Sunday, June 30, 2013

Surprise Second Quote of the Week


I felt I needed to emphasize a few more points.

_______________

"Instead [Reverend Jeremiah Wright's words] expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country - a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America.

This is the reality in which Reverend Wright and other African-Americans of his generation grew up. They came of age in the late fifties and early sixties, a time when segregation was still the law of the land and opportunity was systematically constricted.

For the men and women of Reverend Wright's generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years. That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends. But it does find voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table. At times, that anger is exploited by politicians, to gin up votes along racial lines, or to make up for a politician's own failings."

-Barack Obama, March 2008

Saturday, June 29, 2013

Saturday Video


Billy rapped all night 'bout his suicide
How he'd kick it in the head when he was 25
Don't wanna stay alive when you're 25

Wendy's stealing clothes from Marks and Sparks
Freddy's got spots from ripping off stars from his face
Funky little boat race

The television man is crazy
Saying we're juvenile delinquent wrecks
Man I need a TV when I've got T. Rex
Hey brother you guessed I'm a dude

All the young dudes
Carry the news
Boogaloo dudes
Carry the news

All the young dudes
Carry the news
Boogaloo dudes
Carry the news

Now Jimmy looking sweet though he dresses like a queen
He can kick like a mule
It's a real mean team
We can love
Oh we can love

And my brother's back at home
With his Beatles and his Stones
We never got if off on that revolution stuff
What a drag
Too many snags

Well I drunk a lot of wine
And I'm feeling fine
Gonna race some cat to bed

Is this concrete all around
Or is it in my head?
Oh brother you guessed I'm a dude

All the young dudes
Carry the news
Boogaloo dudes
Carry the news

All the young dudes
Carry the news
Boogaloo dudes
Carry the news

Friday, June 28, 2013

Quote of the Week (Early This Week)



A commentary about the Supreme Court's overturning of certain parts of the Voting Rights Act.

"The profound mistake of Reverend Wright's sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It's that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country — a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black; Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old — is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past."

-Barack Obama, March 2008

Thursday, June 27, 2013

I Found a Reason



I found a reason to keep living
Oh and the reason, dear, is you
I found a reason to keep singing
Oh and the reason, dear, is you

Oh I do believe
If you don't like things you leave
For some place you've never gone before

Honey, I found a reason to keep living
And you know the reason, dear it's you
And I've walked down life's lonely highways
Hand in hand with myself
And I realized how many paths have crossed between us

Oh I do believe
You're all what you perceive
What come is better that what came before

Oh I do believe
You're all what you perceive
What come is better that what came before

And you'd better come, come come, come to me
Come come, come to me

Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Forced Busing and Other Unpopular Court Orders



Yesterday's ruling struck down a portion of the Voting Rights Act, making progressives purple with rage. The Left has justified its opposition to the Supreme Court of the United State by a thousand minuscule arguments, few of which are very consequential. The 5-4 decision handed down by a deeply divided court has been and will be parsed in a multitude of separate ways. Few, to my reckoning, really have much to do with what has actually taken place.

I don't much like Justice Scalia and Thomas, either, but my distaste for their positions and political convictions has not led me down the road of sour indignation. Over the past twenty-four hours, I've listened to commentators and the so-called experts, who sometimes seem to see malicious intent and potential catastrophe around every corner. To some, one might think this ruling re-legalized racism by way of loophole and subterfuge. 

I have no further words to say about the legality or illegality of the recent high court action, but I would like to draw a parallel to another time. Forty years ago, one of the most unpopular programs ever enacted on behalf of the Civil Rights Movement was forced busing, or, as some called it, desegregation busing. Attempts to establish racial parity in public schools followed sweeping legislation instituted a few short years before which sought to give minorities the right to vote. Equality proceeded in the form of steps, one after another, but what we forget in our day is that not every attempt at racial equality succeeded.

With forced busing, certain white students across the entire country were, by court order, often required to be bused to schools of substandard quality. Many of these had once been primarily peopled exclusively by blacks. By contrast, black students were sent to more affluent schools whose student bodies had once been primarily comprised by whites. Though the intentions behind forced busing may have been worthwhile, the results were a disaster.

In a Gallup poll taken in the early 1970s, very low percentages of whites (4 percent) and blacks (9 percent) supported busing outside of local neighborhoods.

By 1972, Alabama Governor George Wallace, who was then in contention for the Democratic nomination for President, latched onto this issue. A decade before, Wallace had been seen as the figurehead for segregation, general resistance to integration, and state's rights. He now won supporters from all over the country.

These new devotees saw him in a very different light. Arguably, had Wallace not been paralyzed by assassin's bullets in the middle of the 1972 campaign, he might have stood a chance of going up against Republican incumbent Richard Nixon in the fall. Forced busing for a time allowed Wallace the ability to re-invent himself in the eyes of the nation.

Regardless of good intentions, forced busing was a heavy-handed measure that failed miserably. It was such a colossal problem from the outset that it is today conspicuously never mentioned beyond the footnotes of a history book. Yet, it must be understood to see yesterday's ruling in the proper context.

A study of forced busing insists that we as a society recognize that we must learn from our mistakes. Here, our mistakes were well-meaning, but no less incorrect. As a nation, we were surely not seeking to keep an unfair system in place, but we still fell short. Before we pause to pat ourselves on the back for past successes we have long since romanticized, we need to analyze the whole of the historical record.    

Due to patterns of residential segregation, a principal tool for racial integration was the use of busing. In the 1971 Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education ruling, the Supreme Court ruled that the federal courts had the discretion to include busing as a desegregation tool to achieve racial balance. While the Swann decision addressed de jure segregation in the South, it failed to address de facto segregation which persisted elsewhere in the country.

Forced busing had another surprising opponent, a Southern Democrat who would himself become President in a couple of years. 

In Georgia, Governor Jimmy Carter saw that Swann was, in his words, "clearly a one-sided decision; the Court is still talking about the South, the North is still going free." In the 1974 Milliken v. Bradley decision, the U.S. Supreme Court placed an important limitation on Swann when they ruled that students could be bused across district lines only when evidence of de jure segregation across multiple school districts existed.

The future Chief Executive's words continue to speak for millions of Southerners, especially today. As for other Americans who lived in different regions of the country, the legal fallout and the two-faced attitudes that perpetuated it were voiced by a folk singer, protest songwriter, and satirist. Phil Ochs addressed forced busing in his 1966 song "Love Me, I'm a Liberal."

The people of old Mississippi
Should all hang their heads in shame
I can't understand how their minds work
What's the matter don't they watch Les Crain?
But if you ask me to bus my children
I hope the cops take down your name
So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal

Desegregation busing opponents could be found all over the country. A particularly strong chapter existed in Boston, Massachusetts, where it was called Restore Our Alienated Rights. Springfield, Massachusetts, Kansas City, Missouri, Las Vegas, Nevada, Los Angeles, California, Pasadena, California, Prince George's County, Maryland, and Wilmington County, Delaware, were also hotbeds of resistance. Not a single one of these cities and counties are located within the boundaries of the South.

The hypocrisy of forced busing, even among staunch liberals, is, in part, why it failed.

During the 1970s, 60 Minutes reported that some members of Congress, government, and the press who supported busing most vociferously sent their own children to private schools, including Senator Edward Kennedy, George McGovern, Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, Phil Hart, Ben Bradlee, Senator Birch Bayh, Tom Wicker, Philip Geyelin, and Donald Fraser. Many of the judges who ordered busing also sent their children to private schools.

To this day, liberals talk about equality in public school as they enroll their children in private school. The real issue has little to do with what eventually ends up in litigation and the judicial system. The real concern present here poses whether or not we as a people really want to live, work, and exist next to each other. Do whites and blacks prefer to segregate themselves, or are we truly committed to doing the hard work of integration, which continues in a different form today? And if we aren't, then we shouldn't punish some parts of the country for doing as we say, not as we do.

Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Sunday, June 23, 2013

Quote of the Week


"For years it has been the fashion with historians to explain the white cracker of the South as simply the product of degenerate blood-strains from Europe--the progeny of the convict-servants and redemptioners of Old Virginia. But the theory defies logic and the known facts.

Actually, the source of the cracker is identical with that of at least 90% of all other Southern whites. He stems, mainly that is, straight from the common Scotch-Irish, English, and German stock which from about 1740 on was slowly filling up the huge Southern wilderness lying between the thin sliver of coastal civilization built on tobacco, rice, and indigo."- W.J. Cash, 1935

Saturday, June 22, 2013

Saturday Video



In olden days, a glimpse of stocking
Was looked on as something shocking.
But now, God knows,
Anything goes.

Good authors too who once knew better words
Now only use four-letter words
Writing prose.
Anything goes.

The world has gone mad today
And good's bad today,
And black's white today,
And day's night today,

When most guys today
That women prize today
Are just silly gigolos

And though I'm not a great romancer
I know that I'm bound to answer
When you propose,
Anything goes

In olden days a glimpse of stocking
Was looked on as something shocking,
But now, God knows,
Anything Goes.

Tuesday, June 18, 2013

In The Days Before Polyamory


You can't be mine
And someone else's too
Someday you'll find
I've been a friend to you

I don't believe that life's worth living
I gave you all there was worth giving
You never cared how I fared or what I do

I called you mine but I was not to blame
For all the time you played 
a two-handed game

Second hand love I can't see
It's good for some but not for me
You can't be mine
And somene else's too

Monday, June 17, 2013

Time to Take a Break

I return home to Alabama this week. Posting will be sporadic in my absence. Saturday Video and Sunday's Quote of the Week are easy enough to auto-post, meaning the blog will not go entirely silent. I may leave the laptop at home and go off the grid entirely. I haven't been home in almost two years and my mother is ailing. Both of my sisters live in the general area and have been checking in on her. Mom had to have an emergency appendectomy a couple weeks back and has not quite healed yet.

Part of my motivation is being the dutiful son and part of it is to get out of DC for several days. I love this city and consider it my adopted home, but I find that I do not let my occupation determine my entire self-esteem. Washington is a strange place, one with many overlapping groups of people, all busy doing something to save the world. I wish I were not as skeptical of their passionate beliefs, but I see them as often navel-gazing.

I would have departed for home much sooner in the year, but I kept waiting for Mom's chronic pain issues to resolve themselves with time. Unfortunately, they haven't. I suppose I'll have to address her from her sick bed, since standing upright for long periods of time is not something she can yet do.

My mother and father are both retiring in the next few months, renting out the house they have owned since 1993, and moving to the Alabama Gulf Coast. Like many retirees, they're seeking a new environment with a slower pace, a small community where life rocks along at a sleepy tempo. My father intends to sell commercial real estate and only semi-retire. I can't imagine him being happy with too much time on his hands. My mother's health is so precarious and uncertain that she may never be able to resume working.

My mind returns to my ultimate destination, that was, for all intents and purposes, my childhood home. I was 12 at the time the family moved into the area. That house retains many memories for me, some good, some painful. I could tell story after story. It is, for instance, the place I came of age and it was the place I've returned to, year in and year out, for Thanksgivings and Christmases. It was also the house where I waded into knee-deep snow one early morning during a freak blizzard.

I can't help being a little sentimental about the passage of time and the changes. I try not to be a sentimental person, but I see a new phase of my life on the horizon. Soon, I will fly into a different airport. Birmingham will be a memory. Mom and Dad will live in a new house and keep a new schedule. I'm not sure what that's going to look like quite yet. I doubt they do, either.

This may be the last time I return to Birmingham, or at least one of the last times. I have few, if any, friends still remaining in the city. Though I retain many memories, there won't be any reason for me to be there anymore. One sister will likely depart for the West Coast in a year's time and the other seems to be anchored a couple hours' drive north. All of this collectively represents a massive change in my life, and it will be even more of one for my folks.

Sunday, June 16, 2013

Quote of the Week



"He's a pinboy. He also wears suspenders. He's a real person. You know him, but not by that name... I saw him come into the room one night and he looked like a camel. He proceeded to put his eyes in his pocket.

I asked this guy who he was and he said, "That's Mr. Jones." Then I asked this cat, "Doesn't he do anything but put his eyes in his pocket?" And he told me, "He puts his nose on the ground." It's all there, it's a true story."

When the musician was asked about the meaning of the song "Ballad of a Thin Man" during a 1965 interview.- Bob Dylan

Saturday, June 15, 2013

Friday, June 14, 2013

Baby It's You



It's not the way you smile
that touched my heart
It's not the way you kiss
that tears my apart

Many many many nights go by
I sit alone at home and cry over you
What can I do, can't help myself
'Cause baby it's you, baby it's you

You should hear what they say about you (cheat, cheat)
They say, they say you never never ever been true (cheat, cheat)

Wo ho, it doesn't matter what they say
I know I'm gonna love you any old way

What can I do, then it's true
Don't want nobody, nobody
'Cause baby it's you, baby it's you 

Wo ho, it doesn't matter what they say
I know I'm gonna love you any old way
What can I do, then it's true

Don't want nobody, nobody
'Cause baby it's you
Baby it's you, don't leave me all alone
Come on home

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

If There Is a Next Time...

Enclosed here is a short story excerpt. Tentatively titled "If There Is a Next Time", what I share here is the first page or so.
____________

My family was three hours away by car, but I was convinced I was going to do it my way this time. Their aid and assistance always came with strings attached. They weren't going to be especially understanding of my choice of partner, a decision I kept away from them deliberately. Inside, I was terrified, seeking support wherever I could manage from whomever I could locate. This included bank tellers, fellow musicians, and members of a support group.

The group of friends and acquaintances I'd been slowly forming over the past year were now keeping their distance. They didn't want to be seen as favoring him over me. He had more clout than me within the church. The minister incorporated his pithy saying and e-mailed slogans into sermons. He'd given lots of money. When the two of us parted ways, I was said to be little more than a gigolo. For him, it was a way to remove the egg on his face.

The one person who kept in touch with me eventually made her own exit. After a month or two of daily chats and weekend hangouts, she'd begun to develop strong feelings for me. Regrettably, this made her unable to continue our friendship, or at least that's what an unexpected three page long e-mail reported. This is why she rarely made friends with men, she said. I struggled to understand. Having the opportunity and ability to feel desire for another person was a good thing, at least that's what I thought.

I felt abandoned, but at least she'd had the courtesy to explain her reasons. She was among the few. Even God seemed to have abandoned me, or at least the God I'd understood for most of my life. Grabbing hold of any life raft I could find, I'd decided to try an obscure incarnation of Buddhism. Maybe I'd become sage and serene eventually, in possession of the kind of inner peace that my overworked, overstimulated mind rarely ever reached.

I couldn't remember the last time I'd felt anything remotely close to true peace of mind.

Entering the room, I took a seat halfway back, towards the left. I sat in a medium-sized room with twenty or twenty-five other people loudly chanting in an Asian language I did not understand. I gathered that the intention was to eventually memorize each character, each sound, entirely by rote. Asiatic languages have always been remote to me. I fundamentally reject every aspect, every ornate brushstroke. My mind slams shut in protest.

A sympathetic Buddhist picked me up for worship weekly, seeking to explain the greater purpose of the practice. He'd once been on the skids himself, and the religion had saved his life. Or at least that was his story. I never really understood what one was supposed to experience. I felt nothing Divine about the practice. Instead, it felt like learning a foreign language. What about the repetition of incoherent sounds and nasal inflections rendered it holy or profound?

The man who had become my mentor opened a small booklet. It had a crimson cover and gold embossed letters on the front and back. I thought at first it must be Mao's little red book. The characters were sometimes rouge in color, sometimes inky black, and at times both shades commingled with each other. The crimson-colored lettering reminded me a little of the way that, in some Bibles, the words of Jesus are printed in red.

His finger followed each sound and letter across the page. Everyone chanted in unison. I feared I'd never memorize anything. After nearly an hour, a musical instrument somewhere between a gong and a singing bowl signified that worship had concluded for today. I'd felt like an overseas tourist listening to a thousand mundane personal conversations in a different tongue, without understanding even a single word.

The person who had directed me here felt pity. She kept her physical distance during the ceremony because I was one of her regular clients. I was complicit in keeping her profession a secret and understood why I needed to respect discretion. When my money ran out, sometimes I cleaned her dark, gloomy apartment from top to bottom. She was a stern taskmaster, demanding extra work and complaining constantly of places I hadn't yet scoured from top to bottom.

Instinct told me to part company as quickly as I could. I tried to be empathetic, but her behavior usually wasn't respectful or especially kind. Granted, she'd had a difficult life and had been beaten up multiple times. The boundaries she threw up to protect herself were built like a fortress, stacked high. I detected in her a kind of selfishness that went beyond caution, though I ignored it. I had no one else left in my life.

Tuesday, June 11, 2013

From the Vaults



You can shine your shoes and wear a suit
You can comb your hair and look a quite cute
You can hide your face behind a smile

One thing you can't hide
Is when you're crippled inside

You can wear a mask and paint your face
You can call yourself the human race
You can wear a collar and a tie
One thing you can't hide
Is when you're crippled inside

Well now you know
That your cat has nine lives, babe
Nine lives to itself

You only got one
And a dog's life ain't fun
Mamma take a look outside

You can go to church and sing a hymn
Judge me by the colour of my skin
You can live a lie until you die
One thing you can't hide
Is when you're crippled inside

Well now you know
That your cat has nine lives, babe
Nine lives to itself

But you only got one
And a dog's life ain't fun
Mamma take a look outside

You can go to church and sing a hymn
Judge me by the color of my skin

You can live a lie until you die
One thing you can't hide
Is when you're crippled inside

One thing you can't hide
Is when you're crippled inside

One thing you can't hide
Is when you're crippled inside

Monday, June 10, 2013

The Elusive Pursuit of Gender Parity



Two separate, long-standing arguments usually make feminists angry to the point that steam shoots out of their ears. These are casual observations based on incorrect information. I feel the same way myself when people ask me whether or not I can wear zippers (I'm not Amish). When someone states that members of my religious group died out decades ago, I'm often a little offended. Similarly, the public may think that feminism died out with Gloria Steinem and Betty Freidan. I may not be responsible for the ignorance of others, but I can do more to ensure that others know who I am and what I believe.

I return to the arguments with which I began this piece. One of them asserts, in all earnestness, that equality for women has already been achieved. No further effort is needed. The battle has been won. If only this were so. Nothing could be further from the truth, though it is worth noting that gender equality is now further along than it once was. We cannot rest here on our laurels, because there is too much unfinished business ahead of us.

The second argument warns young women to not wait too late to have children or a family. It states that basic biology and gender essentialism cannot be escaped. Women are women, after all, despite the conventional wisdom. A life of dull, hollow nothingness is the reward for women who do not partner up and start procreating. Professional women who place too much emphasis on their career will eventually find themselves fifty years old, single, alone, and living with cats.

Gender parity has not yet been reached. If it had, articles like these would not be written and published frequently. We are thankful, certainly, for the strides of our mothers and grandmothers. Even so, women still make less than men do in many professions and earn less as a percentage of wage earners.

Men have, over time, in a million ways, sought to concentrate their power and influence to ensure that women are not valued as they should be. This is a conversation we probably need to be having, but it has proven easy to brush aside. Regardless of the message and how it is stated, the concept never gains much traction with the public. For many, these are women's issues, merely a niche discourse for those with a personal, even academic interest.

Every year I read story after story by writers who would swear on a stack of Bibles that their views are correct and unerring. Like clockwork, someone dusts off an old trope that is not quite an admonition, yet not quite an impending hissy fit, albeit with a new back swing. Their intention, as writers and also as certified experts, might only be to see the response produced; they might view it as a measuring stick for how far we've progressed, or not progressed as an American society.

Or, they might chock their their column full of lofty, soaring rhetoric, disguising its real purpose. That is to say, the real message they share is a semi-smug treatise about wisdom and life lessons yet to be learned, questioning the maturity of a younger set.

We don't always talk about the gender dynamics within our country as they affect each part of our societal framework: industries, career fields, social groups, and houses of worship. Three years ago, I worked an internship with a small PAC allied with the Democratic Party. The Executive Director, as well as her assistant, were both women. They were intelligent and capable workers and I didn't mind putting out a solid effort alongside them.

Nor did I mind that they sought to bring in more workers and more allies who were women. I did my job and provided the research and political data they asked for, and both of my bosses made a point to let me know how much they appreciated my work. I've always had an appreciation for praise, especially so to reward a job well done.

While I was working there, I overheard numerous conversations, some I probably shouldn't have. Still, space was an issue, as we were thrown together in small office and sometimes doors were not closed firmly. The Executive Director spoke once, quite flustered, about the perils of interacting with the union leaders who formed a large part of our coalition of donors.

She'd learned not to be too nice during phone calls, because that might be mistaken as flirtation on the other end. I can still hear her openly questioning precisely how to properly phrase e-mails in ways that could not be misconstrued as anything beyond complete business.

There were other spaces in my life where women comprised the majority. Schools, I have found, are still predominately run by women, though the minority of men employed there tend to gravitate towards administration. The first few years of my life were spent nearly exclusively in the company of women. They were teachers, custodians, assistants, and administrators.

I never even had a male teacher until I was in middle school, and even then having men who taught school was unusual. The only men I ever saw on any frequent basis for much of my childhood were usually P.E. teachers or coaches, but then that was expected.

My Quaker Meeting (many Friends use the word "Meeting" rather than "Church") is predominately female. The committee I clerk contains twice as many women than men. The major decisions decided upon in each leadership group, and often the Meeting as a whole, are usually made by women. This has been true for decades.

The last two people who held the leadership role prior to the one I currently inhabit were women. When I work to finalize and finish Meeting business, most people I speak to are women. None of this bothers me.

Having said that, I often wonder if it is fair to use these circumstances and personal experiences as proof of a greater end. I wonder if these situations speak to the feasibility of placing more women in positions of authority. I would like to say that, from what I've observed, there is no reason to fear complete parity between men and women.

My generational attitude is very different from what came before me. I'm not sure if the overriding fear of those impeding change is that of a pathological need for control, a fear of change, or a zero-sum game attitude. It might be a little of all three.

Late Posting

I have several appointments with doctors this week, so posting may be later in the day than normal. Thanks for your patience!

Sunday, June 09, 2013

Quote of the Week


"There is no righteousness in your darkest moment. We’re all equal in the face of what we’re most afraid of."- Sleater-Kinney, "Sympathy".

Saturday, June 08, 2013

Saturday Video



You should be stronger than me
You've been here seven years longer than me
Don't you know you supposed to be the man?
Not pale in comparison to who you think I am

You always want to talk it through, I don't care
I always have to comfort you when I'm there
But that's what I need you to do, stroke my hair
'Cause I've forgotten all of young love's joy
Feel like a lady, and you my lady boy

You should be stronger than me
But instead you're longer than frozen turkey
Why'd you always put me in control
All I need is for my man to live up to his role

You always want to talk it through, I'm okay
I always have to comfort you every day
But that's what I need you to do, are you gay?
'Cause I've forgotten all of young love's joy
Feel like a lady, and you my lady boy

He said "the respect I made you earn
Thought you had so many lessons to learn"
I said "You don't know what love is get a grip
Sound as if you're reading from some other tired script"

I'm not gonna meet your mother anytime
I just want to grip your body over mine
Please tell me why you think that's a crime
I've forgotten all of young love's joy
Feel like a lady, and you my lady boy

You should be stronger than me

Friday, June 07, 2013

This Magic Moment


This magic moment
So different and so new
Was like any other
Until I kissed you

And then it happened
It took me by surprise
I knew that you felt it too
By the look in your eyes

Sweeter than wine
Softer than a summer night
Everything I wanna have
Whenever I hold you tight

This magic moment
While your lips are close to mine
Will last forever
Forever till the end of time

Whoa-oh-oh-oh-oh
Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh

Oh-oh-oh-oh

Sweeter than wine
Softer than a summer night
Everything I wanna have
Whenever I hold you tight

This magic moment
While your lips are close to mine
Will last forever
Forever till the end of time

Whoa-oh-oh-oh-oh
Whoa-oh-oh-oh-oh
Oh-oh-oh-oh

Oh-oh-oh-oh
Oh-oh-oh-oh
Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh
Oh-oh-oh-oh

Magic, oh-oh-oh
Magic, oh-oh-oh
Magic, oh-oh-oh

Thursday, June 06, 2013

A Greater Reflection on Eldering


Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently. But watch yourselves, or you also may be tempted. Share each other's burdens, and in this way obey the law of Christ.- Galatians 6:1-2
My last two posts about Eldering got me into no small amount of trouble with my committee. This account is not intended to speak in anger or in retribution, but to discuss my feelings in greater detail. I have written about this topic specifically to fill a void in discourse. Like far too much Quaker theology, Eldering is often discussed in a vacuum, only in intellectual, hypothetical terms. It is rarely expressed as events unfold in real life. It is for this reason that I opened a discussion about this concept that did not resort to abstraction.

I regret that a heated disagreement broke out in meeting. Order was quickly restored, but for a few intense minutes, something close to shouting and yelling took place. In retrospect, I believe that the emotional display I saw was a result of the committee not addressing very difficult subjects until, strained to the breaking point, tempers flared. As Quakers, we have been known to suppress our true feelings until conflict arises. I am not entirely sure what others saw as objectionable in my words, though I have tried to take their perspective into account.

I regret that a heated disagreement broke out in meeting. Order was quickly restored, but for a few intense minutes, something close to shouting and yelling took place. In retrospect, I believe that the emotional display I saw was a result of the committee not addressing very difficult subjects until, strained to the breaking point, tempers flared. As Quakers, we have been known to suppress our true feelings until conflict arises. I am not entirely sure what others saw as objectionable in my words, though I have tried to take their perspective into account.
Conflict itself is not unhealthy. Every Monthly Meeting struggles with it themselves from time to time. In fact, I would say that not having conflict is unhealthy, not the other way around, as we sometimes think. In the same way, relationship partners who do not fight from time to time show much greater problems well beyond the unwillingness to be confrontational.

Thus ends the play-by-play. I have little desire to begin pointing fingers or laying blame. I'm more interested in going deeper with my analysis. When people are angry, it is easy for them to wrongly characterize the remarks of others. In so doing, one focuses only on the objectionable language, taking the intended message entirely out of context.

I wrote honestly, but I also tried to balance my criticisms. I used statements that let readers know that I was aware of the complexities and dynamics of human relationships within larger groups of people. You can be the judge of that, should you wish to read (or have read already) what I earlier posted.

The issue I would strive to put aside first and foremost is the idea that Eldering can only be used as the final straw for some grievous injury. Eldering, in my mind, is mostly about gentle guidance and loving correction. Only in rare occasions should it be used to mete out discipline.

I'm not eager to Elder anyone again when it comes down to vocal ministry. I expected and wanted to extend the possibility for greater conversation, but the Friend I Eldered broke communication with me mid-sentence. In so doing, he denied us further opportunities to iron out the creases. Now, he has ceased to attend Meeting for Worship altogether, at least for a while. I am sad that he has chosen this path, but if our ways crossed once again, I'd want him to know I never intended our face-to-face talk to proceed this way.

In my own recent past, I posted a couple times to an LGBT Quaker listserve. I put up something serious and weighty, and was taken aback by how strongly my words were rejected and judged. A friend of mine took the time to explain to me that the listserve was designed to be light and conversational, not heavy.

Her dialogue with me was a very different example of Eldering, one I wish each of us would contemplate using more often. The practice doesn't have to be conducted like an outbreak of hostilities between two warring parties. People who have been Eldered often fear that they must have done something truly terrible for the Meeting to need to resort to it. When we do not take the time to correct minor concerns, we end up having to come forward with guns blazing later, when matters have grown far worse.

If we took care of the little things, the big things would be far less daunting. A healthy community practices nurturing, makes others feel welcome and included, and offers wisdom and guidance. Eldering is not an admonishment for wrongdoing. But without a stable history of tough love and frequent communication, it is easy to perceive of the practice as some sort of nuclear option. When we express dissatisfaction with Eldering, we're really speaking about a lack of community and committee transparency.

Tuesday, June 04, 2013

Runaround Sue



Here's my story, it's sad but true
It's about a girl that I once knew
She took my love then ran around
With every single guy in town

Yeah, I should have known it from the very start
This girl will leave me with a broken heart
Now listen people what I'm telling you
A keep away from a Runaround Sue

I might miss her lips and the smile on her face
The touch of her hair and this girl's warm embrace
So if you don't want to cry like I do
A keep away from-a Runaround Sue

Ah, she likes to travel around
She'll love you and she'll put you down
Now people let me put you wise
She goes out with other guys

Here's the moral and the story from the guy who knows
I fell in love and my love still grows
Ask any fool that she ever knew, they'll say
Keep away from-a Runaround Sue

Yeah keep away from this girl
I don't know what she'll doe
Keep away from Sue

She likes to travel around
She'll love you and she'll put you down
Now people let me put you wise
She goes out with other guys

Here's the moral and the story from the guy who knows
I fell in love and my love still grows
Ask any fool that she ever knew, they'll say
Keep away from a Runaround Sue

Stay away from that girl
Don't you know what she'll do now

Monday, June 03, 2013

The Hickey Story



My first sexual experiences in my late teens and early twenties with men were conducted with the secrecy and planning of a top secret military operation. I made sure that I protected my anonymity, even though others knew my preferences and my type before I even put one foot in the door. I learned that one of the unwritten rules of a gay club, bar, or private establishment is that secrecy will be respected. If you don't talk, I won't either.

The medium-sized city where I grew up was far too small for sexual exploration. I would have been swimming in a very small pond, no doubt soon to have accrued a history and a legacy that spanned the whole metropolitan area. I did not want to date others who had, at most, two degrees of separation from past relationship partners. I was not yet comfortable being known in that way.

This is why I drove to Atlanta, two and a half hours away. The boring car trip was over soon enough. Meanwhile, I'd already made my inquiries. I knew where to go and where to avoid going. I met men in person, usually complete strangers, and also I met partners online. I began to learn the area well and to recognize what sorts of men found me attractive.

This is the same work other queer men were hard at work establishing for themselves. Had I been less anxious and fearful, I might have looked around and noticed others hard at work in their own struggles for identity. After a while, I knew who would find my masculine presentation appealing, and who would keep their distance. Those lessons were difficult at times.

I took a chance on a man who had located me online. I don't remember how our paths crossed; I've forgotten most of the details entirely over the years. He'd taken a look at the picture of myself I'd e-mailed him. After a few minutes of contemplation, he replied back to me that he loved tough guys. The funny thing is that I've never considered myself a tough guy, either by personality or intent.

There had been instances where I pursued men who were smaller of stature than me, but often they were completely terrified. I'd try to be playful and flirtatious, but they'd take leave of my company as fast as possible. Some literally ran away from me, already fifteen paces across the room before I even knew what had happened. I never understood their rationale and their terror in my company, but had to accept it.

The guy turned out to be into rough play. Before long, I found myself accruing carpet burns as the two of us slid aggressively from corner to corner of the bedroom. I was too overwhelmed by everything that was going on to recognize why he was focusing particular attention on kissing my neck. If it happened now, I'd know to tell him that I didn't like hickeys and insist that he stop immediately.

I returned home, not recognizing how incriminating the hickey would be. My mother saw it and asked me about its existence, assuming a woman had been the culprit. I dodged the issue as best I could. My alibi was that I couldn't remember the identity of the person who'd given it to me because I'd been far too drunk. Mom bought it, but my little sister wasn't fooled.

Downstairs on my computer desk, I'd left a letter someone had written me. The writer was a pen pal/e-mail pal from New Zealand. She'd asked me in the letter if I was still sleeping with both men and women. She enjoyed attention from men, but considered me her favorite correspondent. A couple times she called me at 3 am, forgetting the massive time change, and waking up my grumpy parents in the process.

With my friends, I was entirely honest about my bisexuality, in a way that I was not with almost everyone else. The motivation of her inquiry was likely because, even with the thousands of miles that separated us, she felt romantic feelings towards me. She even felt slightly threatened by it, even though we both knew that it wasn't likely we'd ever meet in person.

She wrote her letters large and always in black ink. It would be difficult not to read every word from a single glance. Even with illness and dysfunction, my sisters have always seen me as the head of the family. I think the sister who read my private correspondence was doing so out of a curiosity to know more about me.

Fortunately, she was supportive of my sexual orientation, though I felt that my personal life had been broached a bit. I suppose siblings have been known to read each others' diaries. I always spoke about very adult, very emotionally loaded issues in my written correspondence. I never have shied away from difficult, even contentious topics. I don't hold much back.

I was in the middle of the process of coming out. It took a few more years to make lasting progress, though I concede I haven't reached the final stage yet. At first, I enjoyed playing peekaboo with the closet, compartmentalizing behavior that could always be denied later. If I received a hickey today from another man, I'd probably be honest about who gave it to me.

Sunday, June 02, 2013

Quotes of the Week



"All of our problems are the result of overbreeding among the working class, and if morality is to mean anything at all to us, we must regard all the changes which tend toward the uplift and survival of the human race as moral."-

"In my personal experience as a trained nurse while attending persons afflicted with various and often revolting diseases, no matter what their ailments, I never found any one so repulsive as the chronic masturbator. It would not be difficult to fill page upon page of heart-rending confessions made by young girls, whose lives were blighted by this pernicious habit, always begun so innocently."-Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood

Saturday, June 01, 2013

Saturday Video

And how!



If you wanna mess around, 
just stay away from my door
I've got a leak in my bucket and
a great big hole in my floor
But if you wanna stay around and love me
You know it's all right with me

I've got no money, can't afford no big black car
My bank account won't see me very far
But if you wanna stay around and love me
You know it's all right with me

I'm sick and tired of bein' on my own
But you know, I'll take nobody 
who's gonna leave me tired and alone

So you see, I can only offer a man that's poor
With frost and that and trouble at my door
But if you wanna stay around and love me
You know it's all right with me