In general, I intend this to be for journaling about that which is greater than myself. That said, my thoughts have been pretty much in this realm for the past couple of weeks. I've been helping a friend build his wife a porch on the weekends (I love manual labor in a privileged thank-goodness-I-don't-have-to-do-this-everyday way. Helping people move is my favorite, but building projects are a close second) and I've just started reading Patricia Highsmith's Carol.
I'd have more to write about here if I were reading more theology, even popular theology, but I'm afraid lesbian crime novels are more my speed these days. I'm still halfway through The Heart Aroused: Poetry and the Preservation of Soul in Corporate America.
Having read a lot of stoic writers, but very aware at how bad at Stoicism I am, I try to keep up reading on that too. But I keep getting caught up in questions of how to maintain virtue. I'm not making excuses, I hope, when I note that a lot of the good qualities that make up a virtuous character are a lot easier to get when you're more secure in life and have had a reasonable childhood. I do feel like I have to work really hard at things like having an OK relationship with anger and accepting life's hardships in a way that someone who has been kicked around by life less might not.
One of the things I don't like about the way that human minds are put together is that problems tend to compound each other. For example, if your Adverse Childhood Experiences score is high enough, you're at a greater risk for, among other things, a bunch of mental illnesses. I look at all the ideals of human excellence I'm shooting for, and it seems like a high score on a test like that one makes qualities I want to work for all the more difficult to attain.
Not that there's anyplace to file a complaint...
Thursday, March 03, 2016
Monday, February 29, 2016
Sometimes I think I'd be a better person if Randal would yell at me every day
RANDAL : (suddenly outraged) Fuck you. Fuck you, pal. Listen to you trying to pass the buck again. I'm the source of all your misery. Who closed the store to play hockey? Who closed the store to attend a wake? Who tried to win back an ex- girlfriend without even discussing how he felt with his present one? You wanna blame somebody, blame yourself. (beat, as DANTE) "I'm not even supposed to be here today." (whips stuff at DANTE) You sound like an asshole. Whose choice was it to be here today? Nobody twisted your arm. You're here today of your own violation, my friend. But you'd like to believe that the weight of the world rests on your shoulders-that the store would crumble if Dante wasn't here. Well, I got news for you, jerk: This store would survive without you. Without me either. All you do is overcompensate for having what's basically a monkey's job: You push fucking buttons. Any moron can waltz in here and do our jobs, but you're obsessed with making it seem so much more fucking important, so much more epic than it really is. You work in a convenience store, Dante. And badly, I might add. And I work in a shitty video store. Badly, as well. (beat) You know, that guy Jay's got it right-he has no delusions about what he does. Us? We like to make ourselves seem so much better than the people that come in here, just looking to pick up a paper or-God forbid-cigarettes. We look down on them, as it we're so advanced. Well, if we're so fucking advanced, then what are we doing working here?
-Clerks
Possible actual spiritual reflection to follow, later today. I'm halfway through David Whyte's The Heart Aroused: Poetry and the Preservation of Soul in Corporate America, which is basically his book-length response to Can Poetry Matter? Of all the book-length responses to that essay I've read, it may be my favorite, though.
CC
Friday, February 26, 2016
Sometimes, the douchebags are correct
I've had a lot of things on my mind recently, not the least of which is the upshot I got from reading Harry Markopolos' No One Would Listen: A True Financial Thriller about his attempts to get the Securities and Exchange Commission to go after Bernie Madoff. For some reason, he had huge problems getting the SEC to take him seriously.
The thing is, I can tell what the problem was from reading the man's own words: the dude was a huge douchebag. In his book, he talks about how he wanted to give his fiancee silicone breast implants for an engagement present, he tells endless annoying jokes and he makes it extremely clear that he is the smartest man in any given room. I would not hang out with this guy for anything.
At the same time, there are plenty of people who think low things about me, and I'm right sometimes. I'm not sure how I feel about the degree to which the way in which we present ourselves impacts how our message is received, or if it is received at all. Part of me wants us all to be a bit more open minded, part of me wants those of us with truths to say to figure out how to present ourselves so our words will be heard. Maybe if we reach toward each other, we will touch a bit more often.
I grant you that this isn't the most earthshaking insight, but it's what I've got today.
The thing is, I can tell what the problem was from reading the man's own words: the dude was a huge douchebag. In his book, he talks about how he wanted to give his fiancee silicone breast implants for an engagement present, he tells endless annoying jokes and he makes it extremely clear that he is the smartest man in any given room. I would not hang out with this guy for anything.
At the same time, there are plenty of people who think low things about me, and I'm right sometimes. I'm not sure how I feel about the degree to which the way in which we present ourselves impacts how our message is received, or if it is received at all. Part of me wants us all to be a bit more open minded, part of me wants those of us with truths to say to figure out how to present ourselves so our words will be heard. Maybe if we reach toward each other, we will touch a bit more often.
I grant you that this isn't the most earthshaking insight, but it's what I've got today.
Thursday, February 18, 2016
A symbol of my spiritual journey
The assignment was "draw a container and what goes in the container." We were later told that the container is practice and the contents are spiritual calling.
Interpretations welcome.
Interpretations welcome.
Impermanent beauty and the preservation of things.
I read the Goldfinch a couple of years ago. Its major theme is that preservation of beauty is, if not as important as creation of beauty, at least a worthy passion in itself. That's pretty self-evident, on some level, but I easily get lost in the details when I try to think too hard about some aspects of it.
For example, when the characters in the book seek to "preserve" the stolen painting, the first thing they do is protect it from the elements in every possible way. This makes sense. But, to put it mildly, not everything can or should be preserved in the way that a painting can be preserved.
A flower, for example, can be preserved in glass, or photographed, but really the best thing we can do is grow another flower. I've made a good friend who is a baker, and truly an artist with bread. Nothing teaches you about the impermanence of perfection like that. Her bread, on the night it's baked is the most amazing stuff ever. A few days later, still very good. A few days like that, bird food. So, goodness, eat it while you can.
I talk a good game about being able to let things go, and to be better able to let beauty and other good things go, accepting their impermanence, is something I'm really working on philosophically at the moment, but I think everyone's a preserver on some level. We think "this thing is awesome and I don't want it to change and try to fight for the status quo." I'm trying not to be this person, but I'm human and I tend to cling to things and people in a way I feel like a smarter, more self-sufficient, person wouldn't.
Indeed, on some level I think keeping things at arm's length is the best way to truly enjoy their beauty. One of the ironies of The Goldfinch was that the main character kept his painting so carefully locked away, for many years he didn't look at it himself.
CC
who is aware that her posts here wander around to whatever I'm thinking about at the time I sit down to write. At the same time, I figure that as long as I'm keeping the focus loosely on "that which is greater than myself" I'm doing something of spiritual value.
Also just saw Deadpool last night. It kicked ass.
For example, when the characters in the book seek to "preserve" the stolen painting, the first thing they do is protect it from the elements in every possible way. This makes sense. But, to put it mildly, not everything can or should be preserved in the way that a painting can be preserved.
A flower, for example, can be preserved in glass, or photographed, but really the best thing we can do is grow another flower. I've made a good friend who is a baker, and truly an artist with bread. Nothing teaches you about the impermanence of perfection like that. Her bread, on the night it's baked is the most amazing stuff ever. A few days later, still very good. A few days like that, bird food. So, goodness, eat it while you can.
I talk a good game about being able to let things go, and to be better able to let beauty and other good things go, accepting their impermanence, is something I'm really working on philosophically at the moment, but I think everyone's a preserver on some level. We think "this thing is awesome and I don't want it to change and try to fight for the status quo." I'm trying not to be this person, but I'm human and I tend to cling to things and people in a way I feel like a smarter, more self-sufficient, person wouldn't.
Indeed, on some level I think keeping things at arm's length is the best way to truly enjoy their beauty. One of the ironies of The Goldfinch was that the main character kept his painting so carefully locked away, for many years he didn't look at it himself.
CC
who is aware that her posts here wander around to whatever I'm thinking about at the time I sit down to write. At the same time, I figure that as long as I'm keeping the focus loosely on "that which is greater than myself" I'm doing something of spiritual value.
Also just saw Deadpool last night. It kicked ass.
Tuesday, February 16, 2016
Smart and selfish bears.
I spent last weekend at a convention so I was completely out of nature's path. Ian can't stand going to a con and never leaving the hotel, but I like the bubble of being surrounded only by one's fellow attendees. At one point, I looked up and could see the snow coming down onto the hotel's glass roof but I was out of the cold for days.
There are a lot of people who have great reverence for nature. I'm fairly certain nature will kill me if it can. So I relish being out of its grip. The sheer glee I get from being able to avoid nature is irrational, probably, but it's there.
Air conditioning is an ecological nightmare, but it's also among my favorite things. Like, one time @RevGlenrose asked us to list our favorite things alphabetically and "central A/C" was my choice for "C." Though I don't have a medical need for air conditioning, sigh, you now have that in writing, I know that "summer comes to New Orleans, a bunch of people die from the heat" used to be a thing and now is at least a far less common thing.
There was an episode of Yogi Bear, and I'm almost certain I'm not making this up, where Yogi Bear caused some catastrophe and Ranger Smith, exasperated, asked why Yogi couldn't be just a regular bear and hang out in the woods out of trouble. No, instead Yogi had to be a smart and selfish bear and involve himself in wacky hijinks, causing the catastrophe that I'm almost cure occurred in the episode of Yogi Bear I kind of remember. Anyway, by the end of the episode, Yogi had gotten the park, himself, and Ranger Smith out of trouble. Us inventive bears are resourceful that way.
Obviously, I'm going for a metaphor here. It is humanity's nature to be smart and selfish bears and I like that about us, even if I do wonder what it will mean for the world. Will we the inventive bears always be able to save ourselves? I'm inclined to say yes, but maybe I'm just rationalizing that air conditioning habit.
Today I had to wait until the ice was melting to get on the road to work, once again at nature's mercy. She wins in the long run, I suppose, no matter how smart a bear you are.
There are a lot of people who have great reverence for nature. I'm fairly certain nature will kill me if it can. So I relish being out of its grip. The sheer glee I get from being able to avoid nature is irrational, probably, but it's there.
Air conditioning is an ecological nightmare, but it's also among my favorite things. Like, one time @RevGlenrose asked us to list our favorite things alphabetically and "central A/C" was my choice for "C." Though I don't have a medical need for air conditioning, sigh, you now have that in writing, I know that "summer comes to New Orleans, a bunch of people die from the heat" used to be a thing and now is at least a far less common thing.
There was an episode of Yogi Bear, and I'm almost certain I'm not making this up, where Yogi Bear caused some catastrophe and Ranger Smith, exasperated, asked why Yogi couldn't be just a regular bear and hang out in the woods out of trouble. No, instead Yogi had to be a smart and selfish bear and involve himself in wacky hijinks, causing the catastrophe that I'm almost cure occurred in the episode of Yogi Bear I kind of remember. Anyway, by the end of the episode, Yogi had gotten the park, himself, and Ranger Smith out of trouble. Us inventive bears are resourceful that way.
Obviously, I'm going for a metaphor here. It is humanity's nature to be smart and selfish bears and I like that about us, even if I do wonder what it will mean for the world. Will we the inventive bears always be able to save ourselves? I'm inclined to say yes, but maybe I'm just rationalizing that air conditioning habit.
Today I had to wait until the ice was melting to get on the road to work, once again at nature's mercy. She wins in the long run, I suppose, no matter how smart a bear you are.
Thursday, February 11, 2016
Fear as the Root of Evil: An Explanation.
So, I started rereading The Gift of Fear. I'm only a couple of chapters back into it and I'd forgotten most of it. I think for a lot of it I'm going to need to have a sort of division in my head between de Becker's concepts of "fear" and "intuition" and my own.
Because, as I wrote the other day, I'm not entirely sure that fear isn't the root of evil*. One of the reasons I am such a great fan of reason and using logic to talk myself down is that I have quite the overactive amygdala. At heart, I am very much the "Oh shit, the boss is looking at me funny, I'm going to get fired" person. I've been working on these instincts for literally my entire adult life and am pretty good at talking myself down out of a tree. But the instincts are still there and the slow parade of all the reasons I don't suck comes in handy more often than I enjoy talking about.
In The Beekeeper's Apprentice there's this kickass scene where Sherlock is telling his teenage apprentice (I KNOW**) that on some level, every crime is self defense. He later goes on to explain to her in no uncertain terms why self-defense on most levels is not something one is justified in killing over, because duh, but I think his point is interesting and deserves more thought than the pleasant little novel it is in has time to give it.
Several years ago, I decided that "victims" were the single scariest group ever. Just about everyone who had ever done anything awful considered themself a victim and thus fully justified in whatever awfulness they committed. (Obligatory Godwin's law example: the Germans' victimization by the Treaty of Versailles.) I've been through unpleasantness here and there but I've vowed to not ever consider myself a victim of anything, because rationalization is already my superpower and I don't need the extra help to justify my own actions.
I am a better person, when I don't let fear win, when I experience the gratitude at the goodness and abundance of what is around me (though I also try to remain in the Stoic habit of periodically imagining my life without that goodness so my appreciation remains nice and sharp, along with my awareness that a life without luxuries would be less awesome but still a life, and that's a lot.)
Anyway, this theory is evolving, and I'm curious what other folks think of it. If the word "Evil" doesn't do it for you, "awfulness" is fine with me. The underlying point "if it sucks, fear probably causes it on some deep level," remains.
What to do about that is another question.
CC
*Yes, I was raised Presbyterian, I know that you can kick 1 Timothy 6:10 at me and tell me that love of money is the root of all evil. I tend to think really all of your basic greed sins (Money, sex, food are your classics) come from fear that you won't have enough, of either the thing itself or the love comfort and safety it symbolizes for one.
Counterpoint: if one googles "fear is the root of evil" one gets a few ernest people and a bunch of prosperity gospel types who say that fear is the root of evil so go ahead and love money. Jerks.
** I remain astounded that the plot "Sherlock Holmes has moved to Sussex to keep bees, but he's bored. One day, he meets a precocious fourteen-year-old girl who is as smart as he is and take her on as an apprentice and they solve mysteries together" could possibly have produced one good book, to say nothing of the first six or so in the series though it gets uneven after that.
I was telling someone I used to date about this series and he, ungallantly, I thought, asked "How long does it take Sherlock to hit that?" and I had to confess two books, though in that time he does wait for her to grow up.
Because, as I wrote the other day, I'm not entirely sure that fear isn't the root of evil*. One of the reasons I am such a great fan of reason and using logic to talk myself down is that I have quite the overactive amygdala. At heart, I am very much the "Oh shit, the boss is looking at me funny, I'm going to get fired" person. I've been working on these instincts for literally my entire adult life and am pretty good at talking myself down out of a tree. But the instincts are still there and the slow parade of all the reasons I don't suck comes in handy more often than I enjoy talking about.
In The Beekeeper's Apprentice there's this kickass scene where Sherlock is telling his teenage apprentice (I KNOW**) that on some level, every crime is self defense. He later goes on to explain to her in no uncertain terms why self-defense on most levels is not something one is justified in killing over, because duh, but I think his point is interesting and deserves more thought than the pleasant little novel it is in has time to give it.
Several years ago, I decided that "victims" were the single scariest group ever. Just about everyone who had ever done anything awful considered themself a victim and thus fully justified in whatever awfulness they committed. (Obligatory Godwin's law example: the Germans' victimization by the Treaty of Versailles.) I've been through unpleasantness here and there but I've vowed to not ever consider myself a victim of anything, because rationalization is already my superpower and I don't need the extra help to justify my own actions.
I am a better person, when I don't let fear win, when I experience the gratitude at the goodness and abundance of what is around me (though I also try to remain in the Stoic habit of periodically imagining my life without that goodness so my appreciation remains nice and sharp, along with my awareness that a life without luxuries would be less awesome but still a life, and that's a lot.)
Anyway, this theory is evolving, and I'm curious what other folks think of it. If the word "Evil" doesn't do it for you, "awfulness" is fine with me. The underlying point "if it sucks, fear probably causes it on some deep level," remains.
What to do about that is another question.
CC
*Yes, I was raised Presbyterian, I know that you can kick 1 Timothy 6:10 at me and tell me that love of money is the root of all evil. I tend to think really all of your basic greed sins (Money, sex, food are your classics) come from fear that you won't have enough, of either the thing itself or the love comfort and safety it symbolizes for one.
Counterpoint: if one googles "fear is the root of evil" one gets a few ernest people and a bunch of prosperity gospel types who say that fear is the root of evil so go ahead and love money. Jerks.
** I remain astounded that the plot "Sherlock Holmes has moved to Sussex to keep bees, but he's bored. One day, he meets a precocious fourteen-year-old girl who is as smart as he is and take her on as an apprentice and they solve mysteries together" could possibly have produced one good book, to say nothing of the first six or so in the series though it gets uneven after that.
I was telling someone I used to date about this series and he, ungallantly, I thought, asked "How long does it take Sherlock to hit that?" and I had to confess two books, though in that time he does wait for her to grow up.
Wednesday, February 10, 2016
Turns out you CAN go home again.
I see things like this and I'm all "thank goodness I don't blog anymore." and then I'm like "Shit, I started blogging again."
CC
who, on reader request, added the subscription gadget to the upper right corner so that you can put your email in there and get every post by email. I will tweet them too. Goodness we've come a long way since the heady days of 2010. Warning: If you subscribe, you might get three versions of a post because I am a terrible proofreader and I always see something to fix.
Ps. Have started rereading The Gift of Fear. Cheyenne is right, de Becker uses "intuition" in a very specific way. I'm not sure I agree with him, but that's another post. Not tonight's post, though.
CC
who, on reader request, added the subscription gadget to the upper right corner so that you can put your email in there and get every post by email. I will tweet them too. Goodness we've come a long way since the heady days of 2010. Warning: If you subscribe, you might get three versions of a post because I am a terrible proofreader and I always see something to fix.
Ps. Have started rereading The Gift of Fear. Cheyenne is right, de Becker uses "intuition" in a very specific way. I'm not sure I agree with him, but that's another post. Not tonight's post, though.
Smart friends ask me good questions.
In the comments on my last post, my friend Lisa asked me "I'm curious to know why you see yourself as a maker of bad decisions. A decision could be a good one, given all available data, even if the outcome isn't what you'd hoped for."
That's a good question. In truth, I very much like the person I am and the decisions I've made have made me the person I am, so I'm not sure I regret them.
At the same time, I linked to a "Bad Decision Dinosaur" comic where the dinosaur is cheering on Napoleon's Invasion of Russia. People know that Napoleon ended up invading Russia in the winter and that's how it ends up in snarky comics, but Napoleon started with Smolensk in August. The Russian army just kept retreating, and kept burning villages as it retreated to starve the French. The French had never seen this tactic before and were like "What the hell, Tsar Alexander?"
Arguably Napoleon's problem wasn't invading Russia in August, it was getting himself deeper and deeper and not knowing when to quit. Maybe that's where I meant to say my problem was.
I had dinner with my friend Cheyenne, who had read yesterday's post and felt like I wasn't really understanding de Becker's point about Intuition. As fear is, I think, going to be a theological point for me, (Katy the Wise and I have discussed whether it is the root of evil), I feel like I should reread de Becker's book. It's available on Kindle Unlimited, so now it's on my list.
CC
That's a good question. In truth, I very much like the person I am and the decisions I've made have made me the person I am, so I'm not sure I regret them.
At the same time, I linked to a "Bad Decision Dinosaur" comic where the dinosaur is cheering on Napoleon's Invasion of Russia. People know that Napoleon ended up invading Russia in the winter and that's how it ends up in snarky comics, but Napoleon started with Smolensk in August. The Russian army just kept retreating, and kept burning villages as it retreated to starve the French. The French had never seen this tactic before and were like "What the hell, Tsar Alexander?"
Arguably Napoleon's problem wasn't invading Russia in August, it was getting himself deeper and deeper and not knowing when to quit. Maybe that's where I meant to say my problem was.
I had dinner with my friend Cheyenne, who had read yesterday's post and felt like I wasn't really understanding de Becker's point about Intuition. As fear is, I think, going to be a theological point for me, (Katy the Wise and I have discussed whether it is the root of evil), I feel like I should reread de Becker's book. It's available on Kindle Unlimited, so now it's on my list.
CC
Monday, February 08, 2016
Bad decision dinosaur roars again.
I identify with this dinosaur.
“intuition is always right in at least two important ways;
It is always in response to something.
it always has your best interest at heart”
― Gavin de Becker, The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence
I've been thinking about this quotation today, to say that I've been "meditating on it" is to give myself entirely too much credit. Now de Becker is a really smart dude, his book is brilliant, but I feel like he also is giving me too much credit. My intuition, at least, responds to a very loose definition of "something" and I'm pretty sure there are times when my still small voice wants carrot cake, which is not to say it really has my best interests at heart.
I see myself as a maker of bad decisions. Now, mind you, I've made a couple of excellent major life decisions. TheCSO is the best example. In general, I surround myself with wonderful people. But when it comes to pretty much everything else, I kinda suck. "When should I go to law school?" "Is this a good time to buy a house?" "Do I want a PhD in Political Science?"* And then there's the whole "let's graduate from college in 2000 and try to get a journalism job" thing.
Life has a lot of chaos to it, and I'm not convinced that my intuition isn't always just telling me what I think I want to hear. Am I really following clues to a mystery that is me? Or am I hearing hoofbeats and unable to think of anything but zebras, then disappointing myself when ordinary horses go by?
One time I had a dream where I spent hours in a forest, trying to figure out a solution to a puzzle carved into a tree. Eventually, I woke up. There was no solution, because it was just a fucking dream. This is the other side of seeking life's bids for attention, and my skepticism of the concept kicking in. Sometimes a memento mori is just a dead bird on the sidewalk.
At the very least, one of the things I'm looking for in this reflection project is to figure out how I make the decisions I make, in hopes that I can do better. At this point the "what if I fuck up?" factor that I work into major life decisions is quite high and that's not a comfortable place to be.
Discernment. Easy to spell, difficult to do. de Becker's book goes into how to do some of it around fear, though he's a greater believer in intuition than I am. Perhaps his intuition about scary situations has proved correct because he's an expert on fear. I find the idea that "intuition" is just the rapid application of experience comforting, even though I'm not sure I believe it.
My intuition tells me this: "If something's comforting, it's often not true."
CC
*No, I do not. I pursued one and dropped out before I even had a master's degree. "Chalicechick the terrible grad student" is a whole different set of stories.
“intuition is always right in at least two important ways;
It is always in response to something.
it always has your best interest at heart”
― Gavin de Becker, The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence
I've been thinking about this quotation today, to say that I've been "meditating on it" is to give myself entirely too much credit. Now de Becker is a really smart dude, his book is brilliant, but I feel like he also is giving me too much credit. My intuition, at least, responds to a very loose definition of "something" and I'm pretty sure there are times when my still small voice wants carrot cake, which is not to say it really has my best interests at heart.
I see myself as a maker of bad decisions. Now, mind you, I've made a couple of excellent major life decisions. TheCSO is the best example. In general, I surround myself with wonderful people. But when it comes to pretty much everything else, I kinda suck. "When should I go to law school?" "Is this a good time to buy a house?" "Do I want a PhD in Political Science?"* And then there's the whole "let's graduate from college in 2000 and try to get a journalism job" thing.
Life has a lot of chaos to it, and I'm not convinced that my intuition isn't always just telling me what I think I want to hear. Am I really following clues to a mystery that is me? Or am I hearing hoofbeats and unable to think of anything but zebras, then disappointing myself when ordinary horses go by?
One time I had a dream where I spent hours in a forest, trying to figure out a solution to a puzzle carved into a tree. Eventually, I woke up. There was no solution, because it was just a fucking dream. This is the other side of seeking life's bids for attention, and my skepticism of the concept kicking in. Sometimes a memento mori is just a dead bird on the sidewalk.
At the very least, one of the things I'm looking for in this reflection project is to figure out how I make the decisions I make, in hopes that I can do better. At this point the "what if I fuck up?" factor that I work into major life decisions is quite high and that's not a comfortable place to be.
Discernment. Easy to spell, difficult to do. de Becker's book goes into how to do some of it around fear, though he's a greater believer in intuition than I am. Perhaps his intuition about scary situations has proved correct because he's an expert on fear. I find the idea that "intuition" is just the rapid application of experience comforting, even though I'm not sure I believe it.
My intuition tells me this: "If something's comforting, it's often not true."
CC
*No, I do not. I pursued one and dropped out before I even had a master's degree. "Chalicechick the terrible grad student" is a whole different set of stories.
Sunday, February 07, 2016
"Attention must be paid"
Drama nerds know this as what Linda Loman says about Willy toward the end of "Death of a Salesman."
The relevant part of the quotation is:
"I don’t say he’s a great man. Willy Loman never made a lot of money. His name was never in the paper. He’s not the finest character that ever lived. But he’s a human being, and a terrible thing is happening to him. So attention must be paid. He’s not to be allowed to fall into his grave like an old dog. Attention, attention must be finally paid to such a person."
This quote is a double-edged sword for me. Minor Quibbles: First of all, on some level I'd rather all but my very favorite people paid less attention to me than more. Also, I've known some old dogs who have fallen into their graves after spending their lifetimes giving joy.
Major Quibble: I want to have lived a life of significance, but I find paying attention to all sorts of things very difficult. I'm not sure if it's more work for me or if I'm just not very good at it, and those things are not mutually exclusive. Could I be addicted to distraction? I spend most of my quiet moments having conversations with myself in my head. Some of them are replaying past conversations, sometimes I'm preparing for a conversation in the future. But whatever I'm doing, I'm not listening to the world around me.
"Good conversations" and "driving" are when I do my best attention-paying. And even with those my attention can be suboptimal.
What is my attention so afraid of? And if I can figure out that thing, will it lead me to the significance I want.
I guess those are my questions for today.
CC
The relevant part of the quotation is:
"I don’t say he’s a great man. Willy Loman never made a lot of money. His name was never in the paper. He’s not the finest character that ever lived. But he’s a human being, and a terrible thing is happening to him. So attention must be paid. He’s not to be allowed to fall into his grave like an old dog. Attention, attention must be finally paid to such a person."
This quote is a double-edged sword for me. Minor Quibbles: First of all, on some level I'd rather all but my very favorite people paid less attention to me than more. Also, I've known some old dogs who have fallen into their graves after spending their lifetimes giving joy.
Major Quibble: I want to have lived a life of significance, but I find paying attention to all sorts of things very difficult. I'm not sure if it's more work for me or if I'm just not very good at it, and those things are not mutually exclusive. Could I be addicted to distraction? I spend most of my quiet moments having conversations with myself in my head. Some of them are replaying past conversations, sometimes I'm preparing for a conversation in the future. But whatever I'm doing, I'm not listening to the world around me.
"Good conversations" and "driving" are when I do my best attention-paying. And even with those my attention can be suboptimal.
What is my attention so afraid of? And if I can figure out that thing, will it lead me to the significance I want.
I guess those are my questions for today.
CC
Saturday, February 06, 2016
"Please, tell me about your journey of self-discovery" said no one ever.
Every few months, I try to reread this article. The TLDR* of it is this: A happy marriage boils down to following up on your spouse's attempts to telling you things.
If TheCSO has read a news article on, say, a new major transportation project and pops in to tell me about it, the way to stay married is to get enthusiastic about what makes her enthusiastic rather than being an asshole and making a big show of not caring.
The article puts it more nicely.
But that's the bones. When your spouse is trying to tell you something, they are making what the article, and the research underlying it, call a "bid for attention." In happy marriages, people response positively to those.
I've been married for going on twelve years and I've listened with interest to descriptions of innumerable transportation projects. One of the great secrets to married life is that if you married a smart and awesome person, many of their interests are likely to be smart and awesome as well. If you listen when they talk, soon you're invested in those interests too.
Anyway, I work pretty hard at this wife thing. I like to think that I respond fairly well to my friends' bids for attention too.
But recently, I've been thinking over my theology and my philosophy of life, to the degree that I have those things. As I've tried to articulate what's important to me and how I can focus my life around those values, I've started to wonder, what if there are bids of attention from the world and the way I see it that I've been ignoring? So I'm starting to make a practice of mindfully pursuing my yearnings, mostly the nerdier sorts, and look for what I might be trying to tell myself. And I'm going to write about it, because truly I don't know what I'm thinking until I've written it out.
If this revived blog has a goal, it is that, to watch the world more carefully for invitations to think harder about things and to find meaning in new places, and to chronicle me wandering through the world more attentively and what I find when I do.
CC
*Internet for "Too Long; Didn't read" also known as an "executive summary."
If TheCSO has read a news article on, say, a new major transportation project and pops in to tell me about it, the way to stay married is to get enthusiastic about what makes her enthusiastic rather than being an asshole and making a big show of not caring.
The article puts it more nicely.
But that's the bones. When your spouse is trying to tell you something, they are making what the article, and the research underlying it, call a "bid for attention." In happy marriages, people response positively to those.
I've been married for going on twelve years and I've listened with interest to descriptions of innumerable transportation projects. One of the great secrets to married life is that if you married a smart and awesome person, many of their interests are likely to be smart and awesome as well. If you listen when they talk, soon you're invested in those interests too.
Anyway, I work pretty hard at this wife thing. I like to think that I respond fairly well to my friends' bids for attention too.
But recently, I've been thinking over my theology and my philosophy of life, to the degree that I have those things. As I've tried to articulate what's important to me and how I can focus my life around those values, I've started to wonder, what if there are bids of attention from the world and the way I see it that I've been ignoring? So I'm starting to make a practice of mindfully pursuing my yearnings, mostly the nerdier sorts, and look for what I might be trying to tell myself. And I'm going to write about it, because truly I don't know what I'm thinking until I've written it out.
If this revived blog has a goal, it is that, to watch the world more carefully for invitations to think harder about things and to find meaning in new places, and to chronicle me wandering through the world more attentively and what I find when I do.
CC
*Internet for "Too Long; Didn't read" also known as an "executive summary."
Back again, for a limited engagement maybe
I'm in a theological study group at church and we've been talking about spiritual practices. I'm trying to find a new spiritual practice* myself.
"You have such a way with words," one person suggested. "Have you thought about journaling?" The conversation continued in this vein for a bit.
Finally, I thought, "Well, I used to have a place where I did something sort of like that." So I'm going to give it another shot. Don't know if I'm going to stay with it, but I'm going to try.
I'll post my first substantive post about that tonight.
But first, an FAQ, because I love FAQs.
Q: Welcome Back! I've missed you!
A: Thanks, though you don't have to. You can always follow me on Twitter. I'm Chalicechick there too. I tend to be pretty liberal about friending on Facebook, too.
Q: What's up?
A: Not a whole lot. The big news is that TheCSO is undergoing gender transition. We wrote an entire FAQ about that, and I've posted it below. Other than that, I got out of law school, got a law job that pays the bills and I go to the same church and mostly have the same friends. I have a Goddaughter now, you'll probably hear about her. The dog died. That was sad.
Q: So, what are you going to be writing about?
A: My personal life, hunt for a personal theology/philosophy of life and the same sort of cultural criticism stuff I liked to write before. Funny stuff that happens to me.
Q: So what AREN'T you going to be writing much about?
A: My job, national politics (I lean Clinton, FWIW), UUA politics (I lean Miller, FWIW), won't go too far into transgender issues. There are smarter people writing better things on that last topic especially. I also don't write about my own church. The minister shouldn't have to worry about critiques of her sermon showing up here on Sunday afternoons. They won't.
Q: How will this ChaliceBlog be different?
A: I'm going to be heavier on comment moderation. I have less patience than I used to, and less time. I'm also probably not going to get into as many big arguments. Again, less patience, less time. If you want an interactive medium, try Twitter. My plan at least is to use this as a bit more of a broadcast medium. Also, both Nora Ephron and the UUA Washington Office are gone and have not been replaced with equivalent targets for snark. I confess I've mellowed a bit in that department in general.
Q: How can I foil your plan to use this as a broadcast medium?
A: Write brilliant insightful comments I can't resist responding to.
Q: Are you going to stick around?
A: In this format, I don't know. But I'm extremely active on Facebook and moderately so on Twitter.
Q: How can I encourage you to stick around?
A: Write brilliant insightful comments I can't resist responding to.
Thanks,
CC
who suspects these questions would not be asked frequently, indeed not much at all, but enjoys interviewing herself.
*Which I define as a way to connect me to that which is greater than myself, one way or another.
"You have such a way with words," one person suggested. "Have you thought about journaling?" The conversation continued in this vein for a bit.
Finally, I thought, "Well, I used to have a place where I did something sort of like that." So I'm going to give it another shot. Don't know if I'm going to stay with it, but I'm going to try.
I'll post my first substantive post about that tonight.
But first, an FAQ, because I love FAQs.
Q: Welcome Back! I've missed you!
A: Thanks, though you don't have to. You can always follow me on Twitter. I'm Chalicechick there too. I tend to be pretty liberal about friending on Facebook, too.
Q: What's up?
A: Not a whole lot. The big news is that TheCSO is undergoing gender transition. We wrote an entire FAQ about that, and I've posted it below. Other than that, I got out of law school, got a law job that pays the bills and I go to the same church and mostly have the same friends. I have a Goddaughter now, you'll probably hear about her. The dog died. That was sad.
Q: So, what are you going to be writing about?
A: My personal life, hunt for a personal theology/philosophy of life and the same sort of cultural criticism stuff I liked to write before. Funny stuff that happens to me.
Q: So what AREN'T you going to be writing much about?
A: My job, national politics (I lean Clinton, FWIW), UUA politics (I lean Miller, FWIW), won't go too far into transgender issues. There are smarter people writing better things on that last topic especially. I also don't write about my own church. The minister shouldn't have to worry about critiques of her sermon showing up here on Sunday afternoons. They won't.
Q: How will this ChaliceBlog be different?
A: I'm going to be heavier on comment moderation. I have less patience than I used to, and less time. I'm also probably not going to get into as many big arguments. Again, less patience, less time. If you want an interactive medium, try Twitter. My plan at least is to use this as a bit more of a broadcast medium. Also, both Nora Ephron and the UUA Washington Office are gone and have not been replaced with equivalent targets for snark. I confess I've mellowed a bit in that department in general.
Q: How can I foil your plan to use this as a broadcast medium?
A: Write brilliant insightful comments I can't resist responding to.
Q: Are you going to stick around?
A: In this format, I don't know. But I'm extremely active on Facebook and moderately so on Twitter.
Q: How can I encourage you to stick around?
A: Write brilliant insightful comments I can't resist responding to.
Thanks,
CC
who suspects these questions would not be asked frequently, indeed not much at all, but enjoys interviewing herself.
*Which I define as a way to connect me to that which is greater than myself, one way or another.
Chalicechick and TheCSO's Gender FAQ
Posted to Facebook 07.19.2015.
This is the same document with only minor edits, plus our names changed per the conventions of this blog.
So, hi, we’ve got an announcement.
TheCSO has made the decision to undergo gender transition. We’ve told a few people about this, but since we’re telling everyone en masse at this point, we thought an FAQ might come in handy:
The easy questions:
Q: So TheCSO is female now?
A: TheCSO is in between, but on the female side.
Q. What pronoun does TheCSO prefer?
A: TheCSO likes “she” or “they.” Chalicechick does not like “they” truth be told, as to her it sounds awkward and confusing. So she talked around pronouns when TheCSO was concerned and considered TheCSO’s pronoun “TheCSO” as an interim step. This wasn’t TheCSO’s favorite approach but the biggie is to avoid male pronouns. Chalicechick is using “she” and female-gendered terms like “wife” now.
Q: I’ve called TheCSO “he” for years, what if I call TheCSO the wrong thing?
A: That’s cool. We know this isn’t easy and TheCSO understands genuine mistakes are going to happen. Chalicechick still slips up every now and again.
Q:Is TheCSO keeping the name “TheCSO”?
A: That’s the plan.
The complicated questions:
Q. How long has TheCSO wanted to do this?
A: A long time. TheCSO came out to Chalicechick in college, years before we got married. She has always known this was a possibility, but TheCSO didn’t feel like fully transitioning to female and when we first got together and being “in between” was more or less unheard of outside of the gender activist community. Chalicechick was concerned about the societal consequences of having to constantly explain that TheCSO had a gender that nobody else seemed to have. Now that TheCSO’s career is in a good place, our marriage is totally safe and genderqueer and trans folks are becoming more and more common, the timing seemed right. TheCSO’s tired of being uncomfortable.
Q: A lot of transsexuals get fired, are you worried about that?
A: For TheCSO’s employer to fire TheCSO for that reason would be a violation of both their company policy and the DC Human Rights Act, which covers TheCSO’s workplace in DC.
Q: Are you guys going to stay married?
A: Yup. We’re still in love.
Q. Will the state of Virginia still recognize your marriage? Sure, gay marriage is legal there now, but Virginia is conservative and that could change again?
A: This question was answered at length in previous versions of the FAQ, but is now irrelevant. Thanks, Justice Kennedy!
Q: I feel like I’m really close to you guys, but you never talked about this with me before, and you’ve known for like SIXTEEN YEARS? What gives?
A. We get feeling that way and we’re sorry. This stuff is not easy to explain and while we’re centered about the basics of it and committed to approaching it as a team, the details are a lot of stress. Sometimes it’s a big comfort to just talk about other things. If one or both of us has hung out with you and confided in you about other things or just done fun stuff with you, you’ve been more help than you know. Thank you and we’re sorry if you feel we took too long to let you in. Please don’t think that we didn’t tell you because we thought you would react badly, if we thought that we wouldn’t have been your friend in the first place.
The hard questions that make us a little cranky:
Q: Is Chalicechick a lesbian now?
A: She’s not much on labels. She didn’t marry TheCSO’s gender, she married TheCSO. That said, she did know about this all along, so… kinda? If you want to look at it that way? We don’t though. We do consider ourselves a woman married to a woman though.
Q: Is TheCSO having surgery?
A: We know our friends would generally be too polite to ask this very personal question, but we also figured they might want to know. No, TheCSO has no plans to have surgery of any type. But TheCSO is on hormones and has been for over a year. If you have other medical questions, feel free to ask in person, we’d rather not go into more detail on this forum.
Q: What if I think TheCSO’s still a guy and feel the need to say so?
A: Then it’s best if you save everyone some pain and unfriend us now. We don’t have anything else to say to one another. If you want to stay friends with us, don’t talk about that to us because we don’t consider her gender an issue for debate.
Summing up:
Q: So how can I help Chalicechick be more comfortable in this weird time?
A: She’s good. It IS a weird time but her and TheCSO’s support system, (if you’re reading this you’re probably part of it) has been wonderful. We’re very privileged as couples dealing with these issues go. Mostly, she’s grateful.
Q: So how can I help TheCSO be more comfortable in this weird time?
A: Use “she” or “they” or talk around pronouns, try not to use male gendered language. Ask questions. TheCSO’s glad to help and would rather talk about it than leave people wondering.
Q: I’m glad you guys are good, but what if being your friend makes me want to reach out to other people dealing with gender issues?
A: That’s awesome of you. We are in a position of enormous privilege and we know it. But not everyone is as lucky as we are and there are some folks who could absolutely use your help. We’d be really grateful, and you could do a lot of good, if you help out one of the following organizations:
• Rainbow Youth Alliance: http://rainbowyouthalliancemd.org/
• Trans Housing Network: http://www.transhousingnetwork.com/
• Whitman-Walker: http://www.whitman-walker.org/
This is the same document with only minor edits, plus our names changed per the conventions of this blog.
So, hi, we’ve got an announcement.
TheCSO has made the decision to undergo gender transition. We’ve told a few people about this, but since we’re telling everyone en masse at this point, we thought an FAQ might come in handy:
The easy questions:
Q: So TheCSO is female now?
A: TheCSO is in between, but on the female side.
Q. What pronoun does TheCSO prefer?
A: TheCSO likes “she” or “they.” Chalicechick does not like “they” truth be told, as to her it sounds awkward and confusing. So she talked around pronouns when TheCSO was concerned and considered TheCSO’s pronoun “TheCSO” as an interim step. This wasn’t TheCSO’s favorite approach but the biggie is to avoid male pronouns. Chalicechick is using “she” and female-gendered terms like “wife” now.
Q: I’ve called TheCSO “he” for years, what if I call TheCSO the wrong thing?
A: That’s cool. We know this isn’t easy and TheCSO understands genuine mistakes are going to happen. Chalicechick still slips up every now and again.
Q:Is TheCSO keeping the name “TheCSO”?
A: That’s the plan.
The complicated questions:
Q. How long has TheCSO wanted to do this?
A: A long time. TheCSO came out to Chalicechick in college, years before we got married. She has always known this was a possibility, but TheCSO didn’t feel like fully transitioning to female and when we first got together and being “in between” was more or less unheard of outside of the gender activist community. Chalicechick was concerned about the societal consequences of having to constantly explain that TheCSO had a gender that nobody else seemed to have. Now that TheCSO’s career is in a good place, our marriage is totally safe and genderqueer and trans folks are becoming more and more common, the timing seemed right. TheCSO’s tired of being uncomfortable.
Q: A lot of transsexuals get fired, are you worried about that?
A: For TheCSO’s employer to fire TheCSO for that reason would be a violation of both their company policy and the DC Human Rights Act, which covers TheCSO’s workplace in DC.
Q: Are you guys going to stay married?
A: Yup. We’re still in love.
Q. Will the state of Virginia still recognize your marriage? Sure, gay marriage is legal there now, but Virginia is conservative and that could change again?
A: This question was answered at length in previous versions of the FAQ, but is now irrelevant. Thanks, Justice Kennedy!
Q: I feel like I’m really close to you guys, but you never talked about this with me before, and you’ve known for like SIXTEEN YEARS? What gives?
A. We get feeling that way and we’re sorry. This stuff is not easy to explain and while we’re centered about the basics of it and committed to approaching it as a team, the details are a lot of stress. Sometimes it’s a big comfort to just talk about other things. If one or both of us has hung out with you and confided in you about other things or just done fun stuff with you, you’ve been more help than you know. Thank you and we’re sorry if you feel we took too long to let you in. Please don’t think that we didn’t tell you because we thought you would react badly, if we thought that we wouldn’t have been your friend in the first place.
The hard questions that make us a little cranky:
Q: Is Chalicechick a lesbian now?
A: She’s not much on labels. She didn’t marry TheCSO’s gender, she married TheCSO. That said, she did know about this all along, so… kinda? If you want to look at it that way? We don’t though. We do consider ourselves a woman married to a woman though.
Q: Is TheCSO having surgery?
A: We know our friends would generally be too polite to ask this very personal question, but we also figured they might want to know. No, TheCSO has no plans to have surgery of any type. But TheCSO is on hormones and has been for over a year. If you have other medical questions, feel free to ask in person, we’d rather not go into more detail on this forum.
Q: What if I think TheCSO’s still a guy and feel the need to say so?
A: Then it’s best if you save everyone some pain and unfriend us now. We don’t have anything else to say to one another. If you want to stay friends with us, don’t talk about that to us because we don’t consider her gender an issue for debate.
Summing up:
Q: So how can I help Chalicechick be more comfortable in this weird time?
A: She’s good. It IS a weird time but her and TheCSO’s support system, (if you’re reading this you’re probably part of it) has been wonderful. We’re very privileged as couples dealing with these issues go. Mostly, she’s grateful.
Q: So how can I help TheCSO be more comfortable in this weird time?
A: Use “she” or “they” or talk around pronouns, try not to use male gendered language. Ask questions. TheCSO’s glad to help and would rather talk about it than leave people wondering.
Q: I’m glad you guys are good, but what if being your friend makes me want to reach out to other people dealing with gender issues?
A: That’s awesome of you. We are in a position of enormous privilege and we know it. But not everyone is as lucky as we are and there are some folks who could absolutely use your help. We’d be really grateful, and you could do a lot of good, if you help out one of the following organizations:
• Rainbow Youth Alliance: http://rainbowyouthalliancemd.org/
• Trans Housing Network: http://www.transhousingnetwork.com/
• Whitman-Walker: http://www.whitman-walker.org/
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
Tuesday, November 01, 2011
11/1 Roundup of stuff I like.
First off, a poem:
Helen of Troy Does Countertop Dancing
The world is full of women
who'd tell me I should be ashamed of myself
if they had the chance. Quit dancing.
Get some self-respect
and a day job.
Right. And minimum wage,
and varicose veins, just standing
in one place for eight hours
behind a glass counter
bundled up to the neck, instead of
naked as a meat sandwich.
Selling gloves, or something.
Instead of what I do sell.
You have to have talent
to peddle a thing so nebulous
and without material form.
Exploited, they'd say. Yes, any way
you cut it, but I've a choice
of how, and I'll take the money.
I do give value.
Like preachers, I sell vision,
like perfume ads, desire
or its facsimile. Like jokes
or war, it's all in the timing.
I sell men back their worse suspicions:
that everything's for sale,
and piecemeal. They gaze at me and see
a chain-saw murder just before it happens,
when thigh, ass, inkblot, crevice, tit, and nipple
are still connected.
Such hatred leaps in them,
my beery worshippers! That, or a bleary
hopeless love. Seeing the rows of heads
and upturned eyes, imploring
but ready to snap at my ankles,
I understand floods and earthquakes, and the urge
to step on ants. I keep the beat,
and dance for them because
they can't. The music smells like foxes,
crisp as heated metal
searing the nostrils
or humid as August, hazy and languorous
as a looted city the day after,
when all the rape's been done
already, and the killing,
and the survivors wander around
looking for garbage
to eat, and there's only a bleak exhaustion.
Speaking of which, it's the smiling
tires me out the most.
This, and the pretence
that I can't hear them.
And I can't, because I'm after all
a foreigner to them.
The speech here is all warty gutturals,
obvious as a slab of ham,
but I come from the province of the gods
where meanings are lilting and oblique.
I don't let on to everyone,
but lean close, and I'll whisper:
My mother was raped by a holy swan.
You believe that? You can take me out to dinner.
That's what we tell all the husbands.
There sure are a lot of dangerous birds around.
Not that anyone here
but you would understand.
The rest of them would like to watch me
and feel nothing. Reduce me to components
as in a clock factory or abattoir.
Crush out the mystery.
Wall me up alive
in my own body.
They'd like to see through me,
but nothing is more opaque
than absolute transparency.
Look--my feet don't hit the marble!
Like breath or a balloon, I'm rising,
I hover six inches in the air
in my blazing swan-egg of light.
You think I'm not a goddess?
Try me.
This is a torch song.
Touch me and you'll burn.
Margaret Atwood
Blog post:
Friend of the Chaliceblog Joel Monka tells an amazing story about the work he's been doing in his Prison Ministry
Blog:
I'm really loving Privilege. It is a fashion blog, but like all good fashion blogs it is about a lot more. Also the author is a wonderful writer.
Product:
I've never had any real knack for lipstick, but you wouldn't know it to see me in Buxom's Big and Healthy Lip Stick. Idiot proof, I promise.
Non-fiction book:
When I was studying for the bar, I was doing a crazy (for me, probably not for you if you're physically fit) amount of cardio and some strength training besides because of The Spark, a book by John J. Ratey on how exercise is incredibly good for your brain. I'e slacked off a bit since starting the day job, but I'm hoping to get back into the routine because I felt great.
Fiction:
I think Peter Abrahams' A Perfect Crime might be the best crime novel I've ever read. Complicated and darkly funny, with amazing dialogue, every word of it is a joy. I'll go ahead and say there are some pretty big coincidences in it that might stretch credulity, but I sit here the grandchild of two women who lived down the street from each other in Texas as little girls but never met until their children met in North Carolina and decided to get married, so coincidences don't bother me so much in fiction. Anyway, Abrahams has a bit of a Carl Hiaasen vibe, but with the zaniness taken down a notch. I will probably read all his work eventually, though for the moment I'm reading Michael Connelly's The Poet which is so far perfectly enjoyable if not quite as well-written as "A Perfect Crime."
Movie:
I went to London for a few weeks about a decade ago and while I was there, I got very sick. There was a Hitchcock movie marathon on and I watched a lot of it. For whatever reason Shadow of a Doubt was the one that really captured my imagination. I haven't seen it in some time, but if you're up for a low-key thriller you should really check it out. I loved it.
Song:
Helen of Troy Does Countertop Dancing
The world is full of women
who'd tell me I should be ashamed of myself
if they had the chance. Quit dancing.
Get some self-respect
and a day job.
Right. And minimum wage,
and varicose veins, just standing
in one place for eight hours
behind a glass counter
bundled up to the neck, instead of
naked as a meat sandwich.
Selling gloves, or something.
Instead of what I do sell.
You have to have talent
to peddle a thing so nebulous
and without material form.
Exploited, they'd say. Yes, any way
you cut it, but I've a choice
of how, and I'll take the money.
I do give value.
Like preachers, I sell vision,
like perfume ads, desire
or its facsimile. Like jokes
or war, it's all in the timing.
I sell men back their worse suspicions:
that everything's for sale,
and piecemeal. They gaze at me and see
a chain-saw murder just before it happens,
when thigh, ass, inkblot, crevice, tit, and nipple
are still connected.
Such hatred leaps in them,
my beery worshippers! That, or a bleary
hopeless love. Seeing the rows of heads
and upturned eyes, imploring
but ready to snap at my ankles,
I understand floods and earthquakes, and the urge
to step on ants. I keep the beat,
and dance for them because
they can't. The music smells like foxes,
crisp as heated metal
searing the nostrils
or humid as August, hazy and languorous
as a looted city the day after,
when all the rape's been done
already, and the killing,
and the survivors wander around
looking for garbage
to eat, and there's only a bleak exhaustion.
Speaking of which, it's the smiling
tires me out the most.
This, and the pretence
that I can't hear them.
And I can't, because I'm after all
a foreigner to them.
The speech here is all warty gutturals,
obvious as a slab of ham,
but I come from the province of the gods
where meanings are lilting and oblique.
I don't let on to everyone,
but lean close, and I'll whisper:
My mother was raped by a holy swan.
You believe that? You can take me out to dinner.
That's what we tell all the husbands.
There sure are a lot of dangerous birds around.
Not that anyone here
but you would understand.
The rest of them would like to watch me
and feel nothing. Reduce me to components
as in a clock factory or abattoir.
Crush out the mystery.
Wall me up alive
in my own body.
They'd like to see through me,
but nothing is more opaque
than absolute transparency.
Look--my feet don't hit the marble!
Like breath or a balloon, I'm rising,
I hover six inches in the air
in my blazing swan-egg of light.
You think I'm not a goddess?
Try me.
This is a torch song.
Touch me and you'll burn.
Margaret Atwood
Blog post:
Friend of the Chaliceblog Joel Monka tells an amazing story about the work he's been doing in his Prison Ministry
Blog:
I'm really loving Privilege. It is a fashion blog, but like all good fashion blogs it is about a lot more. Also the author is a wonderful writer.
Product:
I've never had any real knack for lipstick, but you wouldn't know it to see me in Buxom's Big and Healthy Lip Stick. Idiot proof, I promise.
Non-fiction book:
When I was studying for the bar, I was doing a crazy (for me, probably not for you if you're physically fit) amount of cardio and some strength training besides because of The Spark, a book by John J. Ratey on how exercise is incredibly good for your brain. I'e slacked off a bit since starting the day job, but I'm hoping to get back into the routine because I felt great.
Fiction:
I think Peter Abrahams' A Perfect Crime might be the best crime novel I've ever read. Complicated and darkly funny, with amazing dialogue, every word of it is a joy. I'll go ahead and say there are some pretty big coincidences in it that might stretch credulity, but I sit here the grandchild of two women who lived down the street from each other in Texas as little girls but never met until their children met in North Carolina and decided to get married, so coincidences don't bother me so much in fiction. Anyway, Abrahams has a bit of a Carl Hiaasen vibe, but with the zaniness taken down a notch. I will probably read all his work eventually, though for the moment I'm reading Michael Connelly's The Poet which is so far perfectly enjoyable if not quite as well-written as "A Perfect Crime."
Movie:
I went to London for a few weeks about a decade ago and while I was there, I got very sick. There was a Hitchcock movie marathon on and I watched a lot of it. For whatever reason Shadow of a Doubt was the one that really captured my imagination. I haven't seen it in some time, but if you're up for a low-key thriller you should really check it out. I loved it.
Song:
Friday, October 14, 2011
On Passing the Bar
Coworker: When's your swearing-in?
Me: Halloween.
Coworker: You should get sworn-in in costume.
Me: I think I'm going to feel like I'm wearing a lawyer costume.
Coworker: Yeah, it always feels like that for awhile.
CC
Me: Halloween.
Coworker: You should get sworn-in in costume.
Me: I think I'm going to feel like I'm wearing a lawyer costume.
Coworker: Yeah, it always feels like that for awhile.
CC
Friday, September 23, 2011
A scattered roundup of stuff I like
Poetry.
First off, I'm pretty sure I've posted this before, but PoemHunter.com just sent me this again. I like to use it as a chalice lighting for youth stuff, though I don't have it memorized:
Summons
Keep me from going to sleep too soon
Or if I go to sleep too soon
Come wake me up. Come any hour
Of night. Come whistling up the road.
Stomp on the porch. Bang on the door.
Make me get out of bed and come
And let you in and light a light.
Tell me the northern lights are on
And make me look. Or tell me clouds
Are doing something to the moon
They never did before, and show me.
See that I see. Talk to me till
I'm half as wide awake as you
And start to dress wondering why
I ever went to bed at all.
Tell me the walking is superb.
Not only tell me but persuade me.
You know I'm not too hard persuaded.
Robert Francis
Short Fiction.
I was facebook chatting with a friend and he told me about this short story. The ChaliceMom is a big O. Henry fan, but I don't recall reading that one in any of her collections, though I'm sure it was there. I've read what was essentially the same story in a Roald Dahl short story collection, but I liked O. Henry's version better.
Long fiction
I'm parway through Will Ferguson's Happiness but I don't know if I will make it all the way. Comic novels are often like cheesecake for me. Each individual bite is great, but at some point, ick. Still, the bites have been good so far.
I've also been rereading My Life and Loves by Frank Harris. I realize my love of bawdy novels is not a universal thing, but this one seriously isn't that bad and it is a great read.
Movies.
OK, I haven't SEEN this, but the preview makes it look like exactly my sort of thing
Short Non-Fiction
The Economist, of all places, gives a shoutout to people who talk the way I do.
Non-Fiction.
I know a lot of you have probably read Tender at the Bone but I was telling a friend about it the other day, so I thought I'd mention it here. It is the the memoir of a former food critic for the New York Times, and it isn't even about her food critic years, though she has written a good book about those too. I can't even really describe what I like about this book in that my memory is there are parts that arn't all that compelling. All lives have uninteresting years, I suppose. But when Reichel's life is interesting, it really is. Her childhood has some things in common with mine, which made that part an extremely compelling read.
Also, because I'm a huge nerd, I've been keeping Robert's Rules of Order for Dummies next to my bathtub for long sessions of bubble bath and procedural law. Don't knock it
'til ya tried it, kids.
Webcomics.
I've recently started reading Sex, Drugs and June Cleaver, mostly because I met the author at a con and became a big fan of her as a human being. I've been sticking some of my favorites from her archives on Facebook.
Shows.
I haven't been to a good gallery show in a long time, but I saw this at the National Gallery with Melina in May, and it is a great show. While it was too broad to be a good show for learning all that much about what I'm looking at and how it all connects, but I got to renew my crush on Modigliani, so that's something.
I feel like I'm a bad abstract expressionism fan if I don't make it up to the DeKooning show at MOMA before it closes at the end of the year, at the same time, I think I'd rather go see the Zaha Hadid show in Philly. If anybody wants to make plans to see either of those, I'm there. Seeing Mary-who-Dances and going to Fabulous Fanny's might make the DeKooning show a winner after all.
Blogs.
Too many to name, but I started reading this one today and have already learned a lot.
Music
I've been listening to a lot of Bird and the Bee recently:
CC
who is also on book four of the Dresden files, FWIW. I'm told they get better.
First off, I'm pretty sure I've posted this before, but PoemHunter.com just sent me this again. I like to use it as a chalice lighting for youth stuff, though I don't have it memorized:
Summons
Keep me from going to sleep too soon
Or if I go to sleep too soon
Come wake me up. Come any hour
Of night. Come whistling up the road.
Stomp on the porch. Bang on the door.
Make me get out of bed and come
And let you in and light a light.
Tell me the northern lights are on
And make me look. Or tell me clouds
Are doing something to the moon
They never did before, and show me.
See that I see. Talk to me till
I'm half as wide awake as you
And start to dress wondering why
I ever went to bed at all.
Tell me the walking is superb.
Not only tell me but persuade me.
You know I'm not too hard persuaded.
Robert Francis
Short Fiction.
I was facebook chatting with a friend and he told me about this short story. The ChaliceMom is a big O. Henry fan, but I don't recall reading that one in any of her collections, though I'm sure it was there. I've read what was essentially the same story in a Roald Dahl short story collection, but I liked O. Henry's version better.
Long fiction
I'm parway through Will Ferguson's Happiness but I don't know if I will make it all the way. Comic novels are often like cheesecake for me. Each individual bite is great, but at some point, ick. Still, the bites have been good so far.
I've also been rereading My Life and Loves by Frank Harris. I realize my love of bawdy novels is not a universal thing, but this one seriously isn't that bad and it is a great read.
Movies.
OK, I haven't SEEN this, but the preview makes it look like exactly my sort of thing
Short Non-Fiction
The Economist, of all places, gives a shoutout to people who talk the way I do.
Non-Fiction.
I know a lot of you have probably read Tender at the Bone but I was telling a friend about it the other day, so I thought I'd mention it here. It is the the memoir of a former food critic for the New York Times, and it isn't even about her food critic years, though she has written a good book about those too. I can't even really describe what I like about this book in that my memory is there are parts that arn't all that compelling. All lives have uninteresting years, I suppose. But when Reichel's life is interesting, it really is. Her childhood has some things in common with mine, which made that part an extremely compelling read.
Also, because I'm a huge nerd, I've been keeping Robert's Rules of Order for Dummies next to my bathtub for long sessions of bubble bath and procedural law. Don't knock it
'til ya tried it, kids.
Webcomics.
I've recently started reading Sex, Drugs and June Cleaver, mostly because I met the author at a con and became a big fan of her as a human being. I've been sticking some of my favorites from her archives on Facebook.
Shows.
I haven't been to a good gallery show in a long time, but I saw this at the National Gallery with Melina in May, and it is a great show. While it was too broad to be a good show for learning all that much about what I'm looking at and how it all connects, but I got to renew my crush on Modigliani, so that's something.
I feel like I'm a bad abstract expressionism fan if I don't make it up to the DeKooning show at MOMA before it closes at the end of the year, at the same time, I think I'd rather go see the Zaha Hadid show in Philly. If anybody wants to make plans to see either of those, I'm there. Seeing Mary-who-Dances and going to Fabulous Fanny's might make the DeKooning show a winner after all.
Blogs.
Too many to name, but I started reading this one today and have already learned a lot.
Music
I've been listening to a lot of Bird and the Bee recently:
CC
who is also on book four of the Dresden files, FWIW. I'm told they get better.
Monday, September 12, 2011
9/11 Disconnection
I've been going back and forth for nearly 48 hours over whether to write this.
That usually means I shouldn't.
But I was ready to drive home from work today and the sky opened up. A smarter person would use this valuable quiet office time to catch up on work, but I've had a pretty productive day and I don't think I'm going to.
Because something's bothering me.
I didn't realize how much really until I was thinking over a dream I had yesterday. In my dream someone was telling me how cold I was, a charge I've heard before though rarely from my own mind.
The 10th anniversary of 9/11 really didn't resonate with me. I'm a little weirded out, partially because I follow a lot of awesome and spiritual people on twitter. All of yesterday, my twitter feed and my facebook feed were an ever-pumping heart of emotion. Sadness, even despondency, at the loss, anger at the Bush administration, it was all there and vital and real.
I watched it all unmoved.
I retweeted something at some point about how we should watch porn to prove the terrorists didn't win. Over dinner, theCSO pointed out that they did win. I countered that they hadn't gotten exactly what they wanted to the degree that they wanted, but yeah, he has a point. Malcolm Gladwell argues in one of his books that the amount of time we spend on TSA related delays adds up to 14 lifetimes a year.
I don't take Malcolm Gladwell as fact, but that's at least truthy.
Even still, what's 14 lives? Seriously. 14 people will easily have died in the amount of time it takes you to read this blog post. Does it really matter if they choke on hamburgers or suffer kidney failure or die in a terrorist attack?
It isn't that national events don't effect me. A good look at my blog archive reveals a woman who kinda whacked out when Hurricane Katrina beat up the City of
New Orleans and the government left her for dead. Ok, that's not what happened, but that's still how it feels years later.
9-11 doesn't have that resonance for me. And I'm not sure why because the two events have a lot in common. I've never lived in New York like I did in New Orleans, but I like New York and strongly associate it with Mary-who-Dances. I do view both events as essentially natural disasters. I don't know that either disaster could have been prevented but strongly suspect not. I do know that both could have been handled a lot better in the aftermath.
Maybe it is just that I feel like America cared about 9-11 and I still have a sense of betrayal, just or no,* about New Orleans.
After Hurricane Katrina, one of my coworkers said "I hear there are people in New Orleans who are shooting at the cops."
I said something flip about them likely being the same crackheads who are always shooting at the cops, the only difference was that now the narrative was being used to let us think that the victims deserved what they got.
Ok, I don't think I put it that well at the time but it is what I meant and I think that might be part of what's bothering me. The huge line between mostly rich white people (like me) being unquestionably heroes and mostly poor black people (not like me) being looters and ungrateful and spendthrifts and everything else that was lobbied at them. (You think no 9/11 survivor got a boob job with some of the money? I suspect someone did, though I don't know. But we know for certain that a Katrina victim spent government aid money on one. The media made rather a big point of it.)
I love my friends and I'm sure a lot of the stuff that has been written about 9/11 is moving and awesome and helpful to the people for whom this crisis is still a real wound that is deeply felt. But the only thing I've read on the topic that has really meant anything to me was Laura Miller's essay Why we haven't seen a great 9-11 novel because she says what I've trying to articulate to myself for some time**:
a firefighter who dies trying to pull people from a garden-variety house fire in Queens is no less brave or heroic. The civilians who perish in that fire or in a six-car pileup caused by black ice on an interstate or in a boat caught in a sudden storm or in a massacre by a gun-toting maniac in an IHOP are just as dead and just as fiercely mourned by their friends and family as those who died on 9/11.
Miller goes on to say that 9/11 was a tragedy made to be a media spectacle, made to force us to look on a real-live Micheal Bay movie. Once you're past that, the deaths don't fundamentally differ from any other deaths, the heroism no different from any other heroism. And like for the rest of life, there is no easy narrative that perfectly suits what we've always thought politically, despite many people's desire to create one.
So, that's where I am on 9-11. And I know nobody was sitting on the edge of their seat going "but what does CHALICECHICK think about 9-11?" but I guess part of me needed to see someone other than Laura Miller be the cold one who doesn't quite get it.
CC
EDIT: I got a very kind and smart email from a nice person who pointed out that I am friended with a whole lot of ministers who were trying to reach out and care for those around them, something that it wasn't as much my job to do. That's an excellent point and one that should have been obvious to me, but wasn't.
*Yes, I'm aware that I'm the one who relentlessly pushes FBI statistics on crime in border towns and doesn't care how people *FEEL* about the crime rate due to immigration in the face of the fact that Arizona cities have comparitively low crime rates. The difference here is that I'm not trying to legislate my arguably irrational and unsupported-by-fact feelings. Arizonans did.
**To clarify, I recall being as upset as anybody else in the immediate aftermath of the attacks.
That usually means I shouldn't.
But I was ready to drive home from work today and the sky opened up. A smarter person would use this valuable quiet office time to catch up on work, but I've had a pretty productive day and I don't think I'm going to.
Because something's bothering me.
I didn't realize how much really until I was thinking over a dream I had yesterday. In my dream someone was telling me how cold I was, a charge I've heard before though rarely from my own mind.
The 10th anniversary of 9/11 really didn't resonate with me. I'm a little weirded out, partially because I follow a lot of awesome and spiritual people on twitter. All of yesterday, my twitter feed and my facebook feed were an ever-pumping heart of emotion. Sadness, even despondency, at the loss, anger at the Bush administration, it was all there and vital and real.
I watched it all unmoved.
I retweeted something at some point about how we should watch porn to prove the terrorists didn't win. Over dinner, theCSO pointed out that they did win. I countered that they hadn't gotten exactly what they wanted to the degree that they wanted, but yeah, he has a point. Malcolm Gladwell argues in one of his books that the amount of time we spend on TSA related delays adds up to 14 lifetimes a year.
I don't take Malcolm Gladwell as fact, but that's at least truthy.
Even still, what's 14 lives? Seriously. 14 people will easily have died in the amount of time it takes you to read this blog post. Does it really matter if they choke on hamburgers or suffer kidney failure or die in a terrorist attack?
It isn't that national events don't effect me. A good look at my blog archive reveals a woman who kinda whacked out when Hurricane Katrina beat up the City of
New Orleans and the government left her for dead. Ok, that's not what happened, but that's still how it feels years later.
9-11 doesn't have that resonance for me. And I'm not sure why because the two events have a lot in common. I've never lived in New York like I did in New Orleans, but I like New York and strongly associate it with Mary-who-Dances. I do view both events as essentially natural disasters. I don't know that either disaster could have been prevented but strongly suspect not. I do know that both could have been handled a lot better in the aftermath.
Maybe it is just that I feel like America cared about 9-11 and I still have a sense of betrayal, just or no,* about New Orleans.
After Hurricane Katrina, one of my coworkers said "I hear there are people in New Orleans who are shooting at the cops."
I said something flip about them likely being the same crackheads who are always shooting at the cops, the only difference was that now the narrative was being used to let us think that the victims deserved what they got.
Ok, I don't think I put it that well at the time but it is what I meant and I think that might be part of what's bothering me. The huge line between mostly rich white people (like me) being unquestionably heroes and mostly poor black people (not like me) being looters and ungrateful and spendthrifts and everything else that was lobbied at them. (You think no 9/11 survivor got a boob job with some of the money? I suspect someone did, though I don't know. But we know for certain that a Katrina victim spent government aid money on one. The media made rather a big point of it.)
I love my friends and I'm sure a lot of the stuff that has been written about 9/11 is moving and awesome and helpful to the people for whom this crisis is still a real wound that is deeply felt. But the only thing I've read on the topic that has really meant anything to me was Laura Miller's essay Why we haven't seen a great 9-11 novel because she says what I've trying to articulate to myself for some time**:
a firefighter who dies trying to pull people from a garden-variety house fire in Queens is no less brave or heroic. The civilians who perish in that fire or in a six-car pileup caused by black ice on an interstate or in a boat caught in a sudden storm or in a massacre by a gun-toting maniac in an IHOP are just as dead and just as fiercely mourned by their friends and family as those who died on 9/11.
Miller goes on to say that 9/11 was a tragedy made to be a media spectacle, made to force us to look on a real-live Micheal Bay movie. Once you're past that, the deaths don't fundamentally differ from any other deaths, the heroism no different from any other heroism. And like for the rest of life, there is no easy narrative that perfectly suits what we've always thought politically, despite many people's desire to create one.
So, that's where I am on 9-11. And I know nobody was sitting on the edge of their seat going "but what does CHALICECHICK think about 9-11?" but I guess part of me needed to see someone other than Laura Miller be the cold one who doesn't quite get it.
CC
EDIT: I got a very kind and smart email from a nice person who pointed out that I am friended with a whole lot of ministers who were trying to reach out and care for those around them, something that it wasn't as much my job to do. That's an excellent point and one that should have been obvious to me, but wasn't.
*Yes, I'm aware that I'm the one who relentlessly pushes FBI statistics on crime in border towns and doesn't care how people *FEEL* about the crime rate due to immigration in the face of the fact that Arizona cities have comparitively low crime rates. The difference here is that I'm not trying to legislate my arguably irrational and unsupported-by-fact feelings. Arizonans did.
**To clarify, I recall being as upset as anybody else in the immediate aftermath of the attacks.
"Dude, you should check this out," a model for real world evangelizing.
Over the weekend I was on my church's retreat. Yes, we're a large church and we have one. We rent a YMCA camp.
We do a lot of workshops there. I taught one on Bellydancing (which I'm a relative newbie at) and making weird stuff out of duct tape (which longtime Chalicesseurs will know I'm pretty good at.)
There was also a discussion group with a church committee, part of which became about
growing the church.*
As a group, we seemed collectively nervous about the idea of evangelism. And I get that, because I am too. I've lived in the South, where people coming up to you and inviting you to go to church is a common thing. At the same time, the discussion made me think about how I evangelize other things in my life that I like and appreciate.
Point of fact, sometime last year, my husband and I discovered a kickass Thai restaurant. If you're in the DC area, you probably want to know that this place is called "Elephant Jumps"** I learned about the place at my old job. The owner was my boss' brother-in-law. TheCSO and I first went just to give them some business, but we were blown away with how good it was. It was the best curry I'd ever had, and I love curry. It was cheap, it was delicious and they had some Thai-American fusion dishes so we could even take our friends who view Thai food as gastronomically adventurous. (The ChaliceDad is one of those people.)
It was, in short, everything we wanted in a Thai restaurant. As new restaurants have a something like 50 percent survival rate in a good economy, it was very important to us that this place survive. Like a church, a restaurant must essentially grow to survive, especially in the DC area where lots of people are always moving away.
I used this example, though with less detail, in the discussion at the retreat. I said that theCSO and I made a concerted effort to spread the word about Elephant Jumps. At the same time, we didn't, and at this point I turned to address the guy sitting next to me, an occaisional Chalicesseur (Hi Tom!), and said "We don't say 'I'd like to tell you about my journey of personal growth that has lead me to a really good restaurant."
Everyone laughed, and I did say it in a funny way, but my fundamental point about evangelism was serious. We get so scared of evangelizing, but we do it all the time.
The thing is, I don't know that the type of evangelism that we're afraid of is the kind of evangelism we should be doing in the first place. Elephant Jumps didn't have a "bring a friend" day and theCSO and I never talked to strangers about it directly. I didn't wear a button that, symbolically or literally, said "Ask me about Elephant JUmps."
The owner of Elephant Jumps told us proudly recently that he's thinking of opening up a larger or second location. And, again, they opened in a terrible economy.
Anyway, here are the elements of the model I'm proposing, let's call it the
"Elephant Jumps model of Evangelising."
1. A kickass product.
We have an amazing interim minister. I've always thought this, but I realized how deeply I believed it when someone on facebook was looking for a DC church to visit. I looked up what the service was about and I found myself responding "My minister is preaching about Canada. I know that doesn't SOUND promising, but every service she gives is good."
I've rarely felt comfortable saying that so confidently. Indeed, the last time I've had a minister who was consistently thoughtful and awesome in the pulpit every single Sunday was when I was in Katy-the-Wise's congregation.
Now, I don't kick ass at my job every single day, though goodness knows I try. I assume even our minister has off days, but even if she should have one, our music director is so tremendous that I still feel confident saying "Come to my church and Sunday morning will rock." I don't say that if it's a lay service because we've had some mediocre lay services in the past. Mine may or my not be among their number.
But anyway, our church manages to have consistently awesome preaching, much like Elephant Jumps does consistently amazing things with tilapia.
I couldn't have evangelized about Elephant Jumps if they didn't have amazing food in the first place.
2. Get the word out to your friends.
This should not be an awkward discussion. IMHO, if it is awkward you're doing it wrong. If you had a fabulous meal at Elephant Jumps and someone were talking about good noodle dishes, you'd bring it up, right? Evangelism for church should work the same way. Saying something like "(My minister/this lady at my church/a religious education class I took) made the most fabulous point about that..." at a relevant point in a conversation about spirituality/life/etc is my favorite way to evangelize to friends. Don't make recruitment your goal. Make modeling how a person can be relgious without being a pain about it your goal. Don't go recruiting, but don't hide how much you like your church and how much it enriches your life.
You can invite people to church, of course, but I only do that when I'm pretty sure there's something the person I'm inviting would be specifically interested in and include a social thing with you afterwards. (E.g. "I know religion and homosexuality is something you're interested in. My church is doing a thing on that this Sunday. If you show up, I'll take you to brunch afterwards" or "Doing anything on Friday? I wrote a mystery story and I'm reading it at my church cabaret. Show up and we can go for dirnks afterwards.")
3. Get the word out in an even wider way. \
My first step in getting the word out about Elephant Jumps wasn't even verbal, though I told lots of people about it in the ensuing week or two and have done so in small doses since. My first shoutout about Elephant Jumps was on on Yelp. As I've mentioned here before, I found my first UU church, Katy-the-Wise's, from their website. My latest bit of online evangelism is to tweet about awesome stuff I hear about in church using a hashtag for my church.
The spiffy thing about this is, I have some friends who do things like that too. We've formed what feels to me like the beginnings of an online religious community as we just tweet stuff that is meaningful to us. I love this because honestly having church be somewhere I can "check in" whenever I'm low on spiritual fuel is more important to me than having it as a place to go Sunday morning.***
More importantly, it sends the message "You think I'm cool enough to follow on Twitter, well, here's something I think is cool enough to write about."
Anyway, that's my plan for evangelizing a church. It's what I'm comfortable with, and honestly, it's what I feel would work for me. If I were looking for a church, I'd check it out online**** and when my friend was jazzed about how great his/her church, was, I'd listen.
It's not going on on street corners, but I really do think it could work.
CC
*there were also discussions about stuff like the Middle East, with guys who would be in a position to know. I personally couldn't deal with that at a retreat because my perception is that I start smelling like a horse within minutes of arrival, but I'm delighted that we have these things. One of the badass things about going to a large church is that we've got members who do all sorts of cool stuff for a living. If my church could figure out a way to use its human capital more efficiently, we would be in great shape to actually do awesome things in this world.
**If you know Northern VA and want to get specific, you know that place "Grevey's" in Meriffield near INOVA Fairfax? Same shopping center.
*** I know you may not agree. I do see the value of brick and morter churches, I just find words and ideas churches as valuable if not more so personally.
****Negative reviews online aren't inherently all that offputting to me. That someone would have a bad experience is going to happen. But positive reviews mean a lot to me. I don't yelp about every restaurant, I yelp about the ones that make the experience memorable.
We do a lot of workshops there. I taught one on Bellydancing (which I'm a relative newbie at) and making weird stuff out of duct tape (which longtime Chalicesseurs will know I'm pretty good at.)
There was also a discussion group with a church committee, part of which became about
growing the church.*
As a group, we seemed collectively nervous about the idea of evangelism. And I get that, because I am too. I've lived in the South, where people coming up to you and inviting you to go to church is a common thing. At the same time, the discussion made me think about how I evangelize other things in my life that I like and appreciate.
Point of fact, sometime last year, my husband and I discovered a kickass Thai restaurant. If you're in the DC area, you probably want to know that this place is called "Elephant Jumps"** I learned about the place at my old job. The owner was my boss' brother-in-law. TheCSO and I first went just to give them some business, but we were blown away with how good it was. It was the best curry I'd ever had, and I love curry. It was cheap, it was delicious and they had some Thai-American fusion dishes so we could even take our friends who view Thai food as gastronomically adventurous. (The ChaliceDad is one of those people.)
It was, in short, everything we wanted in a Thai restaurant. As new restaurants have a something like 50 percent survival rate in a good economy, it was very important to us that this place survive. Like a church, a restaurant must essentially grow to survive, especially in the DC area where lots of people are always moving away.
I used this example, though with less detail, in the discussion at the retreat. I said that theCSO and I made a concerted effort to spread the word about Elephant Jumps. At the same time, we didn't, and at this point I turned to address the guy sitting next to me, an occaisional Chalicesseur (Hi Tom!), and said "We don't say 'I'd like to tell you about my journey of personal growth that has lead me to a really good restaurant."
Everyone laughed, and I did say it in a funny way, but my fundamental point about evangelism was serious. We get so scared of evangelizing, but we do it all the time.
The thing is, I don't know that the type of evangelism that we're afraid of is the kind of evangelism we should be doing in the first place. Elephant Jumps didn't have a "bring a friend" day and theCSO and I never talked to strangers about it directly. I didn't wear a button that, symbolically or literally, said "Ask me about Elephant JUmps."
The owner of Elephant Jumps told us proudly recently that he's thinking of opening up a larger or second location. And, again, they opened in a terrible economy.
Anyway, here are the elements of the model I'm proposing, let's call it the
"Elephant Jumps model of Evangelising."
1. A kickass product.
We have an amazing interim minister. I've always thought this, but I realized how deeply I believed it when someone on facebook was looking for a DC church to visit. I looked up what the service was about and I found myself responding "My minister is preaching about Canada. I know that doesn't SOUND promising, but every service she gives is good."
I've rarely felt comfortable saying that so confidently. Indeed, the last time I've had a minister who was consistently thoughtful and awesome in the pulpit every single Sunday was when I was in Katy-the-Wise's congregation.
Now, I don't kick ass at my job every single day, though goodness knows I try. I assume even our minister has off days, but even if she should have one, our music director is so tremendous that I still feel confident saying "Come to my church and Sunday morning will rock." I don't say that if it's a lay service because we've had some mediocre lay services in the past. Mine may or my not be among their number.
But anyway, our church manages to have consistently awesome preaching, much like Elephant Jumps does consistently amazing things with tilapia.
I couldn't have evangelized about Elephant Jumps if they didn't have amazing food in the first place.
2. Get the word out to your friends.
This should not be an awkward discussion. IMHO, if it is awkward you're doing it wrong. If you had a fabulous meal at Elephant Jumps and someone were talking about good noodle dishes, you'd bring it up, right? Evangelism for church should work the same way. Saying something like "(My minister/this lady at my church/a religious education class I took) made the most fabulous point about that..." at a relevant point in a conversation about spirituality/life/etc is my favorite way to evangelize to friends. Don't make recruitment your goal. Make modeling how a person can be relgious without being a pain about it your goal. Don't go recruiting, but don't hide how much you like your church and how much it enriches your life.
You can invite people to church, of course, but I only do that when I'm pretty sure there's something the person I'm inviting would be specifically interested in and include a social thing with you afterwards. (E.g. "I know religion and homosexuality is something you're interested in. My church is doing a thing on that this Sunday. If you show up, I'll take you to brunch afterwards" or "Doing anything on Friday? I wrote a mystery story and I'm reading it at my church cabaret. Show up and we can go for dirnks afterwards.")
3. Get the word out in an even wider way. \
My first step in getting the word out about Elephant Jumps wasn't even verbal, though I told lots of people about it in the ensuing week or two and have done so in small doses since. My first shoutout about Elephant Jumps was on on Yelp. As I've mentioned here before, I found my first UU church, Katy-the-Wise's, from their website. My latest bit of online evangelism is to tweet about awesome stuff I hear about in church using a hashtag for my church.
The spiffy thing about this is, I have some friends who do things like that too. We've formed what feels to me like the beginnings of an online religious community as we just tweet stuff that is meaningful to us. I love this because honestly having church be somewhere I can "check in" whenever I'm low on spiritual fuel is more important to me than having it as a place to go Sunday morning.***
More importantly, it sends the message "You think I'm cool enough to follow on Twitter, well, here's something I think is cool enough to write about."
Anyway, that's my plan for evangelizing a church. It's what I'm comfortable with, and honestly, it's what I feel would work for me. If I were looking for a church, I'd check it out online**** and when my friend was jazzed about how great his/her church, was, I'd listen.
It's not going on on street corners, but I really do think it could work.
CC
*there were also discussions about stuff like the Middle East, with guys who would be in a position to know. I personally couldn't deal with that at a retreat because my perception is that I start smelling like a horse within minutes of arrival, but I'm delighted that we have these things. One of the badass things about going to a large church is that we've got members who do all sorts of cool stuff for a living. If my church could figure out a way to use its human capital more efficiently, we would be in great shape to actually do awesome things in this world.
**If you know Northern VA and want to get specific, you know that place "Grevey's" in Meriffield near INOVA Fairfax? Same shopping center.
*** I know you may not agree. I do see the value of brick and morter churches, I just find words and ideas churches as valuable if not more so personally.
****Negative reviews online aren't inherently all that offputting to me. That someone would have a bad experience is going to happen. But positive reviews mean a lot to me. I don't yelp about every restaurant, I yelp about the ones that make the experience memorable.
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