Now I Know in Part; Then I Shall Know Fully

I posted this to Feministing's Community section, but I always manage to end up with at least three minor spelling errors or grammatical missteps I never catch before posting, so here's the better version. I've also modified it a bit for an audience unfamiliar with Feminist spaces.

This post was not published on that site, perhaps because of how easily it could be misinterpreted. No matter. I managed to reach many people with these words through other conduits.

The Author.

____________________

Two specific stories from two specific people have broadened my understanding in the past few days. As a bit of prelude, I recognize that I was socialized as a male, so I know that it is from that reference point that I form all my judgments and observations. In particular, two very intense experiences I've had recently brought quite a bit into focus for me. I'm always very glad for desired insight and always hope to receive more of it.

With my first anecdote, I'm going to be a good bit vague regarding specific details for the sake of my friend's privacy. To begin, I suppose one never understands sexual assault completely until it happens to them personally or when it happens to someone one knows well. When any tragedy moves from the abstract to the real, real learning commences. And on that note, here is just what I mean.

A friend, clearly in a place of pain, recounted to me something that had happened to her the prior week before at a conference. While there, she told me that she had been fondled against her will by a fellow attender. To add insult to injury, after the incident, the man in question then proceeded to shadow her movements and in so doing make it known to her that he fully intended to stay within her eyesight at all times.

This behavior constituted stalking and of course it totally freaked her out. From then on she made a point to place herself directly in the middle of large groups of people for protection's sake and to never go anywhere by herself. I'm glad she had enough foresight to protect herself in this way, though of course I would have rather none of this happened at all. Her copious tears and fear showed plainly on her face as she talked and I could tell just how upset all this had made her. After she finished speaking and I began to process what I had just been told, I think it was at that exact moment that I developed a deeper understanding I never would have managed prior to then.

I've mentioned a few times in other spaces my own childhood experiences with sexual assault and the damage done, so I note it here only to provide a bit of context. Still, I think it's a bit different when it happens in adulthood and particularly when it happens to a man, rather than a woman. This is confirmed when, in my online Feminist activism, a woman puts up a post or starts a thread regarding the subject of rape or sexual assault, especially when it arrives in the form of personal anecdote. So many people relate deeply and personally to that which has been said on the matter and we can talk of nothing else for a long while afterward.

I've always found it interesting to observe how one post inspires others and leads others to write their own post. It's also fascinating to contemplate the ways in which one particular piece on any topic, regardless of what it may be, will give readers an opening to speak about something very important to them. Sometimes written replies to previous posts revolve around one sentence out of fifty in the piece that has moved them in some way, shape, or fashion. Sometimes they are a drafted response to one whole post in totality. Sometimes one word alone is dynamic enough to be a conduit for someone's further exploration. But what cannot be denied is that all our stories do have a common thread.

I observe this same phenomenon in unprogrammed worship. Sometimes one can tell how one message leads to another, though not always. My interest in how it all fits together isn't purely just an intellectual pursuit. Sometimes meetings turn out to be very gathered and very logical. Sometimes they are asymmetric and perplexing, but I still look for the Light within each person's contribution. To me, that's part of spiritual discipline and part of knocking on the door, knowing that by the end, the door will be opened and I will find that which I have been seeking.

Next, the second anecdote. A fellow Quaker sat across the room from me during a worship group. We had yet to begin and were simply having pleasant conversation with each other before getting started. She told a story about a man in her own meeting, who, at some point during service, had attempted to kiss the woman sitting next to him. The assumption was that the two of them were strangers, or at least that they didn't know each other very well, though I don't know the details well enough to be any authority on the matter.

Whether the kiss was meant in a spirit of purely platonic fellowship or overt sexual desire was unclear, but in any case, the woman had not wanted it. In response to her actions, the man proceeded to rise to speak and in so doing chastised the woman for her behavior. Shaming other Friends in meeting is not acceptable, but in addition to that, it nearly went without saying that his message was clearly not Spirit-led and was meant only for he himself. This resulted, as you might anticipate, in a very heated, intense situation as meeting concluded. It was thus necessary to set firm parameters, boundaries, and consequences for the man if he ever acted the same way again during worship.

The fellow Friend telling the story put herself in a pastoral care role as she talked to him, walking a delicate tightrope she sought to base purely in love while at the same time knowing she needed to be constantly vigilant to not let her temper lead her towards directions that would only have exacerbated the situation further. Was it fair that she had to do this? Certainly not, but that's unfortunately part of living in a world that is unequal and unjust. I myself have learned over the years that word selection and tone are as important, if not more so, than intent alone. How we say it often supersedes what we say.

As she finished the story, she noted, with some bitterness, that even when she was absolutely furious, people often thought that she looked cute. As a result, they had a hard time taking her seriously. I recall that this was one of my mother's pet peeves, as well. Without knowing better, years and years ago, I fought back against my latest disciplinary tongue-lashing by telling Mom that, You look cute when you get angry. I was all of nine or ten at the time. I must have picked it up from somewhere and assumed only that it was a kind of clever smart-assed retort, but the ferocity of my Mother's anger at that statement really surprised me. Later, of course, I understood why it had set her off so much. This idea of being consistently belittled and infantilized by men in ways few men would treat another man took a while for me to fully understand and take into account.

The boundaries that prevent women from reaching their own freedom are often the very same ones that keep men from understanding how to be good allies. This deeply complicates how they ought to aid them in that struggle. Additionally, I have come to understand how women are told to be people-pleasers first and foremost and in so doing warned to not rock the boat for any reason. This is something else the Friend spoke about, and though I do not doubt what she said, I have to say that this particular cultural expectation runs contrary with how I was brought up.

I myself came from a family of people with flashpoint tempers, regardless of sex. Anger is something I'm used to, in other words, and in my family, it was something of a simultaneous means of attack and a means of defense. Though I try to keep my own temper under wraps, if I'm upset enough for long enough, what comes out of me is so intense as to be frightening. This is why I try as best I can to not lose my cool. I certainly have listened to close female friends, partners, and lovers talk about the societal pressure to be calm and deferential at all cost and I acknowledge that those experiences were very real for them.

That, however, was not my experience growing up. My mother was never exactly the sort of person to restrain her passions. I can still remember some of the decibel-splitting lectures I received as a boy which could have peeled the paint off of walls. Both of my sisters have angry streaks as well, and this has regrettably led to more than a few verbal fights among us I'd rather not contemplate. We might have repressed certain things about ourselves, but conflict was not one of them.

I used to be very angry myself and I have only recently set it aside. Because of my own struggles and because of the nature of how I grew up, I don't usually feel threatened by people whose default setting is anger. Instead, I feel sorrow and compassion for them. Anger stems from a sense of brokenness and I wish for it to be healed and put aside. My own father's anger didn't really subside until recently when he began to have major health problems. My grandfather, my mother's father, was someone who was also very fiery and explosive. He did not let go of his quick temper until the cancer that would eventually take his life took with it his strength and will to keep struggling.

His behavior, those ghastly last months, was thoroughly out of character. My mother mentions how distressing it was to see someone who was a ball of energy become lethargic and non-committal. And it's probably not surprising that I've been attracted to people who do possess anger to some degree or another, though I have also discovered that these sorts of desires are unhealthy. We all have fatal attractions and mine is to anger, whether within myself or another person.

And, to conclude, we know the world we live in has significant problems and so we speak out against them. I'm glad we do. It's easy for me to feel outraged. That outrage is often effective in getting myself fired up and ready to go. But when I can make a personal connection to a situation based on someone I know in real life, I see a more complete picture. I see the ironies. I see the humanity. I see the tragedy. I see the human frailties we all possess to some degree. And when that happens, the nature of my anger changes. Feeling love for someone who has wronged you does not mean accepting one's fate or condoning what has happened. But it does mean that we take into account something beyond just our own individual response and try to entertain someone else's thought process, too.

Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

It's All Here, Today is the Only Day

Positive Depictions of Transgender Characters in Film: Roberta Muldoon

I found this quite by accident while doing a YouTube search. It is really interesting.

Priceless

Revelation

This a reflection upon

all of the things
I was told
over-protectively
at ages

one should not be
distilled
like grain proof alcohol.

strong, painful at first.
but eventually

You’ll develop a tolerance

Invasion of Privacy: Sexual Orientation Edition

Today I scheduled an appointment with a GP for my yearly checkup. I'm not physically sick or injured at the moment, but I figured it would be worthwhile setting up an appointment anyway. While on Medicaid here in the District, an insured person is required to establish a particular primary case physician. This PCP is based at a specific location and is, of course, the person one sees in the event of a serious illness. I had meant to do this long before now and finally got around to it.

While on the phone with the scheduler I was asked a series of very rudimentary questions, as is typical. However, I have to say I was a bit blindsided by one of them, which I never would have expected in any context, for any reason. Do you identify as heterosexual, homosexual, or bisexual?

At first I thought the person on the line surely was joking, but he was quite serious. Of course I responded truthfully, but the request seemed more than a bit invasive. Don't get me wrong. I wish we could all be completely honest with ourselves, but providing what has been a very damning bit of my identity to a complete stranger for the sake of statistical analysis seems a bit forward. While part of me was relieved to note that bisexuality was being taken seriously---in that it was actually listed as a available answer choice, another part of me felt it severely inappropriate to even be asked such a thing.

At what point does our sexual orientation need to be anyone's public domain? Like many people, I've certainly often wondered what a truly accurate count of LGBTs would look like if fear and stigma were not an complicating factor. I myself have tried over time to give people the freedom and courage to come out. Still, I don't think I personally would ever feel comfortable confronting someone with such a bold request, especially a total stranger, in effect putting them on the spot. I've never been asked to state my sexual orientation before for any reason, and I can't help but think that those with a higher standard and quality of care are never asked such things.

The clinic that was closest to my home was one of the few sites in the District to take Medicaid patients. I'm sure that those with private plans likely don't have to take what they can get as I do. And I'm also sure if I dug deep enough into the matter or did my research I could find out the reasons why low-income residents are solicited for their sexual orientation. I do, however, worry that the information collected could be used in improper ways. Even in this day and age, they could be used for purposes of blackmail, regardless of how many times one is assured that the data collected is confidential.

The District has an unusually high number of residents who are HIV+ and live below the poverty line so perhaps this rather unorthodox request was put in place to best assist those who wish to prevent its spread. Yet, we seem to have no issue taking liberties that may compromise basic rights of privacy for those who don't have the same material and intellectual advantages that we do.

This country has a history of treating those at the bottom like guinea pigs. The most prominent example I can think of is the Tuskegee syphilis experiment, but the sheer magnitude of unethical human experimentation in this country alone is absolutely staggering. I am not implying that the information collected from me was taken in a spirit of medical sadism, but rather to note that it is often exceptionally easy to disregard freedom of choice in a rush to solve a problem. Manipulation of this sort is a slippery slope and while most practitioners stay within an ethical grey area, there are always a few here and there who take liberties.

As for me, I would have preferred to have been told upfront, before a single question had been asked, that I would be solicited for my sexual orientation. It's not so much the question itself I object to as the way it was presented and the lack of adequate methodology. I was not told how my answer would be recorded, what it was to be used for, that I was under no obligation to answer the question, and how my privacy was to be protected. In situations like these, careless record keeping easily ends up with personal information being compromised. We've all read about what happens when potentially sensitive personal data ends up being tossed into dumpsters without being shredded, or how easy it is for hackers to compromise even protected computer systems. Though it may be impossible to have a truly impenetrable system of defense, organizations and entities can still take safeguards to limit potential breaches.

Bouncy

Here is a short vignette I wrote several years back, when I was apparently very much in my Rick Moody obsession phase. Notice the copious use of italicized text and the flaunting of conventional grammatical rules.

sound over of conversation

lips smacking against cigarette filters. giggles. rustling of plastic bags full of pills. childish needless flinty flicks of lighters. all culminating in squeals of girls who saunter up to the bathroom with their lovers to dose, to swallow the necessary amount of water in the cheap plastic cups and upon doing so collapse onto sofas together in a heap of hair and rumpled clothing.

then fade in on where I’m sitting alone.

she has witch tits emily and jessica say. they’ve been inseparable for as long as I’ve been a part of this group of friends. two years or more. I say what do you mean by that? they say well they’re all pointy and you know like cone shaped and I say ewwww gross

the lead girl the one who has been in charge of distributing the beans and will later implore me to rub her head once the drugs kick in is named Maggie. the woman in question is a short order cook at the local bar and grille and wears jeans that smell of the residue of the trade hot grease warm toast fried anything. so Maggie is saying that I’m glad we’re all together tonight at my place and make yourself at home. though I really don’t know anyone don’t even really know why I’m even here tonight just that I didn’t have much else to do on a Friday night.

I’m self conscious about most things about myself including the black hair around my nipples and my arms and my knuckles that I used to shave away out of shame and now just let grow to spite my mother when she visits. when I was in high school she’d often say I don’t know why anyone so pretty would ever leave the house looking so ugly. not that I was ever the epitome of beautiful even when I tried to be fluffy and dainty. I’m rough as a board and as plain as one but I was never content to completely bull-dyke out and buzz my head and wear some hideously lopsided visor.

camera pulls out centering on the black light meant to accentuate the drug being taken. the lights dimmed now. nearly ten o’clock in the evening. the stale stench of charred tobacco wafting in now and then as it is a perfectly still night with no wind.

camera pulls overhead to me sitting alone solitary on the couch

I dosed nearly an hour ago and I can’t say I know exactly what these pills contain other than I manage to catch the strains of other peoples’ conversations as though they were my own thoughts. for instance the pair next to me is currently vying for the title of world’s most annoying couple. loud and all over each other and cooing to each other about promises made of ultimate fidelity you remember hun that when we get older we’re going to China to adopt a baby

one of the couple the brunette one with eyes like a doe dislodges, obviously intoxicated, slinks across the floor and asks me abruptly to guess one of her secrets

your secrets? I ask perplexed yes, my secrets sweetie she slurs and brushes a finger against one of my lips. well I say thinking I bet that you almost died when you were a child and instead of the intended or expected reaction to something that outlandish she grabs me by the shoulders and shakes me

how did you know that? who told you that? I’ve never told anyone that before tell me what powers you possess and quickly her partner drags her back from the issue with a deep kiss and everyone goes back to what they were doing. so I resume staring at the ceiling.

the ceiling is a high A frame that reminds me of the small baptist church mom dragged me along to when I was a little girl. I would lie in her lap and lie across one of the uncomfortable un-padded wooden pews and stare at the majesty of the rough pine planks that seemed to tower towards heaven while at the same time smarting from the scrapes and scabs that inevitable crisscrossed both knees as a result of another Saturday spent outside playing in the woods.

camera focuses squarely on the center of the room

Maggie claims that one of the group must be rescued. Maggie is always rescuing someone. usually it’s whomever she wants to sleep with but you don’t ask questions of Maggie. this is Maggie’s place, and her drugs and her food that she has thoughtfully prepared for the occasion

technically this is her grandfather’s place who few of us has ever seen he is apparently an eccentric old reclusive transvestite who just wants to be left alone. he scarcely leaves his bedroom and his only condition with Maggie is that she not let guys sleep over. this is hardly a problem.

I hear the loud rumbling of Maggie’s car departing the car has a broken muffler that she refuses to get fixed so as a result it is about as subtle upon entrance as she is.

multiple camera shots of women leading women hand by hand into bedrooms it is the time of night where the true meaning of this party becomes evident. there was a time I once defended Maggie you know she’s bouncy they’d said and I like a fool would deny it time and time again. you want to trust her everyone’s slightly in love with her and so I am I suppose. once this girl I barely knew threw herself upon Maggie. deep down inside I’m sure the snake-charmer does have a heart so she did take the opportunity to remove her bra one handed I haven’t lost my touch Maggie said satisfied but then quickly fell asleep next to the poor girl.

but at this moment camera zooms towards door the aforementioned dream goddess enters with a girl around her waist. Maggie surely does like the young ones this one can’t be more than seventeen at best and makes herself at home in front of the big screen television. flips on MTV.

I just ate another bean on the way over Maggie says so what do you want me to do about it? rub my head she says I thought that’s what you got her for I say gesticulating towards the tiny body with eyeballs now glued to the screen.

nah she’s not my type she bores me so who is your type I ask skeptically well, maybe you tonight she says and without thinking I take her hand and walk into the bedroom the teen sensation scarcely notices we’ve left.

Quote of the Day

Author's Note:

I'm not sure I believe this quote. Still, it's certainly interesting and so I thought I might put it up here in any case.
___________________________

“Men forget but never forgive. Women forgive but never forget.”

Saturday Video

Buried in the Ground

(Do we) find a cost of
freedom

buried in the ground?

Mother Earth
will swallow you

Lay your body down

Find a cost of
freedom

buried in the ground.

Mother Earth
will swallow you

Lay your body down.

The Liberal Gospel: Social Justice or Inward Purity?

A Quaker minister recently spoke my mind and, as it turned out, the minds of many. The thrust of his message asserted that we who are people of faith (and even those who do not identify as such) have over the years split into two camps. One of them seeks to love his or her neighbor by means of social justice and direct service. Some build houses for the poor. Others seek to educate and empower those who live in Third World countries. Still others take jobs in helping professions or non-profits designed to assist the less fortunate and the needy. It is this aspect that is emphasized most heavily in progressive faiths and certainly by liberal unprogrammed Friends.

If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, "Love your neighbor as yourself," you are doing right.

I write seeking not to criticize those who do such things. It is my opinion that they are doing God's work here on Earth. I believe that we exist for a reason and though the Spirit may do the heavy lifting, I doubt not at all that its purpose is to use us to enrich and improve the lives of those around us. Even those who trend more towards the humanistic side or do not believe in God at all have nonetheless taken this law to heart. We who are born into privilege have material and financial advantages not granted to many, of course. That we would use our awareness of inequality for the betterment of others is touching and noble. This same devotion to a greater good is the motivation of many who live here in Washington, DC, and I am fortunate to call a few of them both Friends and friends.

To continue, another camp has focused more on inner salvation and spiritual purity. This attitude requires a kind of weighty introspection that, properly channeled, brings clarity, focus, and unity while growing community in the process. This was my spiritual background, growing up Methodist as I did. Though I certainly contributed to the construction of more than one Habitat for Humanity project on humid Saturday mornings during the summertime, such tasks were scheduled sporadically rather than frequently. Though it was never spelled out in detail, the implied emphasis was that our thoughts and deeds ought to be inwardly channeled towards ourselves or towards the church community as a whole. To be perfectly honest, I find a strict orientation towards social justice alone somewhat lacking.

My discomfort stems not from the nature of the work done, nor in doubting its effectiveness, but purely from personal bias. My religious upbringing did not emphasize activism and to me, at least, grabbing a hammer and a nail never felt especially spiritual. While I never doubted that I was doing beneficial labor for someone other than myself, I suppose I associated the task at hand with doing routine household chores on weekends. The familiar never seemed especially holy or satisfying, whereas the mystical feeling of renewal I experienced every Sunday morning certainly spurred me to action. Though I would have never used this phrase at the time, worship centered me and allowed me to commune with the Holy Spirit.

And, not only that, it was a special time neither present nor available in my day to day existence. I could paint a shutter or repair a broken window at home at any point, but even when in the presence of others, such tasks always seemed solitary and sterile. And yet, for an hour every Sunday, while gathered together with the community, I experienced a sense of powerful personal revelation that was both highly individual and thoroughly communal all at once.

James' relatively short epistle, one verse of which I have quoted above, does nonetheless contain much wisdom despite its length.

My brothers and sisters, what good does it do if someone claims to have faith but doesn't do any good things? Can this kind of faith save him? Suppose you see a brother or sister who has no food or clothing, and you say, "Good-bye and have a good day; stay warm and eat well"--but then you don't give that person any food or clothing. What good does that do?

So you see, faith by itself isn't enough. Unless it produces good deeds, it is dead and useless. Now someone may argue, "Some people have faith; others have good deeds." But I say, "How can you show me your faith if you don't have good deeds? I will show you my faith by my good deeds."

Yet, what good deeds are these? I would not deign to say I know God's plan for anyone other than myself, and even then the message is often confusing and difficult to discern. What I will argue, however, is that if we seek to unify both camps, we should also acknowledge that each of us have different strengths and weaknesses. My own leading compels me to write and create from within myself, for as I do so, even writing these words to you right now, I find connection with God. The minister's message encourages me to be more well-rounded, certainly, but I know it will be a challenge for me to seek the Divine within the sublime. My greater goal is to cease to place strict distinctions upon that which is holy and that which is not. It has been my experience that even those who are not Theists or not Theists in the conventional sense still retain a sense of that which is sacred and moving.

I conclude with a passage of scripture, also from James, which underscores where we all often go astray. Life is far too short for destructive disagreements and open hostility. I recognize in including this passage that some may have issue with the concept of "law". Law, literally speaking, connotes a restrictive measure that punishes those who transgress. My hope is that you might see "law" instead in less human terms, as a way by which we might all live together in some semblance of peace. Division and factionalism are commonplace everywhere, not just within religious groups.

What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.

Don't speak evil against each other, dear brothers and sisters. If you criticize and judge each other, then you are criticizing and judging God's law. But your job is to obey the law, not to judge whether it applies to you. Now listen, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money." How do you know what your life will be like tomorrow? Your life is like the morning fog--it's here a little while, then it's gone.

Travel Day Post

I fly back to DC in a few hours, so it won't be until tomorrow that my vacation setting ends and your regularly scheduled blog content begins again.

In the meantime, I leave you with this. I only wish I could find a version where the poet herself reads. This particular reading is stuffy and does the somber beauty of the words no justice. There was a time where I felt much this way. Now it reminds me of earlier days, but a trip back home often brings back such memories. I post this here in part dedicated to a dear professor friend whose favorite poet was Edna St. Vincent Millay.



What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply;
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.
Thus in the winter stands a lonely tree,
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
Yet know its boughs more silent than before:
I cannot say what loves have come and gone;
I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more.

You're Asking Is It Good or Bad?

*A side note. Happy Birthday to my sister!

Belated Quote of the Week

“What should young people do with their lives today? Many things, obviously. But the most daring thing is to create stable communities in which the terrible disease of loneliness can be cured.”- Kurt Vonnegut

Monday Video

I was away from my computer on Saturday, so without further ado, here is the Saturday video on Tuesday.

Vacation Pictures

Gone Camping

I'm headed off to the mountains to camp and generally get away from it all. The park has free wifi, but I think I'm going to temporarily cut the umbilical chord in the hopes I might be able to reach a more restful state without my laptop.

Copious pictures will be taken, of course.

Query to the Faithful

Do pardon this brief post. I'd like to return once more to the recent Young Adult Friends gathering I attended in Kansas by sharing a particularly pertinent anecdote. While in a small group one day, a Friend, as was her wont, told a compelling story. I've mentioned her once before and will yet again use one of her anecdotes to base this post. She, as you may recall, is part of a small minority of Quakers who still keep plain dress. She was also heavily involved in getting the gathering together and making sure everything ran smoothly.

As part of her role in supervising the preparation of meals, she awoke early one morning and entered the kitchen. Much to her dismay, she discovered that the gathering was low on cereal for breakfast. Unless a last-minute grocery store run was undertaken, there would not be enough food to feed those in attendance. So, she and another Friend thus quickly headed to the closest supermarket.

While there, she noticed German Brethren and Mennonites, two groups with members who dress plainly in their own particular fashion for religious reasons. Rather ironically, she instantly placed them and recognized who they were, yet they were unable to do the same. While telling the story, she stressed how one woman kept staring and staring at her, trying desperately to determine to whom she belonged. After a while, the woman gave up, conceding that she was a huge mystery. I found this story fascinating on all sorts of levels. This, to a very large extent, is to me a useful metaphor that shows how others perceive us, regardless of whether we are Quakers or liberal/progressive people of faith.

For my fellow Friends, I pose a query. Most of us may not keep plain dress anymore, but what in particular about that which we display externally to others allows others to know we are Friends? For those who are people of faith, regardless of allegiance, I ask the same question in a slightly different way. In our daily lives, what that we show to the world shows the depths and the plain proof of our belief? We seem to be good at spiritually enriching ourselves internally, but we are often much more private about how we seem in front of others.

I think part of taking a greater role in shaping religious/spiritual discourse requires us to be more open with that which we believe. This starts with us being unafraid to show physical proof to all, not as a means of necessarily seeking to separate ourselves, but certainly not having reservations about how we may or may not be perceived in public. Though some might seek to shame us, we cannot let the fear of being somehow rejected or misunderstood paint us into a corner.

Second Verse, Same as the First, a Little Bit Louder and a Little Bit Worse

A Year of the Woman, again?

In Arkansas, being a woman helped Sen. Blanche Lincoln pull off a huge upset in a runoff over challenger Bill Halter, who led by a comfortable margin in almost all pre-primary polls. Bill Clinton campaigned for Lincoln, which no doubt helped, and Lincoln’s anti-derivatives amendment in the Senate gave her some populist cred. But I’d argue that she won as much because she’s a woman as anything else.

As much as I'd like to celebrate this landmark event, I'd like to know WHY being a woman made such a dramatic difference. Every minority or marginalized group has been told that THIS is their year, but without any evidence to support it, this pronouncement sounds like the latest in a series of empty platitudes. Forgive my skepticism, but I think when true gender parity in politics or otherwise is established, few will feel the need to proclaim it to the heavens.

YAF 2010 Gathering Pictures

I didn't get as many as I wanted because the camera died the morning of the second day I was there. Still, here are at least some of them.

YAF Gathering 2010

In other news, I will be headed back home to Alabama for a week starting tomorrow through next Wednesday. Posting here will be sparse or at least inconsequential during that time.

Lookin' for a Love

Quote of the Week

"When we can begin to take our failures seriously, it means we are ceasing to be afraid of them. It is of immense importance to learn to laugh at ourselves."- Katherine Mansfield

Standing Knee Deep in a River and Dying of Thirst

This morning, as an observer rather than a participant, I witnessed the annual Race for the Cure event here in DC. It is, for those who may be unaware, a charity run/walk that has served as an effective means of raising funds to combat breast cancer. It also memorializes those who have tragically perished from the disease and celebrates those who have survived. Before I begin, I certainly do appreciate the sentiment and the work that goes into it putting it on, but there's a certain sort of commercialized, jocular, self-congratulatory aspect to the gathering that frequently makes me uncomfortable. At times this morning I felt as though I was in some sort of motivational seminar, the kind that businesses often mandate that their employees must attend. What I experienced firsthand today was a kind of glossy artifice when nothing could be more devastatingly real or raw than any person who finds herself or himself with a diagnosis of malignancy.

While on the subject, I'm also a bit unsure of how I feel about the assigned color to be worn to the event--pink. Since most breast cancer patients and survivors are female, I'm sure someone with good intentions decided that selecting that particular color would work best. My personal reservations stem from recognizing that in assigning one particular default color to one sex while assigning another proscribed shade to the other sex only reinforces the gender binary. To wit, not all women are extremely feminine, nor are all men extremely masculine. I never had any particular fondness for blue myself.

While at the recent Kansas gathering of fellow Quakers I attended, I met a woman who kept plain dress. At one time, most Friends dressed plainly in ways that the Amish and some Mennonites still do today. Now, only a small minority maintain that tradition. After we got to know each other, she talked at length about how her branch of Friends aren't the most demonstrative of people, nor the most outwardly affectionate. They don't hug or tell each other "I love you". A handshake is about the most can ever expect to receive, and yet, they share love for each other in different ways. Sometimes, however, this proves problematic.

That is to say, she is a vegetarian and most people with whom she worships are not. A frequent way in which her particular gathering of Quakers display affection towards each other is often through the medium of gifts of food. Many times she cannot accept these particular gifts, and that understandable fact notwithstanding, hurt feelings as well as pained expressions of rejection have been commonplace. There is much confusion and misunderstanding present, since, to most, a rejection of food is frequently perceived to be a rejection of love and fellowship. Of course, that's not how she intends it to come across, but that's often how it appears.

A woman from my own meeting tells a story about her late husband. Every time she was sick, he would bring her a particular kind of flavored tea. She absolutely hated the taste and surely the husband was well aware of it after a while, but nonetheless each time she was ailing, the same sort of tea was provided. Eventually she came to understand that her husband's mother had given him this same sort of tea when he was ill, and as such he associated the gesture with love and concern. And, understanding this, finally, she came to see it as a statement of unconditional love and less as an annoyance. Sometimes I think it might be worthwhile for us to examine how receptive we are to all gifts of love, regardless of their package, and in so doing question how we might not invalidate anyone else's good intention or present.

...Jesus took Peter, John, and James up on a mountain to pray. And as he was praying, the appearance of his face was transformed, and his clothes became dazzling white. Suddenly, two men, Moses and Elijah, appeared and began talking with Jesus. They were glorious to see. And they were speaking about his exodus from this world, which was about to be fulfilled in Jerusalem.

Peter and his companions were very sleepy, but when they became fully awake, they saw his glory and the two men standing with him. As the men were leaving Jesus, Peter said to him, "Master, it is good for us to be here. Let us put up three shelters--one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah." (He did not know what he was saying.)

Those of you who have studied the Gospels at any length know that Peter sometimes can be a bit of a lunkhead. He always means well, but he doesn't always think before he speaks. He has a genius for completely missing the point in lots of crucial situations, and yet Jesus loves him anyway. Here, in this situation, Peter wanted to act, when the moment called for worship and adoration instead. We need times of retreat and renewal, but only so we can return to minister to the world. If we stayed on top of a mountain, we might soon be changed from spiritual giants to giants of self-centeredness. We cannot escape the reality and problems of our daily lives, but perhaps we can take with us what we have learned in those moments of intensity and transformative power.

The writer Robert Fulgum wrote about how one of his children brought him a paper bag full of random items. He took it to work with him, saw nothing much of value in its contents, then promptly threw it away. After arriving home later that evening, the child came to him and asked for the bag back. You see, what had been shared were the child's most important possessions, and in lending them to the father, the intention had been an unselfish display of love and deep affection. Fulgum described this situation by use of a phrase that an associate of his often voiced. He called it "standing knee deep in a river and dying of thirst".

The tokens of esteem or affection we receive from others may not be comprehensible to us at the time. They may be perplexing or perhaps even unintentionally offensive. But underneath it all, we do have a desire to let others who we deeply care about know the depths of our love for them. Sometimes they are present in unusual ways. At times, we may misinterpret them, or even invalidate them without even meaning to do so. In my own life, I have known many people who, metaphorically speaking, craved the approval of a parent-figure so that they might feel worthy and accepted. One of the basic facts about humans is that we have a need to belong and to be a part of whichever group, tribe, or gathering of which we identify. That we may at times go a bit overboard should be excused as simply part of our fallibility. We have all been Peter before. We have all been Fulgum's child. We have all been Fulgum himself. We have all been the plain dress Quaker. And we have all been the organizer of Race for the Cure.

Saturday Video

Pardon My Heart

The lyrics are a bit different than the way I've sung it. I chose to focus on the negative end of the spectrum, but I don't neglect the positive, either.

Also, I'm not sure where those annoying lines across the video came from. Please overlook.

It's a fallen situation
When all eyes are turned in
And love isn't flowing
The way it could have been.

You brought it all on
Oh, but it feels so wrong
You brought it all on

No, no,
I don't believe this song
You brought it all on.

It's a sad communication
With little reason to believe

When one isn't giving
And one pretends to receive.

You brought it all on
Oh, but it feels so wrong

You brought it all on
No, no,
I don't believe this song
You brought it all on.

Pardon my heart
If I showed that I cared

But I love you
more than moments
We have or have not shared.

You brought it all on
Oh, and it feels so good

You brought it all on
When love flows
the way that it should
You brought it all on.

Coming Out as Religious, and Other Stories

I'd rather not entertain current events for a while, and instead tell you a bit more about the Quaker Young Adult gathering I recently attended. Primarily this is because it is supremely depressing to contemplate the oil spill. The beaches on Alabama's Gulf Coast that I visited every summer as a child and young teen might be forever changed as wave after wave of oil washes ashore. I may return to that at another time, but right now I am avoiding even thinking about it because it hits so close to home. Returning to my original point, there are so many stories to share I hardly know where to begin, but I'll start with one and go from there.

Returning to my original point, there are so many stories to share I hardly know where to begin, but I'll start with one and go from there. In a small group, a Friend talked about the difficulty of embracing a love for God when one's friends are skeptical or even hostile towards theists and a belief in a higher power. The way she put it was, in her words, "coming out as a believer." I certainly understand what she meant and think it is an apt term. The hostility I faced from some as a person of faith when I was in my teens and early twenties led me to be reluctant or even unwilling to share a very important part of myself. Though I was not yet ready then to embrace a Christ-centered identity, my faith in God nonetheless never wavered.

Those who push away from religion as a means of establishing a firm sense of self often begin, I find, with an all-out rejection phase, one that as I noted above I held myself to some degree. Now that I am nearly 30 what I hear from those who are not people of faith is, more often than not, "I wish I had what you have." Talking with older adults about this subject since I have returned has been enlightening and instructive. To a person, they have vocalized that they themselves are seeking a kind of spiritual connection and renewal for themselves. I think with time we recognize how desperately we look for peace of mind and a loving community. The pressure of a demanding job, plus the responsibilities of adulthood, as well as being a parent if we have children changes our priorities and way of looking at the greater world.

To return to the idea of "coming out as religious", often one cannot share one's faith around certain others because some assume that self-identifying as "religious", "spiritual", and/or "Christian" means that an automatic kind of silent or vocal rejection of them as they are will be imposed. I cannot emphasize enough that liberal Christianity, in particular, is much different than conservative Christianity, and that I find it highly prideful and unfair to make judgments of people based on a minimum of information. Where they might end up after they die or what I might think they need to have in their life is not exactly my call to make. That, in my opinion, is God's role alone. Judge not, lest ye be judged. I merely show and share that which I believe, and if that speaks to someone else, then I rejoice in the knowledge.

One Friend, a college professor, mentioned that he uses profanity on occasion around his students so that those who are not people of faith will not feel restrained to share all of themselves around him. It is vitally important to what he does for a living to make a positive impression upon those who he teaches, and he has developed his own strategies to put people at ease. Sharing information with people requires a kind of mutual trust and respect between professor and student. If it is not present, then a student is not inclined to absorb that which is being taught.

Many of us sequester our true selves. Other Friends noted that close friends and acquaintances have come to them and mentioned that they dislike almost all other Christians except, of course, for they themselves. This has been my experience too, and it puts one in a particularly awkward situation. What does that say about me? That I must adhere to an impossible standard of perfection? Am I being compared and held to that standard whether I like it or not? After all, there is only one who is perfect, and it is certainly not me.

Jesus called the crowd to him and said, "Listen and understand. It's not what goes into your mouth that defiles you; you are defiled by the words that come out of your mouth." Then the disciples came to him and asked, "Do you realize you offended the Pharisees by what you just said?"

Jesus replied, "Every plant not planted by my heavenly Father will be uprooted, so ignore them. They are blind guides leading the blind, and if one blind person guides another, they will both fall into a ditch."

Then Peter said to Jesus, "Explain to us the parable that says people aren't defiled by what they eat."

"Don't you understand yet?" Jesus asked. "Don't you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and it is those things that make a person unclean.

My other identities place me in this same situation. I find myself being a Christian apologist, a Feminist apologist, and a mental illness/brain disorder apologist. Convincing the skeptical is a Herculean task at times, but it is one that I embrace with a kind of dogged determination that at times astonishes me. For some reason, God has always placed me in situations where I am vastly in the minority. As a Quaker, I am a member of a small faith group, albeit one with a rich history. As a Feminist, I am a member of an often stigmatized group, but I am also one of the few men within the movement itself. As someone with a chronic illness, my desire to be open with my disease is motivated by an effort to take on the vast amount of misinformation that still circulates about it.

In each of these situations, I am different from the norm and thus I stand out. Standing out is good in some ways because I draw instant attention and with it an instant audience by my very existence. This makes the experience often trying and highly pressurized for the same reason. As a male Feminist, I am frequently, and quite unintentionally presumed to speak for all men. I know that I honestly can't do that and certainly wouldn't try even if I could. But, on the other hand, if what I can provide increases understanding and decreases fear and negativity, I will gladly continue to voice my opinions.

As a Progressive, I feel this same tension. The sense of isolation we experience both motivates us to move forward to make needed reforms, but it can also be turned inward, dividing us in the process. The deepest challenge of all might be to let our anger and indignation push us in helpful, not destructive directions.

Circling back around, I have found that certain people have an axe to grind against organized religion and identity groups. And to reiterate, I do understand from whence such attitudes stem. Unfortunately, the bitterness and resentment felt leads some to expect or demand complete flawlessness from those who are believers, and once very human limitations are detected, these people quickly lash out, seeking to prove again that an an entire system of belief is hypocritical and worthless. Though such people are challenging, to put it lightly, I do try to keep in mind the pain they are experiencing and I hold them in the Light, hoping that they will process their discomfort in constructive ways.

A personal note: when I left the Unitarian Universalist church some years ago, I am ashamed to reflect upon how long it took me to get over my own feelings of betrayal and disappointment. What I felt was akin to a bad divorce, and I am not especially proud to contemplate what I said and how I acted then. My hope is that those I offended know now or even knew then that I was processing through what had been a emotionally wrenching experience. The experience was bookended by an awful manic episode followed by an equally awful depressive episode and my hope will always be that those who knew me then could separate me from my illness. I am so glad to be through with it and would eagerly grant a humble apology to anyone who had to see me at my worst.

If I can keep in mind my own past behavior, then I can empathize with those who sow seeds of discord and disunity, while also not allowing them the ability to divide and foment disunity. My own story is that of the Prodigal son. For reasons I cannot understand and may never, God told me that I had a purpose and a role to serve. My belief has never been stronger and with that belief comes a joy that is difficult to express in words alone. Perhaps it is more important to focus upon my present than dwell upon my past. I know now where I need to focus my efforts, and I know that a multitude of good things lay ahead of me. I urge those who feel so led to come out as religious, regardless of how you may define it, and to seek peace within yourself and with everyone.

Simple Message of Joy and Thanksgiving

My apologies for not posting much in the past couple days. The gathering was intense and exhausting, and a non-stop 22 hour drive back was even more so. Give me a bit more time to heal.

Enclosed is a message I sent to all Friends in my Monthly Meeting here in DC.

Thanks,

Kevin.
_______________________


Dear Friends,

From Friday of last week until Monday I was in Wichita, Kansas, attending the Young Adult Friends 2010 gathering. While there I was one of roughly 80 YAFs who hailed from almost every Yearly Meeting in the United States, and present also was a Friend from Canada who
represented Canadian Yearly Meeting. Also in attendance were Spanish-speaking Friends from Central and South America. Representatives from every branch of Quakerism were in attendance as well.

The diversity I saw deeply enriched my understanding of Quakerism. I learned the most from listening to the testimonies and stories of others. What has stayed with me most is the passion and devotion that all brought with them that enriched this gathering in ways difficult to express in words alone. A universality in thought and expression, regardless of our superficial differences, characterized that which I spoke, experienced, and heard.

I write to you for many reasons, but foremost I desire to share with you my joy. Worship services were intensely moving and powerful but so too was every other scheduled event. Though some minor friction was present at times, I am pleased to report that even momentary
periods of discomfort were met with a compelling desire to confront them and in so doing seek to heal what which was broken. We were not afraid to challenge ourselves and admit our own human limitations. We were not averse to be tender and vulnerable, knowing that if we did so that we could find the solution through our trust in the Spirit and its guidance.

Friends, my faith has been renewed, and I find myself at peace.

In love,

Kevin.

Epistle of Gathering

Editor's Note,

This Epistle is mine alone and does not speak for the rest of the gathering. It was taken into account by the Epistle Committee, but not approved.

Thanks,

The Author.

______________

And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice--the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him. Don't copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God's will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect. Because of the privilege and authority God has given me, I give each of you this warning: Don't think you are better than you really are. Be honest in your evaluation of yourselves, measuring yourselves by the faith God has given us. Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function.

We have experienced an intensity of energy, enthusiasm, and passion that many of us rarely experience in our own monthly meeting. Worship has been unusually powerful, leaving many in attendance wishing that this same deeply moving experience might be transferred and incorporated into every Sunday’s First Hour in their own monthly meeting. With this renewed spiritual focus has come an strong connection with the Spirit and sense of spiritual community that often seems otherwise elusive. We am humbled by the experience and grateful that we have been in attendance.

In Romans 12, we are taught that the Body of Christ includes many parts. In our gathering, each of these parts at times initially resisted finding a common leaning, yet fortunately they recognized that as fellow Friends even their disagreements could be resolved without protracted conflict. The blessedly few moments of tension were gratefully and graciously pushed aside by a moving experience of deep spiritual connection with each other. Though we all might have wounds, we take care to acknowledge them and seek to heal the divisions both within each other and within ourselves.

A Friend shared that the gathering had been “laboring in love”, recognizing that resolving differences was at times difficult, but that even with that, Friends were still willing to continue to engage in communication with each other, even with whom they might strongly disagree. Some Friends were uncomfortable with Christ-centered or God-centered language. Some Friends were uncomfortable with those who did not willingly incorporate such language into their own spirituality. Yet, all were compelled and motivated to continue the dialogue and in so doing heal the part of Body that was broken. That desire was the salvation of the gathering.

Also present among all in attendance was a strong sense of vulnerability and a willingness to be unguarded and honest. Friends believed this was one of the major strengths of the gathering and all in attendance benefited greatly from this display of trust. Present as well was the willingness of Friends to contribute and participate in worship, which made the gathering even richer. Three different types of worship were held, and with that came a wealth of different experiences. This positive discomfort and tension encouraged and nurtured the presence of the Spirit. Despite this sometimes challenging environment, there was nonetheless a strong sense of unity that characterized the gathering as a whole.

Some Friends mentioned that their initial expectations going in were completely different from that which actually transpired, but participants agreed that the experience was overwhelmingly uplifting. The seeds that have been planted from this gathering have yet to blossom, but we have hope that what we learned and experienced here will bear fruit in our own monthly meetings, and well beyond. We came seeking answers, some of which were realized, and some which we will only be granted in the days, weeks, months, and even years going forward.

In Defense of Kansas/Closing Ceremonies

"Keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you."- Matthew 7:7

_____________________

I pause to note that I honestly have nothing against the state of Kansas. (Does this mea culpa suffice, Micah? ;-) My reservations initially upon arrival were, I think, a defensive response to being back in a red state. As I think more upon it, I reflect that Kansas is an interesting mix of liberal and conservative. Where we grow up influences how we perceive other places we visit. To be back in a place where there is a church on every corner brings back memories of visiting the small towns where both of my parents grew up. Some of them are positive, some are not.

In particular, it reminds me of my Grandmother, who had been raised Charismatic as a minister's daughter. She suffered from a myriad of chronic health conditions, and wandered from church to church, attempting to find someone who could heal her. My father's skepticism of organized religion, transferred to me in part, arrived from seeing one charlatan after another preach a Godly life on Sunday morning and then prove to be incredibly hypocritical when not in the pulpit. Even to the last years of her life, she would give money to every televangelist on air, much to my father's consternation. If I myself had any slight reservations about this entire conference it was a brief moment whereby I was told, once again, that the only way to the Father was through Jesus Christ.

Don't get me wrong. I'm totally down with the Jesus. But I'm not willing to disown my friends and my Friends who do not believe that a belief in Jesus alone is the only way to salvation. This debate caused a bit of a minor stir during Bible study, though I pause to note that the parties involved were not Young Friends, but rather were older adult here to observe. Based on what I deal with at my own home meeting, I have to say I'm tremendously surprised by this. This issue was dealt with, successfully I think, at last night's evening worship. It was the only moment of mild drama in an otherwise convivial and welcoming gathering.

A side note. My camera has an unfortunate habit of draining batteries, and since I have been more or less based here, I haven't had the opportunity to go well out of my way to get more. Still, the trip over and the first day of the gathering has, I think, been sufficiently documented.

I am in no hurry this afternoon to jump back in the car and drive all the way back to DC. The plan is to see if we can manage it all in one go, though that is going to be exhausting. Assuming we can even pull it off, we'll leave around 2 pm local time and arrive sometime in the mid morning tomorrow. Though I don't have a tremendous amount of money to spare, I'd be willing to pay for a cheap motel at some point halfway there.

Belated Quote of the Week

"That old man with the burning eyes actually believes that there can be such a thing as the brotherhood of man. And that's not the funniest part of it. As long as he's around I believe it myself."- Heywood Broun, speaking about Eugene V. Debs

Sunday Update

I don't have a lot of time to blog today, but I thought I'd provide a brief update. The church has wifi, but it's not particularly strong. There is internet service in the dorms, but one must have a cable to access it, and I got there too late to get one.

The conference is packed full of places to go, meaning I have to carve out odd moments between each of them to blog. What I will say is that last night I finally got settled in and slept eight blessed hours. This conference has been very welcoming and supportive, but with so many passionate people, it is frequently intense. I wish that my own meeting in DC was so spiritually satisfying. Not that I mind intensity at all, but after a time it begins to drain me. For example, in evening worship I felt compelled to share a message in song. As I finished, I collapsed into my seat, utterly spent. Some in the gathering were concerned for me, but I was merely just overwhelmed by all that I had heard, seen, and experienced.

I was hoping to provide a much more thorough update from day to day, but I simply haven't had the time. By the end, I promise a much lengthier update. Tomorrow is the last day of the gathering, and we'll meet together until lunch. After lunch we will depart, and I am trying not to think about the length of the drive in front of me. We're going to try to drive all the way without stopping, which is going to be quite challenging.

Greeting from Wichita!

My apologies for not writing sooner. Twenty-one hours in a car spread over two full days and four hours sleep meant that I arrived feeling punch-drunk and sleep deprived. We drove 14 hours the first day and took a break outside St. Louis, whereby I only managed to toss and turn my way to around four hours sleep. Today I got a bit more rest, though in truth I am still not entirely where I need to be. Even before I was diagnosed, I always had to have several hours uninterrupted sleep to fully recharge. Now I know that doing so absolutely essential to my health.

First impression are these: I really thought I had left behind the Bible Belt when I moved from Alabama, but I’d have to say that Kansas is even more conservative than the South. Of course, this shouldn't really surprise me. This is the very same city where abortion doctor George Tiller was gunned down not long ago. I can understand why. While on the journey out here, we passed sign after sign imploring motorists to repent or face eternal damnation. The number of churches and roadside crosses is fairly staggering, I must say, which is really saying something based on my region of origin. Recently the Quaker church here which has served as our home base of sorts has been the victim of vandalism and theft, both to the building itself and to cars parked outside in the lot. Though this sort of behavior has been excused as a product of teenage hooligans, I wonder if there is some correlation between the Tiller killing, because this gathering is clearly much more liberal than the rest of the city and state. After all, Tiller was killed inside his own church.

We’re being housed on the grounds of a Quaker university which goes by the name of Friends University. It is a small private liberal arts college. I’ve been told it features an excellent music, ballet, and oddly, zoo science program, as well as one or two other strengths. This is fairly typical with colleges and universities of this size. The student dorms, which is where we bunk for the night, are very nice, no older than five or six years old. They are set up not unlike a motel, with six beds are housed in one suite. The air conditioning wasn't working in my room last night, meaning everyone else fled for one that did. I relish the opportunity to have more or less my own space, so I stayed in the room to which I was originally assigned.

Even in my reduced state of efficiency, I was still able to write a Feminist critique, which I've posted here before this entry. I've also taken several pictures, which I fully intend to post on my Flickr stream when I get back to DC. They will also be posted here by mid-week. I'll try to post a bit more throughout the day, though I'll be in workshops and small group activities most of my waking hours.

Check Your Whole Way of Going About It

When I first began to frequent Feminist gatherings, I was eager to help and proud to be a newly minted male ally. However, I also had to start at the very beginning, much as everyone else does. My own personal women’s/gender studies 101 class was in large part an organic process of self-reflection, listening, and observation more than an academic exercise. So, in my ignorance, I made statements at times that were not especially feminist and to be sure, I was certainly swiftly corrected by many.

“Check your privilege, check your privilege, check your privilege.” It was like a mantra, and a particularly infuriating one for me at the time. Back then, I didn’t really understand what that statement meant in totality. Whether by intent or design, it felt like an admonishment, which was especially perplexing because I certainly hadn’t intended to be mean or divisive. After all, it takes just as much effort for a well-meaning male to deconstruct Patriarchal inequality within himself as is does for a woman to do so within herself in a different way. That what I say begins from a position of unequal power is important, certainly, and so are the ways I profit from it, but it doesn’t detract from the process I had to undergo to really “get” why what I said was so problematic.

As a fellow feminist Quaker pointed out to me the other day, we might ought to consider that, not forsaking our zeal, when calling out offending viewpoints, we would be sure to add the crucial caveat, “privilege is not your fault.” This should not and does not absolve any person automatically granted a degree of autonomy over another from their complicity in the matter, whether actively or passively, but it might go miles towards eliminating hostility and bruised feelings. I’ve always felt male guilt or white guilt or heterosexual guilt is counterproductive past a certain point. If it encourages people to look inside themselves and reform their conduct, then well and good.

Regarding what our response might be, I will say that no one needs to be babied or placated, but it has been my experience that such attitudes repel male allies and even some women from taking a more active role in the greater movement. Indeed, had I not been so stubbornly compelled to stay with it, no matter what criticism I received, I may very well have been the latest to leave and never return.

It seems to me as though we don’t want to concede even an inch in this area. Acknowledging that discussions of privilege might contain grey areas might not be so comforting, but neither is it comforting to realize how maddeningly inexact is our conception of gender. Furthermore, we certainly reject those who claim we‘re all just a bunch of miserable man-haters, and yet we harshly condemn in our own way those among us who espouse our own particularly forbidden heretical notions. The hard-liners among us draw razor-sharp distinctions, fearful that Patriarchal attitudes will never change if anyone sees the fight as anything more than a struggle between absolute good and absolute, entirely corrupting, shape-shifting evil.

But when we do this, we forget that sympathy isn’t a weakness. Indeed, it is the means by which we share our common humanity and our common imperfections. As a person of faith, I myself try to hate the sin and love the sinner. I recognize this to be a challenging undertaking, but coming from a Feminist standpoint, it might do us well to be less reactive and more understanding. To be sure, there will always be trolls, both in real life and online, who will spew hateful points of view purely to try to make us upset. That they can and will do it so easily should give us all reason to take pause. If we remain reactive then we take the bait, stirring ourselves into a frenzy over and over again. Speaking about myself, anger has never taken me anywhere especially helpful, but I do know that the best way to combat a contentious person is to not respond, nor engage, no matter how much he or she tries to provoke. I find this to be true in Progressive political groups as much as Progressive religious/spiritual gatherings, and the adage “don’t feed the troll” might be the best advice we could ever possibly take to heart.

And just as it is a process of introspection to take our own privilege into account, so too is being self-aware enough to recognize from whence our own reactivity stems. We know that a certain amount of anger drives us and keeps us fighting, but there is a difference between instructive anger and destructive anger. Open hostility, once stoked, has a tendency to spiral out of control into very unhelpful, unhealthy directions. Unprogrammed Quaker worship encourages all Friends gathered to minister, and thus the floor is open to those who feel the leading of the Light. At times, Friends will give messages in active worship which are offensive on all sorts of levels. If I were to rise and speak immediately, in direct response, my messages would not be Spirit-led. They would instead speak from myself and likely arrive from annoyance, disgust, or even rage. If, however, I chose to wait a bit longer in expectant silence, my initial anger will often guide me towards a message that is clearly inspired by the Divine. If I choose to stand and speak, I know that based on cautious, careful discernment what I say will not inflame the situation further.

Being tough, independent, self-reliant, and Feminist does not necessarily require one to shout the loudest, shame the enemy with the best putdown, or constantly correct the misinformed. It may run contrary to how we think of ourselves and our opposition, but I my own hope is that we might get to a point someday where we might seek to enlighten first, not to return fire towards those who call us names or even co-opt our positions and our very name itself for their own ends. I am a believer in free will, and I know that so long as we assume that Patriarchy is a wack-a-mole enemy that will always morph into something different and just as virulent as that which came before it, then we’ll never believe that people might make a conscious decision to reject that ultimately destructive attitude wholesale. People can change, certainly, and I think sometimes we give Patriarchy too much credit. I don’t think it’s nearly as powerful as we think it is. We may project our own fears onto it, believing that our struggle is arduous and close to impossible, but so long as we don’t entertain the possibility that what we seek is within our grasp, then we have already set ourselves up for failure. When I grabbed my sword to fight for Feminism, I did so with the expectation that I might someday set it down for good.

Saturday Video

Seeking Clarity Before I Depart

In a few minutes, I'll be on my way to the YAF Gathering. We should have been underway already but our ride is a good two hours late. Hence, this is reason why I am frequently averse to last minute road trip plans. They nearly always arrive with unforeseen complications. I'm trying not to complain too much, but if I had known that we wouldn't be underway until 9, I wouldn't have had to rise at 5 this morning and rush to get ready in time to catch a bus that arrived at 6:10 a.m.

Tonight I'll be crashing at the home of a Friend in Missouri, slightly outside of St. Louis. We'll wake up early tomorrow morning and drive into Wichita, since we need to be on site between 3 and 5 p.m. in time to register. I have six days worth of clothes with me, along with all the other amenities, plus bedsheets and towels, since neither will be provided once there. We'll be staying at student dorms in a Quaker university, hence the reason for the spartan accommodations. In many ways, I suppose it's like staying in a hostel.

Assuming I'm not too exhausted and wireless is available, I'll try to update later tonight.

Final Thoughts Before YAF 2010 Gathering

On this, my last full day in DC before I head out to Young Adult Friends Gathering 2010, I am taking to time to run last minute errands, tie up loose ends, and otherwise prepare myself. For this reason, I'll break my unwritten rule and allow the subject of this post to be primarily autobiographical. Once settled in after a long journey, subsequent posts will center around my observations and thoughts regarding the conference, which means more God talk for those receptive to it.

Tomorrow morning I rise at an ungodly hour and begin what will be an exhausting, two day trip by car to get to Topeka, Kansas. Rest assured, I am excited about what lies ahead, though I am not exactly sure what to expect. When a member of another faith group, conferences I attended were almost exclusively comprised of fellow liberals. This gathering will include Quakers from every branch---the very conservative on one end, to the very liberal on the other end. While I am glad that an effort has been made to extend a hand of fellowship and community to those likely to have a completely different worldview than my own, I recognize also that this may present significant challenges. The format of worship, for example, has been carefully designed to strike a compromise between each group. Conflict resolution and building alliances with others is a life skill I know will do me much good to learn, but there's a hopefully understandable part of me who enjoys living in the Progressive, protective bubble I've crafted for myself.

As I've alluded to at other sites, I'm taking part in some very intensive therapy right now. Those of you who read this blog frequently have seen the burnt edges and the residual impact, and many people have recognized that there was something going on. Always an open person, sometimes even to a fault, the process has required me to confront parts of myself, my identity, and my past that even I never felt comfortable vocalizing until now. If I were an album right now, I'd be some combination of John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band and Joni Mitchell's Blue. It is said that when the latter artist previewed the master recordings for a close friend, the friend's advice was "Joni, keep some of this for yourself!" Fortunately for us she chose to ignore that advice and if dispensed to me, I would do the same.

Keeping secrets never did me much good. Most of the time they made me worse. By this, of course, I mean destructive secrets. It is for that reason that I quickly get exasperated and judgmental when confronted with people who either can't, don't, or won't be honest with themselves and their problems. I suppose I want to help people, and there is a severe limit to what anyone can do to help a person who keeps silent. The example I turn to now is that of a fellow musician, an acquaintance, who has been going through a Twelve Step program. What prompted said musician to get more actively involved was when I, introducing an original song, shared its true inspiration and meaning.

At face value, the song seems to be about a narrator expressing anger and betrayal at a lover. In reality, I was writing about life with a chronic illness, bipolar disorder. Sometimes it really seems as though my limitations are an actual human being with whom I have a contentious relationship. But this concept, metaphorically speaking, has pretty much been my Modus Opperandi over the course of my life. Some will submerge their thoughts in their art in cryptic fashion, and some will, like me, get right up to the surface and not quite have the courage to poke my head above water. Creatively speaking, there might be a virtue in this sort of set up, but from a health standpoint, it's not the best coping strategy every devised. I know this now.

In any case, I now conclude. My sincere hope is that this gathering will provide me a new perspective badly needed and that I will add a unique voice to the proceedings.

Hey Mr. Reporter

In solidarity with Feministing, Feminists, recording artists, activists, and pretty much everyone else who has been taken out of context or otherwise misquoted by the media.

Fishing Strategies for the Future

Several of the disciples were there--Simon Peter, Thomas (nicknamed the Twin), Nathanael from Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two other disciples. "I'm going out to fish," Simon Peter told them, and they said, "We'll go with you." So they went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing. But when the day was now breaking, Jesus stood on the beach; yet the disciples did not know that it was Jesus.

Jesus asked them, "Friends, haven't you caught any fish?" They answered him, "No, we haven't." He told them, "Throw the net on the right hand side of the boat, and you'll catch some." So they threw it out and were unable to haul it in because it was so full of fish.

That disciple whom Jesus kept loving said to Peter, "It's the Lord!" When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put his clothes back on, because he was practically naked, and jumped into the sea. The others stayed with the boat and pulled the loaded net to the shore, for they were only about a hundred yards from shore. So when they got out on the land, they saw a charcoal fire already laid and fish placed on it, and bread.

"Bring some of the fish you've just caught," Jesus said. So Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, 153 of them. And although there were so many, the net was not torn.

_________________

A fellow Friend writes about whether Quakerism can adapt to the changes of a new age, namely the fact we are far more inclined to uproot and relocate than we were in a previous era. He posits whether we are capable pushing back against prevailing trends in an effort to reverse them, concerned that our complicity in all of this constant back-and-forth isn't just detrimental to the Religious Society of Friends, but also to the stability of the planet and the people who live there. Quakers aren't the only faith group feeling the pinch, knowing they must evolve or die, but in the process not knowing quite how to do it. Trends and statistics only underscore the seriousness of the situation.

Even so, precise location, I find, makes a significant difference. Living in Washington, DC, has provided me significant challenges, particularly concerning my efforts to maintain a strong and active Young Adult Friends group. The culture of the city encourages career-driven peripateticism and having studied the history of the area, I have had to concede that it has been this way for a very long time. Established precedent is difficult to roll back once enacted. To some degree, the situation that faces me is not much dissimilar to that of maintaining a college organization like the Young Democrats, one which is always in a state of flux. As I think back on my time as an undergraduate, I am always amazed at how quickly four years passed.

In this example, every year a new slate of members enters the picture in the fall as incoming Freshman, and every spring outgoing Seniors graduate and head elsewhere. This dynamic is also present in any group with an age requirement, like Young Adult Friends, whereby members routinely age out. Establishing a firm change of command while I can and designating new leaders well before it comes time to formerly pass the baton is what I strive to maintain. Though the YAF clerk and I understandably take the most active role regarding organization and structure, we do seek out members who we hope will take over when we ourselves no longer identify as young adults.

In this city, my contemporaries move here knowing full well that this will not be their final stop on a metaphorical train trip towards a greater occupational goal. At most, they may be here for four years of college, but then it's off to grad school elsewhere, or to a job wherever they can get it. In this day and age, with the job market as unsettled and limited as it is, I find that even Young Adult Friends who would like to stay around have no choice but to opt for relocation. Those who are fortunate enough to get a job in a different city of course take it, but many Young Adults, to say nothing of Young Friends choose to enroll in grad school in the hopes that doing so might make them more marketable to employers. With that decision is also the hope that moving forward towards some greater goal, even if it means living off student loans and ascribing to a life consumed by study and ascetic poverty is better than spinning one's wheels in frustration, going nowhere.

Growing up in Birmingham, Alabama, as I did provided me a very different perspective. Most people who moved there from other places intended to stay for a long while, and the natives who stuck around after high school or college around felt much the same way. Those desperate for greener pastures like me left, likely never to return, except perhaps to visit. In smaller cities and small towns, this same compulsion to leap-frog from place to place does not exist in the same proportion. Certain professions insist upon constant relocation. Academia, non-profit work, activism, and politics are all fields that demand one change ZIP codes on a frequent basis. Many Friends, particularly liberal unprogrammed Friends, are employed in these sorts of occupations so it makes sense why they rarely are in the same place for long. The red state/blue state divide also factors into the equation, since a more traditional conception of lifestyle runs contrary to that of the average urban professional.

One of the reasons I have embraced internet activism is because it renders physical location more or less redundant. To be sure, there will always be a need for personal interaction, but since we are increasingly more and more tethered to electronic communication, there's a sort of immediacy present online that is very useful. While one way of life may be ending, another seems to have sprung up in its place. I certainly understand the worries of those who feel we may be incautiously scrapping what existed for centuries and in so doing destroying forever a system that has accomplished an incredible amount of good. At times this fear is my very own, but I also recognize that the internet has been an amazing pallet for creative expression. Speaking in a purely spiritual context, I have seen my views validated and confirmed by people I would otherwise never have met or encountered in person, regardless of whether I was twenty-five at the time or eighty-five.

Do I visualize the cyber-meeting or cyber-church replacing a gathering of people in a physical setting? No, not really. To me, at least, there will always be a role and place for it. But what I do envision is that internet-based community will strengthen the bonds of common cause and unity among fellow believers. I see it as a supremely helpful resource and in many ways analogous to the small group model that has been practiced by many individual faith gatherings for the past several years. Some ideal mix between ground-based and internet-based worship seems to me the most sensible solution. Religious minorities, among which Quakers are merely one example, have developed novel solutions to challenges over the years. In an age well before electronic communication, certain faith groups extended a hand to members and attenders who were unable to attend weekly gatherings. Because of physical limitations or due to the fact that they lived in remote parts of the country where gatherings were miles away, these worshipers opted to receive devotional material in the mail. I think a similar model can be utilized in this circumstance, too, and certainly not simply as an outreach to the disabled, the shut-in, or the isolated.

Micah's post focused particularly on retaining that which we have. I agree with him that doing so is very important. But I find a particular leaning and calling to extend a hand out to those who have never heard of Quakerism beyond a face on a box of oatmeal, or the name of a street. The internet could not be a more effective tool to accomplish this. My own talents lend me to embrace what we have rather than devise a strategy that, to me, is akin to swimming upstream. If we accept that, at least for right now, maintaining lasting membership and attendance in any meeting or church might be unfeasible, then I'd rather find a way to reach outside the existing structure to cast my net on a different side of the boat. In so doing, I might find myself with more fish than I had ever dreamed.

Quote of the Week

"If you admit that to silence your opponent by force is to win an intellectual argument, then you admit the right to silence people by force."- Hans Eysenck

Saturday Video

Mountain of Regret