Question about Soldier Deaths in Iraq

Filed Under current affairs | Leave a Comment

It seems that whenever I read articles about soldiers dying in Iraq, they have always died fairly immediately after the deadly incident. I have never heard any reports of soldiers dying after suffering from injuries for a while. Am I uninformed about military protocol? For example, is there a delay in the reports from Iraq? Do soldiers lie in hospitals for weeks and only after they have passed, are we told that they were killed when their vehicle hit a roadside bomb? I’m puzzled as to why I’ve yet to see things explained in that way.

Popularity: 7% [?]

Nov

16

Speaking Engagements

Filed Under being creative, events, gender, uu culture | 2 Comments

I finally checked my mail today and found a letter informing me that my proposal for the 26th Annual Lewis & Clark Gender Studies Symposium had been accepted. I wonder if they accept all proposals because the acceptance letter came very quickly. I presented there once before, in 2004, with other students from a class at Marylhurst University. In that case, my professor had submitted the proposal so it was a slightly foreign process to me this time around.

I had to look it up, but the name of the panel session from 2004 was Writing Our Other(ness): Memoir as Response to Intersections of Race and Gender in African-American Autobiography! I’m always amused at how academics have such long explanations for what they’re talking about; that one is no exception, and yet it really was a good description of what our papers were about. My piece was called The Title Goes Right Here, because I really didn’t know what to call it at the time the proposal went in. I meant to change it later but forgot, and that’s how it was printed up.

The title of the piece I’m going to write for this upcoming Symposium is The Only Sane One in the House, and it’s a personal essay about how my grandmother, my mother and I have each come to find our “voices” within our families and respective communities.

It will be interesting to check in mid-December to see who I am grouped with for the moderated panel discussion. The major speakers for the Symposium this year are very exciting and I’m looking forward to attending as much of the conference as possible.

**
I’m scheduled to present a sermon at a UU church in Seattle this January, and have been bouncing around ideas for some time now. This is very hard. I’ve never written a sermon before, and have no interest in being a minister. What’s more, this is a congregation I don’t know. What do I even have to say to these, particular people? I agreed to do this because it frightened me, and I wanted to do more things that induced fear in me. Now I’m not afraid of being awful or offending anyone - but of being irrelevant. Fortunately, I have a contact from there so I can probably work with him to get a better sense of the congregation’s sensibilities.

All of that was to say that I want to write something about voices for that event, too. What does it mean to come to something with your whole heart, for example? How can we stop being afraid? How do we derive our own truths and speak them? I’m not a wise person, or very learned, so I hope I don’t come off as telling people what to do. The Sunday I will be delivering this topic is during the weekend of Martin Luther King, Jr’s birthday, so it goes without saying that he will be part of the sermon. This whole issue of speaking up, and holding yourself responsible for living in accordance with your beliefs is at the forefront of my mind these days. Well, we shall see.

Popularity: 10% [?]

Nov

15

Taking the Blog in New Directions

Filed Under blogging itself | 3 Comments

Several months ago I came across the blog of an older, UU gentleman that had the exact same template as my own. It was disconcerting. I can only imagine it must be like meeting someone who has the exact same name as you, but I’ve never experienced that either. In any case, I felt uncomfortable and decided at that moment that I would switch to a template customized for me.

This became a bigger project than I’d anticipated. Quickly, my plan became to have three blogs - one for film, art and cultural event reviews; one for Never Say Never to Your Traveling Self, and one chronicling my single, city-girl attempts at becoming a homemaker. I followed this path for a while, and ultimately came to the conclusion that it would be easier for me to have just one blog that included all of the above. Would my film reviews really be so separate from my spiritual life? Unlikely. And besides, I’d only confuse myself. I’m attempting to simplify my life right now, so it didn’t make sense to have three blogs where one could do as well. My main concern had been that straying too far from spiritual discussion would alienate my handful of readers, but after checking up on what my most popular posts have been, I no longer think this will be an issue.

So … after my transition to a new host (likely to be DreamHost), I’ll be posting on a wider variety of topics. I still want to approach everything I post here from a spiritual perspective, because that is also how I desire to live my life. One of the reasons I blog under my actual name is to keep myself accountable for everything I say here. I can’t guarantee my opinions will never change, but whatever I put down in this blog will be true to me at the time I post it.

Popularity: 7% [?]

Nov

13

Not Such a Mixed Bag

Filed Under life changes, small happinesses | 5 Comments

My job is a big source of stress for me recently. I’ve been severely disillusioned and disheartened by the actions of people I used to respect. Some days I am literally sick from being there.

I’m starting the process of moving in with my sweetheart. It will be a serious transition - especially as there will be four of us living in his house. But I’m looking forward to paring down to the essentials and having less material “noise.”

Have started video classes at the community media center. Good stuff. Field lighting class was awesome. Later this month I begin my studio producer certification project.

I love, love, love my women’s group. I’m the youngest and the only woman of color, and it is fabulous. I learn so much from these women; it’s a real source of support for me. Most of them are/were married and have children (some of them my age). A few of them are even more liberal than I am! I love my girlfriends who are my peers, and I also love spending time with women who, on the outset, I would appear to have little in common with.

I started a health program a few days ago. I am halfway through day 4, and it is going all right. I have to eat six times a day, and consume a lot of these 100-calorie specially formulated meals. It’s not bad. This is a healthy way to lose fat (not muscle), and since the meals are so easy to prepare, I don’t have to spend so much time or energy wondering what I’m going to cook next and when. I’m really busy right now.

The week after Thanksgiving I’m going to Finland for a week. I need to buy some longjohns and some really warm shoes! I’ve never been to that part of Europe - I know it will be freezing, but I’m just hoping it’s dry. This month Portland has had 590% more rain than last year!

I have many ideas for writing projects; it’s very exciting. The upside of all the stress and pain at work is that it’s spurred my creativity. I also settled on a topic for the sermon I’m to deliver in January.

Some recent conversations with the DH have helped me clarify what it is that is special about UUism, and in what direction I need to develop my religious values.

All in all, work-related anxieties aside, life is mercifully kind to me. I have so much to be grateful for: loving friends, a supportive and affectionate family, an inspiring and openhearted sweetheart, a debt-free existence, relatively good health, and a bright future. The last few weeks I’ve been in perilously low moods, but I have faith that what saves me - every day - is gratitude.

Popularity: 7% [?]

Nov

6

Church as Conscience

Filed Under quotes, religion | 1 Comment

The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state. It must be the guide and the critic of the state, and never its tool. If the church does not recapture its prophetic zeal, it will become an irrelevant social club without moral or spiritual authority. If the church does not participate actively in the struggle for peace and for economic and racial justice, it will forfeit the loyalty of millions and cause men everywhere to say that it has atrophied its will. But if the church will free itself from the shackles of a deadening status quo, and, recovering its great historic mission, will speak and act fearlessly and insistently in terms of justice and peace, it will enkindle the imagination of mankind and fire the souls of men, imbuing them with a glowing and ardent love for truth, justice, and peace. Men far and near will know the church as a great fellowship of love that provides light and bread for lonely travelers at midnight.

~Martin Luther King, Jr. from his sermon, “A Knock at Midnight.”

Popularity: 6% [?]