Category: Writing

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celebrating independence day?

Image: And Justice for All -- Pledge of Allegiance 5-9-09, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from stevendepolo's photostream

Happy Independence Day!

I am conflicted about this holiday.  I love the United States of America.  As a student of history and politics, I truly believe our democracy is the best political system in the world, even though I also know it can be deeply dysfunctional and destructive, and is always in need of reform.  I believe a major reason our nation is great is that we are a nation of immigrants, a melting pot, where variety adds to the beauty and strength of our people, though I question how we can celebrate that history even as our people fear monger about our neighbors to the south who desire a better life in our country.  And I also know that we are still not great at living side by side as a diverse nation.  I know that our past and our present bear the stain of hatred and cruelty and violence and oppression.  I know that institutionalized racism and sexism continue to this day, that our Founders were not perfect men, but rather falliable humans who created an imperfect document in our Constitution, great as it is, because they denied the full personhood of nonwhites and nonmales.  I know that the American Dream is all but impossible for many who are born here and even more who are not.  I know that much cruelty and violence and oppression have been carried out in the world in the name of American values, and I abhor all war and violence.

I think my discomfort with this very American holiday comes mostly from my love of Jesus.  I’m reminded of a Derek Webb song called “A King and a Kingdom.” (Well, actually, I’m reminded of more than a few Derek Webb songs today, including “My Enemies are Men Like Me”.)  “A King and a Kingdom” includes the line “My first allegiance is not to a flag, a country, or a man. My first allegiance is not to democracy or blood. It’s to a King and a Kingdom.”  On a day when so many churches will be singing patriotic songs and waving American flags, we need prophetic voices like Derek’s reminding us that we are first and foremost citizens of the Kingdom of God.  That we are first and foremost servants of the God who is Love, and, as I read in a piece by Shane Claibourne on the Huffington Post today: “Love is infinitely boundless and all about holy trespassing and offensive friendships.”

The God we love and serve is no respecter of boundaries or borders or citizenship or anything that separates His beloved children from Him and from each other.  He doesn’t bless one nation to the detriment of another, but, as the Bible says, sends rain (a very good thing) to both the righteous and the unrighteous—God longs to bless and love each and every one of us.  I’m reminded of one of my favorite bumper stickers from one of my favorite singer-songwriters, David LaMotte: “God bless the people of EVERY nation.”  It’s what I say to myself when I hear others say “God bless America.”

I’m sure most people who say “God bless America,” don’t mean “God bless us and not others.” Or, “God bless us, and curse our enemies.”  But to me, it’s a statement that is fundamentally exclusive of most of the people whom God loves very deeply, and it’s a statement I’m just not comfortable making.  We are already so amazingly, lavishly, almost disgustingly blessed.  I know some have amended “God bless America” to “America bless God.”  I think I would amend it further: “America, be a blessing to the world.”  That is my prayer today.  I pray it would be on my heart always.  Much like God’s covenant with Israel, to bless them that they might be a blessing to the world; much like Spiderman’s theology of “with great power comes great responsibility,” I think Americans have been given so much that they might give it away.  I strive to live that out, but I need to try harder.  I need to declare independence from consumerism and materialism, so that I might turn from my own selfishness and be more of a blessing to others.

And I’m sure if my more conservative friends could read this, they’d think I’m a “typical liberal” who “wants America to fail” or who is “ashamed of her country” or part of the “blame America first crowd.”  Maybe that’s all true.  I will say that I know that in no other country in the world would I be who I am.  In no other country in the world would I have the opportunities I have had.  And for this I am grateful.  But I do not believe these things come from my country, or my government.  I believe these things come from God.  And I believe God wants good things for all God’s people, whatever nation they may call their earthly home.

So today, I will go down by a river, sit on a blanket, hear a symphony play Sousa marches, and sing along with patriotic songs.  I will watch fireworks exploding in the night sky.  And I will be thankful to have grown up in a country where I am free to love Jesus and think critically and conscientiously object.  I will think of the beauty of our land and our people, and will pray that we may be better stewards of both.  I will dream of a day when we live up to our potential, because we have so very much.  And I will pray, “God bless us, everyone, all whom you love, stand beside us, and guide us, through the night with a light from above.”

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this is just to say

This is just a quick post to say there might not be any posts for a while.  Saturday is move day, and it might be a while after we get settled in before I can resume posting.  Please think happy thoughts and send up prayers for a smooth move, if you’re so inclined.

As a random bonus, I totally got this post’s title off a poem by William Carlos Williams:

This Is Just To Say
by William Carlos Williams
I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold
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enjoying the world cup? check out the homeless world cup!

I’m really enjoying the World Cup.  As I type, I’m watching Argentina play Korea.  I’m not an athlete, but soccer is one of my most favorite sports to watch, because the action is constant and the rules, once you understand the whole “offsides thing” are pretty easy to understand.  I just read a Don Miller post about whether or not soccer is the unifying “beautiful game” its fans say it is.  Don says no.  But I suspect he hasn’t seen a film I’ve seen.  That film is “Kicking It” and it’s about the Homeless World Cup.  You can check it out now on Netflix instant streaming.  I reviewed it this time last year, and thought I’d repost that review in honor of the World Cup:

The other night, Jon and I Netflixed a really great documentary called “Kicking It,” which is about the Homeless World Cup. It was a great film, focused on six individual players from different countries as they make their way onto teams and to South Africa to play soccer.

At first, it may seem like a strange form of outreach, forming soccer teams of homeless people. I mean, aren’t there other, more concrete things they need beyond a recreational activity? But soccer is more powerful than it may seem. Just being on a team, having goals, getting to celebrate small successes is a new experience for many of the players, who are often lonely outcasts, estranged from family, battling addictions. One player from Ireland was attempting to end a heroin addiction, and being on the soccer team in essence gave him a reason to keep living, a reason for his mother to finally be proud of him, a reason to get clean. Another player from America had been abused and rejected by his family, and was dealing with lots of anger and abandonment issues, but being on a team was sort of his first experience in a functioning “family,” one that expected him to deal with his anger in more appropriate ways. Continue reading “enjoying the world cup? check out the homeless world cup!”

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boycotting BP?

Image: "Boycott BP", a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike (2.0) image from rustyboxcars's photostream

Pretty much everyone is REALLY ANGRY about the ongoing BP oil volcano deep in the Gulf of Mexico.  I’m angry too.  But when lots of people start calling for a boycott of BP, I get off the boat. Or oil rig. Or whatever.  Boycotting BP just won’t work.

For one thing, oil is a commodity.  It’s bought and sold on a worldwide market, with production and prices determined for all of it by cartels like OPEC.  So long as we’re buying gas from *someone*, prices will stay the same, and BP will still be making profits, because you’re never going to get enough people to boycott one gas provider to really hurt their bottom line.

Not to mention, if you refuse to shop at a BP station, you’re probably not hurting BP at all, but rather a small business owner who owns the franchise, since BP doesn’t own most BP stations.  And if you get your gas at a Kroger or a Costco, you just might be buying BP gas anyway.  And you’re going to have to avoid products from BP subsidiaries like Castrol and Wild Bean Cafe.

For another thing, as this excellent Newsweek piece points out, ALL of the oil companies are pretty deplorable.  If you don’t give your money to BP, who are you going to give it to? Exxon, who dumped a bunch of oil on Alaska during the Valdez oil spill and still hasn’t finished paying for all the damages?   Texaco/Chevron, who are accused of dumping toxic waste into the Ecuadorian rainforests? Citgo, whose profits prop up a Venezuelan dictator?  Shell, who are accused of supporting human rights abuses and of environmental degradation in the Niger Delta (40% of the US’s oil imports come from Nigeria, where more oil is spilled by the likes of Shell and ExxonMobil every year than has been spilled at BP’s Deepwater Horizon)?  The piece makes pretty clear, there is no “better” oil company to support.

However, the Newsweek piece also says:

The only way to make this the last oil spill in the gulf is to make oil obsolete. Shall we all hop on our bicycles, charge our plug-in hybrids with wind-generated electricity, swap out the heating oil or natural gas warming our homes for geothermal wells and passive solar?

Didn’t think so.

Why not?

Why can’t we all hop on our bicycles more often? Via the League of American Bicyclists:

According to the Nationwide Personal Transportation Survey, 25 percent of all trips are made within a mile of the home, 40 percent of all trips are within two miles of the home, and 50 percent of the working population commutes five miles or less to work. Yet more than 82 percent of trips five miles or less are made by personal motor vehicle.

I’ll tell you what– I’m mad about the BP oil spill, and I’m not just going to talk the talk, I’m going to walk the walk. I have a bicycle, but I haven’t been riding it to the store like I know I should, as someone concerned about climate change. Rather than boycotting BP, I’m going to ride my bike if I go to the grocery store this week. Even though it’s hot. Even though it’s hard. Even though I’d really rather not.  And I’m willing to bet there’s a few trips you could make on foot or by bicycle this week, too.

I really just don’t get where Newsweek gets off pooh-pooh-ing what could be a real solution to the problem of our country being held hostage to deplorable companies like BP just because we’re junkies who need our fix of what they’re selling.  If, as this amazing infographic suggests, 71% of our oil goes to transportation, and, as mentioned above, most of our trips are within five miles of our homes, we could seriously cut our oil consumption AND seriously cut companies like BP’s profits if we just hopped on our bikes, walked, or rode public transit for short trips.  It may not be as easy as boycotting BP, but it would go a much longer way toward actually hurting BP’s bottom line.

Sure, we need to lobby the government to more seriously regulate oil companies.  We need to recognize that offshore drilling, with the catastrophic risks that go along with it, is just not worth it, as the same infographic points out that the US generates about 1.5 million barrels of oil each YEAR through offshore drilling but consumes 19.5 million barrels of oil per DAY. (I’d do the math and tell you what percentage of our total oil consumption comes from domestic offshore drilling, but I majored in English, so I don’t know how to do that.)  We need to shift our economy away from petroleum as our primary fuel source.  But the only way for any of that to work is if we each and every one of us seriously cut our fuel consumption.  And to do that, yes, Newsweek, we shall all have to hop on our bicycles and start walking more.  Maybe then we can use the money we’re saving on gas to get solar panels on our roofs and buy plug-in hybrids and invest in geothermal heating.

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packing and panicking and other fun times

Image "To Go", a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from mojodenbowsphotostudio's photostream

Yesterday I packed the first of what will surely be many boxes in anticipation of moving in two weeks.  And yesterday evening, I sat on the couch, sobbing into my husband’s chest.  He asked me why I was so sad about moving, and I couldn’t even put it into words.  Still can’t.  All I can muster is, “It’s just SO HARD.”  Yes, I’m scared about what is going to happen to us financially if we can’t sell our house here.  Yes, I’m scared about finding a job in Little Rock.  And yes, I’m looking forward to meeting all the people in Little Rock that I’ve already befriended online, and I’m looking forward to reconnecting with old friends, and I’m looking forward to spending time with my family, so you’d think I’d be overjoyed.  But I’m not.  At least not yet.  So for now, I’m packing boxes, and tallying up lasts– last Monday morning drive to work, last trip to the beach, last visits to our favorite restaurants–and I’m piling up Kleenex, and I’m stacking up worries.  If you notice I’m quiet around here, or otherwise, please send up a little prayer or some positive vibes for me, as these next two weeks are sure to be very, very hard.

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Obama and the Oil Spill

President Barack Obama, National Incident Commander Admiral Thad Allen, and Lafourche Parish President Charlotte Randolph look at the effect the BP oil spill has had on Fourchon Beach in Port Fourchon, La., May 28, 2010. (Official White House photo by Pete Souza), Image via the Official White House Flickr Photostream

I am angry about the oil spill, and unlike President Obama, I’ve been angry ever since it happened, on Earth Day– I didn’t have to be badgered by reporters into packing my angry eyes, just in case (Toy Story reference, heck yes). But more than just being angry, I want answers.

I’ve been annoyed with the right wing meme that the BP Deepwater Horizon oil disaster is “Obama’s Katrina.” But, if the problem with Bush’s handling of Katrina was that he downplayed the extent of the disaster, failed to make it a proper priority, kept incompetent people in charge of the recovery even after their incompetence was known, and failed to take responsibility for his administration’s role in the disaster, well then, I’m starting to think maybe this IS Obama’s Katrina after reading this piece, “The Spill, The Scandal, and the President,” from Rolling Stone. (Though I remain frustrated with the comparison, because obviously, Katrina involved a huge loss of human life and a huge amount of human suffering, and the response involved a heaping helping of racism.)  Because I know not everyone has time to sit down and read a 10 page piece, I thought I’d *highly encourage* you to check it out, while also hitting some of the high points here.  If you’ve been reading here for any length of time, you know I’m generally a big Obama fan. But I think he and his administration dropped the ball bigtime on this disaster. Continue reading “Obama and the Oil Spill”

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Wordless Wednesday: my children

Bessie dog.
Olive Pup.
Happeee Ollie.

These two dogs are best friends.  For the better part of the last hour, while I sat drinking my coffee and internetting, as golden sunshine filtered through the curtains in our living room, they’ve been wrestling and playing tug-of-war with their rope toy.  Jon sat on the couch, having just got in after working a night shift at the hospital, and he said: “I don’t know how anyone could watch these two play and decide to have only one dog.” It’s true. Two dogs are better than one. They entertain each other, they bring out each other’s dog-ness, and they’re almost as fun to watch as TV.  Sure, it was a pain in the ass trying to find a rental house that would allow my two large dogs, but I found one, and I wouldn’t trade my two puppers for anything.

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Dressing for a case of the Mondays

My rainy day motivational outfit. Please ignore my rainy day hair.

A new study says that people tend to put more effort into their appearance on Mondays, paying less attention to their looks as the week wears on.  The study seems to suggest that as the work week progresses, we get more and more tired, and can’t put forth the effort that we do on Mondays.  I’d offer an alternate explanation.

I too, tend to dress up more on Mondays than Thursdays and Fridays. But it’s not because I’m too tired to look nice later in the week.  It’s because I’m trying to reverse psychologize myself via my clothes.  Fake it til you make it.  You know what I mean.

On a Monday, when I’m wishing my weekend were longer, dragging myself out of bed, struggling to get motivated to go to work, I often reach for one of my prettiest dresses, hoping the pretty will permeate my skin with some positive energy to get me to work and get me through the day.

I think it works! I once sent my sister a greeting card that said: “Just ask Cinderella: the right shoes can change your life!”  I believe it.  I may not be a high heels kind of girl, but today, for example, is a stormy Tuesday after a lovely Memorial Day weekend filled with beach time and cookouts.  To add insult to injury, I’m an administrative assistant for an academic department at a college.  The chair’s almost never in in the summer, and most of the students and faculty are gone. I have next to nothing to do, which leads me to believe my time would better be spent napping through a thunderstorm than sitting at a desk.  Not to mention, I have less than a month left at this job!  So what am I wearing today? A fabulous pink and black floral-printed dress that fits me perfectly (a miracle, since it was randomly purchased for me by my husband online) and black patent-leather ballet flats.  My outfit is providing me with a little bit of sunshine on a day that otherwise is gray and dreary.  No matter that my shoes were full of water by the time I got to the office this morning: I look fab, so I feel like I just might make it through the work day.

Surely I can’t be the only one.

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Does God root root root for the home team?

Image: NY Jets vs. Buffalo, Oct 2009 - 02, a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike (2.0) image from yourdon's photostream

One topic of conversation that frequently comes up between my sports-fan husband and me (particularly now that his favorite team, the Denver Broncos, drafted he of the Bible verses on his cheeks, Tim Tebow) is the role of faith in sports.  We’re both often bothered by the theology of prayer on the pitch (or field, or court, or whatever, but the alliteration of pitch just worked well there)– what does it say to nonbelievers, for example, if you pray over the loudspeaker, or even in the locker room, for no one to get injured, and then someone does get injured?  I remember standing on the sidelines in my band uniform, waiting to perform at halftime at a high school football game, when a classmate of mine was tackled hard, breaking his femur so badly the end of it was literally stuck in the field.  Was that horrific injury a problem of faith? Did that player not have enough? Did the person who prayed before the game not pray the right words? Was God rooting for the other team?

This morning my husband emailed me a link to this article, “When did God become a sports fan?” from CNN’s website.  He said: “interesting read.  won’t learn anything, but interesting that CNN’s talking about it.” Very interesting indeed!

From the get, the very idea that God would be helping a MMA fighter win stuck in my craw.  Really? The God who designed our very bodies? You think that God would be fond of a sport that involves beating the very crap out of someone? That that God would be proud to be credited with your victory as your opponent is left so groggy he has to be led out of the ring?  Call me a hippie pacifist if you want, but I just don’t get the idea that God’s a fan of MMA fighting.

Beyond my issues with violence, though, the idea that God picks sides really confuses me.  As my friend Ryan Byrd blogged today: God sends good things to both the evil and the righteous.  He doesn’t pick teams on whom to bestow blessing, because God is interested in blessing everyone.

I also particularly liked this point from the CNN piece:

Tom Krattenmaker, author of “Onward Christian Athletes,” says many evangelical athletes who publicly thank Jesus for victory have nothing to say about other issues such as the pervasive use of steroids in sports or racial discrimination against aspiring minority coaches.

“It’s an incomplete Christianity that’s brought to bear on sports, ” Krattenmaker says. “They are blind and silent on the larger moral issues that vex the sports sector.”

It would actually be really refreshing to hear a Christian athlete chime in on one of these more major moral issues and how their faith informs their views on those issues, rather than simply weighing in on whether or not they think God is on their side when they win or lose.

Ultimately, I think I come down on the side of devout Catholic and Seattle Mariners baseball player Mike Sweeney, who, as mentioned in the article, is not a fan of the sort of loud-mouthed “God made us win” rhetoric we so often hear from players of faith.  Sweeney says:

“If I’m facing Andy Pettitte on the Yankees and I’m praying for a home run, and he’s praying for a strikeout, I don’t think the result is going to show who has greater faith…It’s easy being a Christian when you’re hitting .345, but you let me know who you really are when you’re hitting .245 and going through the valley…Saint Francis of of Assisi says preach the gospel at all times and, when necessary, use words. That’s something I’ve tried to live my whole life.”

I’m reminded of several of my favorite tennis players, like Roger Federer, who epitomize grace on the court win or lose. I have no idea if Roger is a Christian, but his gracious attitude toward his opponents shines in every single interview I see with him. Those kinds of things speak to me much louder than a point to the heavens after a big score or Bible verses embedded in eyeblack.

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Getting street-harassed? It’s probably your soul

Even if I dressed like this, I have a feeling I'd still experience street harassment. Image: Women on the street, a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike (2.0) image from zoomzoom's photostream

I’m a long-time subscriber to the Christian publication Relevant magazine, and got my first start in the world of internet interaction as a commenter on their message boards back in high school.  I receive their email newsletter, and when it popped up in my inbox this afternoon, I clicked through to read a piece on modesty that was billed with the following: “Ed Gungor says the key to modesty lies in our hearts—not necessarily our dress.”  I was immediately relieved, thinking this would not be yet another piece telling women it’s our job to hide our shameful bodies to keep men from “lusting.”

As I read the beginning of the piece, I was even more relieved, as the writer described a time he had been upset by what he thought was immodesty on the part of some teenage girls, only to later realize the real problem was with him and his own history and issues, causing him to perceive their dress as immodest and use it as an excuse for his own sinful thoughts.

However, later, the piece took a turn for the worse as the author suggested that there is something about people’s souls that causes them to be “hit on,” in public– “hit on” being a nice phrase for street harassment, the kind of thing I’ve written about, and something I actually experience fairly regularly.  The author writes:

I have spoken to many men and women who told me they were frequently “hit on” as they traveled and went out into public. Though some of them were exceptionally nice-looking and fashionably dressed, many were not. On the other hand, I have spoken to both men and women who were attractive by anyone’s standard—even some who dressed more revealingly than I was comfortable with—but they were seldom “hit on” or ogled by others. Why? What was the difference? It wasn’t their clothing; it was their souls. It has just as much (or more) to do with the person they wanted to present and their own struggles with lust as with what they wore.

Ah! So it’s my SOUL that causes men to scream at me from their trucks as they drive past me while I walk down the sidewalk on my way to the bus stop. Clearly, my soul cries out, “Please! Call me sugar tits!”

I could make a whole defense, posting pictures of myself in my usual summer clothes, which tend to be jersey dresses from J.Crew and skirts paired with form fitting crewneck tees.  But the thing is, with so many experiences of street harassment, or “being hit on,” I’ve come to realize something: when I am harassed on the street, it has nothing to do with me. It’s not about what I’m wearing. It’s not about my soul. It’s about the men doing the yelling, and their desire to intimidate me, to make themselves feel like big burly men, to prove their own patriarchal power to themselves.

And the only thing that is going to stop this behavior from street harassers is for us to call it what it is.  It’s harassment. It’s inappropriate. It’s designed for intimidation.  And it’s not about me, or what I’m wearing, or my “soul” which may or may not be visible from a pickup truck going 35 miles per hour down Calhoun Street, anyway.  It’s about despicable people who get off on intimidating and humiliating women who dare to be female and in public.  Articles like this one posted on Relevant may be well-intentioned, but ultimately they give harassers excuses– this time, instead of “she was asking for it in that skirt,” it’s “but you should have seen her SOUL!”