT. When I’ve written before about “Reader’s Digest” sermons, it’s been with a sense of puzzled frustration because what was being said was nice and true, but often lacking in a direct challenge to my own spirit. Quite honestly, the only sermons and speeches I ever remember are the ones that have either exposed me to an entirely new idea, or have passionately called on me to stretch myself into new territories. I’m naturally inclined towards complacency; I’m counting on my faith community to help me from that.
    Read the rest of Lively Tradition’s post, Mission and Worship.

    *Ze is a gender neutral pronoun.

    Popularity: 7% [?]

    Jul

    15

    Follow Up to Meat-Eating and Spiritual Practice

    Filed Under health, islam, life changes, spiritual practice | 10 Comments

    It’s been a little over a month since I determined to stop eating factory farmed meat in this post. It has not been difficult at all. Only once have I strayed, and that was unintentional. At the UU bloggers’ dinner I ordered moros y cristianos (beans and rice) and it contained little bits of bacon. I had thought they were over/under cooked pieces of rice until I really paid attention.

    But overall the change has been very easy. A few times I’ve been tempted, but never seriously. As a result I’ve been eating a lot more shrimp, fish and mushrooms as they are the common protein- rich alternatives to meat on restaurant menus. (I keep my intake of soy to a minimum because it often disagrees with me).

    The switch to free-range, hormone-free, vegetarian fed meat has been so uneventful that I feel compelled to stretch more. It doesn’t seem right to avoid the steak and then eat the french fries brushed with animal fat - fat that I’m pretty certain came from a factory farmed animal. So I want to lean more toward the way I used to be - avoiding all food and goods with dead animal by-products unless I know how the animal was treated. This requires more vigilance when purchasing goods that contain things like gelatin, pectin, tallow, and rennet. From experience I know this is a lot more challenging. Although I already purchase “cruelty-free” skin care products, I might need to switch shampoos, and definitely need to find an alternative to my dryer sheets. This also means eating out a lot less and avoiding many refined and boxed foods. Worst of all, I don’t get that gorgeous, leather, Hobo International handbag I saw in an airport store on the way to GA and am still coveting!

    People’s responses when they find out about the distinction I’m making between factory farmed meat and free-range, etc. meat has been positive across the board. Of course, I live in Portland, Oregon where organic, free-range, hormone-free, etc. products are so prevalent that even those who don’t seek them know what they are.

    The experience has helped me to realized that committing to something as a spiritual practice is not the same thing as committing to something for any other reason. This is why it’s not been hard to resist factory farmed meat. This is why I used to be able to fast as a child and adolescent with relative ease compared to skipping more than two meals in a row as an adult. A spiritual practice enriches, whereas “diets” are about what we aren’t allowed to have.

    So naturally, I’m trying to devise an argument of spiritual discipline to present to myself that will cause me to lose weight. If I can be convinced that to eat less and exercise regularly is a spiritual imperative, that will be better than trying to ignore that tasty, buttery croissant “just” because it will make me fat(ter). The most difficult part is changing the motivating factor. When I chose not to eat factory farmed meat, I was inspired by a desire to express my compassion for other animals in a very real way. There was nothing in it for me, per se. Losing weight has a great deal of obvious benefit to me, so it’s hard not to keep going back to “fitting into my clothes better!” as a motivation. And such a reason isn’t enough, I’ve found, to help me stay the weight I want to be. Because that reason is all about me, just like gobbling up food when I’m already full is all about me.

    Last summer I weighed 30 pounds less than I do now, and I have a handsome, brilliant, donut husband who loves me, deeper friendships, less debt and a generally better life. I have no God to please and no health problems related to my size. What does what I look like have to do with the rest of the world? The answer is nothing.

    Gradually, an argument and approach to more healthful eating habits have been formulating in my mind. I am forcing myself to turn away from the idea of how I look to face instead the reality of how I live in relation to others. When I cannot refute it - in the way I could not refute some of the arguments pertaining to factory farmed meat - I will commit to it. For the time being, I will leave on this anticipatory note from the Sahih Bukhari (a collection of Islamic traditions:

    There was a companion of the Prophet Muhammad named Ibn Omar, who never took a meal unless a poor person was eating with him.

    Popularity: 10% [?]

    Jul

    13

    Can’t Speak

    Filed Under from the heart, uu culture | 3 Comments

    A professor of mine once related in class a definition of sublime: That (experience) which cannot be articulated.

    Sometimes I become melancholy when I sense the weight of things we cannot say to each other. Words can’t express it. Everywhere I go it seems people are trying to explain, trying to explain themselves to each other. Sometimes I strive to be known, but that’s not what I really want. I really want you to hold me up - to have you accept that on any given day I am grappling with this or that crucial thing. I suppose you need that from me, too.

    One of the things on my mind the last few days is words, and how much we fall in love with them. I got a little restless about some UU sermons, speeches, summaries and responses during and about General Assembly because they felt so predictable. I’ve not been a UU for long and yet already I found myself falling right in, repeating some of the same, pleasant buzzwords and phrases. These highly literate, carefully selected words were not dispensed insincerely by any means, they were just … a kind of community wallpaper. I did experience brief flashes of boredom.

    Well, I didn’t become a UU to be bored.

    So I need to feel my way around a bit. Figure out why I’m appreciative but restless. Revolt for a while against pretty words and pretty writing and the whole pretty-nice aesthetic. The community isn’t the only body that needs to take more chances.

    ******
    Yesterday, the DH was geeking out about some video game compression technique, and it dawned on me that his speech and mannerisms were changing right before my eyes. I have never seen him when he is fully geeked out, but he was reaching for that place. There was a moment of terror within me - I didn’t want him to be SO “out there.” I wanted him to stay right with me on the inner rim of social normality. I wanted to bolt him down. The feeling passed. Today I thought on it some more. He needs to be able to unveil and construct himself without fear of what I would think. I can’t be worried when he downloads Pat Buchanan speeches and says, “I actually agreed with him on a lot of things ….” No, I have to be curious and engaged; to find out what I had not guessed at before. It has to be okay with me that those to whom I have attached myself are still free.

    It’s so easy to fall into patterns. They are useful abbreviations when we don’t have the time, energy or ability to explain ourselves, but they are not the way of living.

    Popularity: 8% [?]

    Jul

    13

    Stranger Fears

    Filed Under class, love, spiritual practice | 6 Comments

    Earlier this week:

    When I sat next to him I noticed he had a can of Coke between his legs, and in his hand was a paper bag. It was 6 o’clock in the afternoon and already he smelled like whiskey. I felt a little uneasy. Few things make me more nervous than a strange, drunken man. But we were on a crowded bus, in the broad daylight, so what could happen?

    For a few minutes we were both silent. I was listening to an iPod Nano, which hung from its lanyard around my neck. From the corner of my eye, I could see him take quick peeks at me. I thought to myself, “Oh boy, what’s his problem?” Then - suddenly - he was speaking to me. I looked at him and he repeated what he’d said. “Is that an iPod?” I nodded. “Do you think maybe I could listen to it? I’ve never heard one of those before.” I blinked at him a few times. My first thought was that sharing earplugs with a total stranger was unsanitary. My response, however, was baffling: “But the earplugs are in my ears.”

    He said softly, “Oh, okay. Some other time then, that’s cool.” I nodded. Then I realized how foolish my words must have sounded to him. “But the earplugs are in my ears”? How could he possibly interpret that? The bus continued to move. My head felt like it was burning. He seemed polite, but he was taking another swig of his whiskey and following it up with a sip of Coke right on a public bus! He was clean, around my age, fairly attractive and his clothes were in good repair - but surely he was some kind of alcoholic? He’d turned himself slightly to look out the window, and I’d felt his body tense up. He still looked over at the Nano occasionally.

    A hundred thoughts passed through my mind. Was he angry? Was I being a totally defensive so-called “middle-class” snob? Was I being classist in this moment? Was I more suspicious of him because he was white? Was he trying to make trouble with me? What if he yanked the Nano off of my neck? What if he was just released on parole and had anger problems and I was just one more person rejecting him for no apparently good reason and he would throttle me on a crowded bus because he just couldn’t take it anymore? What if I let him listen to my iPod and he tossed it out the window? What recourse would I have? Wouldn’t I be laughed at if I talked to him, and he ended up doing something bad to me? Would it be my fault for being naive? What would Jesus do? What would Muhammad do? What would my mother do? Goddammit, I shouldn’t feel guilty or question myself because I didn’t want to engage in conversation with this STRANGER. He could be ANYBODY! But what if he was just a nice person attempting to connect with another nice person on a bus? Maybe he just wasn’t socialized enough to know this wasn’t normal behavior in big cities. What if I was part of the problem of lovelessness and unfriendliness that we keep talking about in this country? How UU to torture myself in this way; I should just ignore him. Who did he think he was, bothering me?! No one would think I was wrong for not giving him the time of day. But … what if I were a missionary - and my message was love? How could I preach love if I didn’t even talk to him? If I really had a message to give him, I’d have to talk to him first. What if I’ve hurt his feelings? What if he’s just a predator taking advantage of women’s tendencies to want to please others? What if he is feeling sad because I gave him a stupid response to a genuine question? Will he remember this?

    Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore. My face felt so hot I thought it would burst into ash. As we got nearer to my house, I took the iPod off and tapped him on the shoulder. “I’m getting off the bus soon, if you want to take a listen.” I held the iPod out to him. He put his whiskey bag between his legs along with the Coke, and said, “Really? Are you serious?” I said, “Sure; I’m getting off the bus soon, though.” He was really appreciative. I watched him put one of the plugs into his ear and he listened to India Arie’s remix of I Am Not My Hair. He started moving to the music. “Oh man, this is great.” I showed him how to forward to the next song. It was Nina Simone. “Oh, man,” he said again, swaying his head. After a minute or two, he returned the Nano to me. “Wow, thanks so much. I’ve been reading about these things for years, but never listened to one before. I wanted to know how they sounded.”

    We chatted for a while. He told me that for the past few years he’d been really poor, but now he had some income coming in, and he was going to get himself a car. He was really excited. We talked about iPods. He used to subscribe to Car and Driver. He recently got through a rough time, and things were getting better. When the bus arrived at my stop, I took my leave of him with my usual, “Enjoy the rest of your day.” He said, “Hey, thanks. You too - this was beautiful.”

    I felt relieved and proud of myself for a few minutes. Although, to be honest, the deciding factor was that I realized I could just disinfect the earplug when I got home. But by the time I reached my front door I’d forgotten the whole thing - including the disinfection; it wasn’t till this morning that the event came back to me.

    Popularity: 10% [?]

    Jul

    5

    A Life in Books

    Filed Under books, islam, nostalgia, people | 5 Comments

    Today is cloudy and cooler than it has been for a while. Almost as though the sun got tired after the long holiday weekend and needed a break. It’s been a strange day for me. I’ve holed myself up since Monday and don’t feel well at all. It feels like October.

    I’ve been cataloguing my books at The LibraryThing and the process has brought up a lot of memories. My family moved a lot when I was a child - in 1992 my mother and I counted the number of apartments and houses we’d lived in since I was born: 25. So naturally I don’t have many things from when I was a kid, but I was permitted to bring a select number of books with me when the family made the big move from New York. The books I chose are all about writing and poetry. No novels at all, but an old textbook anthology that my grandfather gave me, a “synonym finder,” some grammar texts, and so on. This makes a lot of sense because at the time my biggest dream in life was to become a writer. Even though I shelved that notion more than a decade ago, I’ve somehow managed to keep some of these books - through eight additional house moves.

    I also came across several math textbooks, the highly useful and recommendable “Practical Mathematics” series put out by the National Educational Alliance. These books are phenomenal in the way they teach math. I also have some books by Francis Schaeffer, the Christian theologian and L’Abri community founder. The math texts and Schaeffer books were lent to me by a co-worker about six years ago. M- was such a strange and sensitive man: deeply religious, childlike (and at times childish), allergic to everything, and a natural tinkerer obsessed with computers. He was in his 40s, and before the home computer era, his thing was ham radios. His social skills left much to be desired, but he could be a very sensitive and generous person. I think he was desperately unhappy much of the time, but he tried to live in the way he thought Christ would want, and he avoided all vices, like sex, drugs, alcohol, smoking, and violence. He was extremely intelligent. The reason I still have his books is because he died in the Phillippines while doing missionary work. He and his fiancee - whom he met there - and two of her nieces/nephews were drowned one day at the beach. They’d made a special trip (they were extremely poor), but when they got there they were warned not to go in the ocean; conditions were too treacherous. M- could be terribly headstrong, I’d witnessed it at the office many times. He disregarded the warnings and went in the water anyway, followed by the fiancee and her young relatives. I think about him a lot; I’ve never met anyone else like him.

    I have some other books here that are about Islam. My first trip abroad was to Great Britain. I’d already begun having doubts about the Islam I was seeing practiced and preached. Before heading to the UK (on my own), I’d been in Internet contact with some alternatives who believed in using the Qur’an only as a source of God’s law (most Muslims base their religious practices on the traditions of Muhammad in addition to the Qur’an). Turns out an important little network of these alternatives lived in England, and when I got there I met up with one of them. We talked for hours and hours. I took him to see The Thin Red Line, and his response was highly appreciative. We took the train to Birmingham where we met up with a university student who was writing reinterpretations of important Islamic concepts. The first fellow, K- was highly secretive; he went by several aliases and never revealed his real name to me! His life had been threatened numerous times by fundamentalists. I don’t know if they were genuine threats, but he took them seriously. The uni student, however, was open about his beliefs and identity, saying that he refused to live in fear. A bunch of sympathetic Muslims came over to the dorm room of the Birmingham student and we had a study session about Islam; he spoke passionately about the need for reformation and returning to the word of Allah as a way of releasing ourselves from the horrors of male chauvinism, capitalism, and other idolatries. His writings were highly interesting and I kept some of his articles.

    Later, I followed K to the house of an older, Pakistani couple who lived on the outskirts of London. They were so kind to me! They did not care that I was American, or of African descent or female. It was true Muslim hospitality. We were joined by some likeminded Muslims friends of theirs and we talked about religion (they talked; I listened) and dreams of Islam returning to its true roots after 1000+ years of human-based innovations and oppressions. They gave me many little books and pamphlets to take home with me. They warned me to be careful of who I revealed my religious intentions to, and wished me well. While I can’t recall names or faces, I’ll never forget the earnest good-heartedness of those progressive, yet pious Muslims. Their path is not an easy one.

    Reflecting on it now I can’t believe that really happened! The intrigue! If my parents had known I was meeting up with strange, radical Muslims in another country they probably would have never let me travel again. Well, it’s been seven years; I don’t suppose it hurts anything to spill the beans of those three or four “lost” days now. I don’t think I’ve ever talked about it to anyone.

    Time to get back to life.

    Popularity: 10% [?]

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