AIDS Walk 2008

It's springtime!

Maybe that means allergies. Or enjoying the pretty flowers. Or cleaning out closets.

But it definitely means walking.

For the second year in a row, CCfB has had teams in the MS Walk and the AIDS Walk. Today was the MS Walk and several people were absent from PS 261 today as they were walking across the Brooklyn Bridge to raise money for the National MS Society.

Next month is the AIDS Walk. Clare and I did this last year--got on a train in Princeton Junction, met up with the CCfB team and walked through the Central Park alongside tons and tons of other people. Our fundraising goal in 2007 was $50 and it was met in ONE donation and that made us very happy...so I thought this year we would double it, send out an email, and hope for the best. You can check the sidebar to see how we're doing...and yep, that's right--we're nearly double our $100 goal for this year. Wowee! (That doesn't mean we wouldn't accept more, of course.) We're already working on our thank you notes. :)

This is one of the great things about CCfB...it's not just that we do these things, but that we do them because someone among us has a passion for this particular way of helping make the world a better place. This is why we walk to help raise money for organizations dedicated to alleviating the suffering caused by particular diseases, and it's why this past year we bought a cow and counted the homeless, and why we help support a small church in Mexico and Camp Shiloh. It's why we switched from disposable coffee cups to washing our own mugs after service and to fair trade coffee. It's why Joe can blog about his dreams of starting a tutoring program, and it's why I've no doubt that dream will come true too.

In a month or so I'll be posting pics of me & Clare and CCfB at the 2008 AIDS Walk New York. This time, you'll see Clare on her feet in her teeny little tennis shoes instead of bundled to my hip in my beautiful homemade Maya wrap sling. I expect I'll be a lot less exhausted afterward this time around.

currently thinking about

Vocation.

Language of "calling" is somewhat foreign to me, although I have learned to use the word in a way that fits well enough within my other theological commitments. But it is not language I grew up with. "Call" seems to imply a sense of God's intimate and detailed providential involvement, not just in the world, but in one's own individual daily life and decision making processes. But this language has also been somewhat formalized, so that potential pastors and ministers in many traditions talk not just about "call" in a theological sense but a practical one as well--one finds a call to this place or that place, this church or that church, this ministry or that. In this more formalized sense, when all the negotiations and handshakings and prelims are over and one is invited to accept a position somewhere, it is called a "call:" I've accepted a call to such-and-such Church in Wherevertown, USA.

But we don't do that in the CofC, really. So in trying to think theologically about vocation and calling in our ecclesial context, there are a lot of things to be sorted out. How does vocation relate to formal ordination, and how does the lack of formal ordination in CofC practice affect how we do or don't use language of vocation? How does a doctrinal commitment to priesthood of all believers affect our sense of ministry and the status of preachers, teachers, elders, deacons, and others specially "called" to serve the church in specifically designated ways that intersect with our strong sense of everyone's status as a minister? Do we or don't we give our preachers a special kind of authority and status? Is this or isn't it consistent with our doctrine? What exactly is spiritual leadership and spiritual authority, and how is this related to vocation and formal or informal ordination?

And how, in the midst of all of this, do we talk about the vocation of women within our churches?

This year's Women in Ministry Conference is set for May 12-14, at the Manhattan Church of Christ. The topic is vocation; and the list of speakers for this year is exciting--women who have been working through all of the above, not just by sitting in a chair in front of a computer and blogging about these theological questions, but by living them and working them out in the most intimate way possible. They embody their answers to these questions, and they'll be sharing the fruits of their experiences with us.

culling the crowd

Some of you may have noticed that this blog, unlike many others, does not require a word verification or a blogger name/password in order to comment. That's mostly because I blog about things most people aren't interested in discussing--personal news, occasional theology and posthumanism just doesn't get much traffic. That's fine, because that's how I like it.

But other blogs and groups are organized around the purpose of generating discussion and/or debate. GKB's was a veritable hotbed of controversy back in the day before he got kindler and gentler. It can be an enjoyable or exasperating distraction, and it can sometimes lead to a helpful clarification or expansion of a topic, a sort of virtual seminar, if it goes well. But it doesn't always go well and probably mostly doesn't; many people have noted that the anonymity and disembodiedness of virtual encounter in the blogosphere tends to encourage loosened standards with regard to the epistemic virtues of intellectual rigor, honesty, humility, and courtesy.

Which brings me to my question. How do you determine when enough is enough? What standards are fair when deciding to block comments or bar participation? And how do you balance this with maintaining a spirit of openness to dissent--an absolutely necessary component to any collaborative human effort at seeking truth together? When does moderation become censorship? When does dissent become blasphemy? When does consensus become tyranny?

And what might our alien friends think of all this misbehavior?

mommy's precious little political pundit

Well, Clare didn't make the cut, but CNN ran a story on the incredible number of Obama baby videos on youtube nowadays...apparently enough to constitute their own "genre." And the number of hits on Clare's video have spiked--now almost 1500 views and a few more comments as well, some of which seem really engaged in figuring out if the baby videos are just mimicking sounds or these babies actually mean something. This is apparently turning into a real discussion.

Now, of course MY baby is a total verbal genius but I think it's hilarious that people would take seriously the "issue" of what these babies mean. CNN got a speech development expert to point out that "ba" and "ma" are the two most commonly babbled sounds a baby makes (in almost any language, I would add) and therefore "Obama" is just a baby-friendly name that's fun and easy to repeat. Ummm...DUH. (That's also a baby-friendly syllable fun and easy to repeat. Let's say it again: DUH.) And anyhow, if someone were to disagree with that obvious point...would we really therefore be contending that these babies and toddlers are somehow expressing some kind of considered political opinion? Clearly if there is any pre-opinion being expressed it's a matter of picking up cues from the folks. The little monkeys are pretty good at that, after all.

So what's the point, if it's not that these babies are geniuses, or that they're really endorsing a candidate?

It's just damn cute, for one thing.

And it says to the world, not "hey world I'm a genius toddler and I'm voting for Obama" but "hey people, I have a proud mommy and daddy who think I'm cute and who support Obama for President." Now that means something.

the cyborg candidate

Disclaimers:

1. This is not a post about the governor of California.


2. I'm no conspiracy theorist. Calling Obama the cyborg candidate doesn't mean I think he's remote controlled through a chip in his brain by extremists. (Although I expect that rumor's already circulating somewhere; last week I received a forward that Obama is the Anti-Christ. Which, as Scott Freeman points out, doesn't really tell you whether the Left Behind-ists will vote for or against him...)

So, now that the crazy options are out of the way you may be wondering just what the heck I do mean. Well, while I sincerely try to avoid discussing my dissertation topic when in polite company, I do occasionally vent my enthusiasm for the posthuman here on the blog.

But this cyborg stuff isn't all academic. In the beginning, the cyborg was political, not academic. And while this aspect of the cyborg may indeed have gotten "lost" along the way, it's not been lost on me; and the bottom line, evident in Haraway's Cyborg Manifesto, (or you may prefer the comic version), is that the cyborg is about dropping essentialisms and identity politics so we can get together and finally get some things done.

Now, does that sound familiar, anyone?

Before I go any further, let me unpack a bit. What is a cyborg? A cyborg is a creature that breaks down the ontological boundary between organism and machine: part organic, part mechanical. The word was coined in 1960 by a couple of scientists dreaming up ways to explore space; it seemed like a lot of trouble to engineer a mobile life-sustaining environment to meet all of the needs of the earth-bound human body...so they thought, why not engineer the body to dispense with those needs, or meet them some other way? Of course we haven't quite achieved this yet, although the cutting edge technology in things like prostheses and silicon chips that allow quadriplegics to manipulate computer cursors is pretty damn amazing. But that's not really the point. The point is, the cyborg represents a form of life that refuses to fit neatly into our conceptual categories: person/thing, alive/inanimate, human/machine, etc. The cyborg has a foot in both worlds, and to ignore that fact means pretending it doesn't exist, refusing to see it as it is.

Writers in postcolonial theology muse on cultural/social/racial hybridity in a parallel way: neither one category or the other, they forge identity out of between-ness, the both/and, the neither/nor. And this brings us to Obama, who is hybrid in a way similar to these postcolonial theorists: the son of a white mother and a black father.

The disappointing thing to me about the Rev. Wright stuff is not really in what the man said, or even how what he said was twisted around and used against, not him, but someone else...as if, should Joe Hays ever do/say something crazy prophetic, it would somehow reflect on me personally. (Joe, I know you're crazy prophetic all the time. Keep on.) No, what's disappointing to me is that this in effect reintroduces, with a vengeance, into the campaign discourse the very thing Obama has been seeking to transcend: identity politics. If he stands with Rev. Wright, then he's too black and scary for comfortable white folks, too revolutionary, too angry to be trusted...If he disowns Rev. Wright, then he's too white and scared for righteously angry black folks who understand the truth in the Reverend's prophetic utterances. It's all about trying to make Obama declare himself: are you white, or are you black? Are you or aren't you running as a black candidate, to become the first black President?

The fact that Obama's response to this provocation was a speech on race in America indicates to me that he gets it. It's not really enough to claim a hybrid pedigree personally, although I think it's evident that growing up with a sense of not knowing to which category you belong--and constantly being recategorized as the Other by everyone you come across--shapes your experience in a way that makes the limitations of those categories painfully obvious. Obama's not simply the cyborg candidate because he's the offspring of a black-white hybrid family. He's the cyborg candidate because, like Haraway, he realizes that it's not desirable or even possible to dream of uniting people on the basis of common identity anymore. That's not what we want. That's not the goal. It doesn't work. Haraway's point about the cyborg is that there's nothing basic, essential, on which we can unite. Haraway realized this in 1985, reflecting on the fragmentation of the feminist movement in the U.S. Even white women in America, who briefly came together and united on the basis of a fabricated common identity as Woman, found out the hard way that oops, we're actually a bunch of women who are all different...and that was before we learned the even harder lesson that we shouldn't have left out the black women, the Latina women, the Chinese- and Japanese- and Korean-American women (not Asian-American! Asia's a continent not an ethnicity!), all the women in other global contexts who have something to tell us about their own experiences and needs and hopes.

Obama articulates the same realization when he urges us to unite in order to work towards common goals despite differences in color, creed, and experience. What's so impressive about his candidacy is that he has somehow managed to do this--every CNN retrospective breakdown of every primary, you see votes busted up: the white vote, the black vote, the Hispanic vote, the women vote, the white male vote. And despite the fact that these categories are so taken for granted in America today that we receive this kind of categorical analysis as normal and coherent, what we see is that Obama's candidacy makes these taken-for-granted lines, drawn and redrawn in every political analysis, obsolete. Perhaps a better word than "unity," which seems to indicate a seamless whole, is Haraway's "coalition," a word Obama also employs; coalition doesn't imply melting into one another and merging into a whole that obliterates the differences between us that are real and important--those differences that make us, for better or worse, who we are. Instead it's through those differences, the recognition and communication and comprehension of them, that we come together; that is coalition. Haraway talks about it as chosen affinity, a matter of conscious alignment with one another; sometimes she talks about it as kinship--but not the kinship of blood relation, more like the kinship of adoption. A chosen affinity, a coalition of difference...but not, for that reason, any less real or potent.

In fact, for that very reason, all the more so. This is what I, very hopefully, see in Obama's candidacy. An option for coming together that skips the necessity of me being like you.

Now, if we could just learn this lesson theologically and ecclesially, maybe Jesus could come back already. Because Obama's right on something else, too: the most segregated hour in this nation happens on Sunday mornings. But if Jesus' speaking to adulterous women and traitorous tax collectors and dirty Samaritans hasn't somehow hammered the lesson that "me being like you" is not a prereq for unity, then the reiteration of that message from a political candidate, even a cyborg candidate, may fall on deaf ears; those who have ears to hear, let them hear.

3BT

1. Even in the middle of a catastrophic day where nothing is going right for her, Clare still loves Albert. Amity's description: "they're sitting at her table looking at each other and smiling, like they're a couple at a cafe." Ah, toddler love.
2. Ira Hays is home (and, I'm sure, making a lot of noise)!
3. I can always make another pot of coffee.

How many of you caught the Barbara Walters' special on anti-aging technologies tonight? What do you think?

excuses and miscellany

• Lately I've been working hard on the article my friend & favorite feminist theologian invited me to co-write. It's been a marvelous experience: the first really fun academic writing I've done in ages, an absolute joy to really dialogue with someone about ideas I'm passionate about without competitiveness or rancor (even in disagreement!), an opportunity to really delve deep into one of the most important scholars for my dissertation work and understand her better, and to develop my own "feminist voice," for this essay (unlike my academic writing to date) has a personal dimension and a poetic flourish. I've learned a lot...and not least that it really is possible to produce good academic work in a process free from the petty competition that characterizes so much academic exchange.
• I'm really loving the classic Sesame Street clips and TMBG ABC's and 123's videos...(thanks for the tip, Rick!) Really, youtube just keeps getting better and better! Clare has now graduated from the familiar shapes of circle, square, oval, triangle, diamond to "octagon" thanks in part at least to the awesome song "Nonagon." (Everyone should also check out "High Five.") Plus, there's a whole bunch of Obama babies' videos out there--apparently all toddlers are wise enough to know a good thing when they see it...(Clare's is the best though!!! a totally impartial judgment).
• I'm resolving to be in bed by 10:00pm every night from now on. I've had enough of waking up feeling like total crap in the morning. I've also had enough of waking up and finding Clare totally covered in crap, but that's a different problem, not so easily resolved.
• I'm also resolving to lose this last bit of baby weight by the time I have to get back into a swimsuit for the Thweatt fam reunion at the beach in NC in June. Ten years ago at the last one I wore a 2-piece. I still have it--it's the only swimsuit I own. So I guess I need to be able to fit into it, and it would be nice to feel good in it too.
• It's my turn to pick up teaching the toddler class at CCfB again. Despite feeling compelled to adjust some of the suspect theology in their lessons, and really enjoying getting to participate in worship and hearing sermons live, I've missed it. Dots! I can't wait to give Ira and Clare their 3 dots for being such good little kiddies!
• I'm really glad a friend here at GTS has taken the initiative to start a weekly mom's group. It's casual, Clare loves playing her friend A, and it's so nice to talk parenting with other people going through the same things you are. And, it gets me out of the isolation that I slide into when left to my own devices. (My own devices=computer.)
• I'm really awkward making casual conversation with people I don't know. I talk a lot, so that maybe people won't notice how awkward I feel, and then I do something like somehow inadvertently give a conservative Baptist the impression I'm an unwed mom. No, no...I'm just not wearing my ring because I deboned a chicken Thursday night. Honest, I swear. Really. Then again, I don't really feel like being mistaken for an unwed mother is the end of the world anyway, so &*@# it.
• Oregon Trail and Text Twirl were short-lived Facebook fads for me...but Scrabulous endures. (MOM, I'm winning this game BTW.) My theory that multiple player games are always won by the player who starts them (and goes first) may have been disproven but I think it's just an instance of the exception proving the rule.
• I've been loving Marti Stanley's very bright green blog lately. After this post, I scrubbed my whole bathroom with baking soda and vinegar. I won't be trying my hand at composting for awhile yet though...that takes, you know, a yard.
• I think about my sister Ally a lot more than I ever talk to her. I had a great plan for calling her every Wednesday afternoon, since that's when she was in the Choluteca office near a phone. Nowadays though she's not in the office much anymore, since she's working hard over at the Children's Home (where hopefully CCfB's cow named Brooklyn is living the good life and making lots o'milk!). I was bragging on her and Jarrod today at lunch. Love you, Al.
• Tomorrow Clare goes to "school" again even though it's Wednesday and Brent and I will hop on a train and go down to Madison and he will brilliantly defend his dissertation. Also, tomorrow at roughly the same time Ira is scheduled for the follow-up surgery.

Almost time for my new and improved bedtime now and I'm all out of randomness. I may, or may not, take up the suggestion to bloggily muse upon Obama sometime soon. I'd like to explain what I meant in an earlier post about him being the "cyborg candidate." That will take some actual thinking, unlike this post, which is all just fluffernuttery nonsense.

if God is infinite...

then God's got time to be annoyed by everything.

(Thanks, LP!)

on his way

A few weeks back, Brent's final requirement for the practical liturgy class he was taking was a "practice Mass." It's not a real Mass, because he's not ordained yet. He won't be able to celebrate a Mass until after he is ordained a priest, which will be at least six months after his ordination as transitional deacon, which is scheduled for early June. So it's in a third floor classroom instead of chapel (so no one gets confused and thinks it's real); hence the strange whiteboard background behind the altar. The point of course is to give everyone a little practice from the inside out--after all, no matter how familiar you are with the liturgy as a worshipper, it's different when you're leading it. It's a fairly big deal, since celebrating a Mass--even a not-really-real practice one--is a big deal. And it's a sort of rite of passage around here. Some classmates participate, some attend to support and encourage, some attend to try to trip you up by stealing the host or grabbing the chalice or otherwise acting crazy. (Watch Part 4 and see if you can figure out why everyone's snickering at they walk to their seats, and when the host gets put in someone's pocket.)

Of course, sharing this video with the world is entirely my idea and Brent loves me enough to let me have my way. He would never post this on his blog. Of course, he never posts anything on his blog.



(Part 1: Procession, Opening Collect, scripture readings, Gospel, first bit of homily)





(Part 2: rest of homily, Nicene Creed, Prayers of the People)





(Part 3 begins at about 1:20: rest of Prayers of the People, General Confession, Absolution, the Peace, the Offering, the Great Thanksgiving)

(Part 4: administration of communion, Postcommunion Prayer, Blessing, Recession)

And special thanks to my techno-savvy friend who made posting this video possible! Baked symbols of appreciation headed your way!

Kitty

So, some of you may remember a couple of years ago we discovered that Tiamat a.k.a. "Kitty" has chronic stomatitis. You may remember this because we freaked out when the vet told us we would probably have to extract all her teeth--and eventually definitely have to. That kind of procedure costs thousands of bucks...and as Brent kept pointing out with a sort of anthropocentric outrage, we haven't even been to the people dentist in years now.

So, since finding this out, our Princeton vet advised to try an initial treatment of periodic steroid shots and occasional antiobiotics to control the inflammation and infections in poor Kitty's mouth. I can still remember being 8 months pregnant with Clare, and getting down on the floor and trying to wrestle Tiamat into a position where we could squirt an alcohol-based antibiotic solution into her mouth with a syringe. (Yeah. That worked just super. After a couple rounds of that we called the vet back and said, um, NO. Alternatives? Oh, they say, just try putting it in her food. WHY didn't you SAY SO, people!!!)

Since then, every few months, we make another vet appt and take her in for a shot (or two) and another round of Clindamycin (or two). But like any stopgap measure, it loses efficacy after awhile. Plus, at $120 a visit, not even this stopgap is something we can really afford. But we have to do something for our kitty, and this has been the best we could do for her.

And never, until today, has anyone suggested that I call the Humane Society. Who runs a full-service clinic. With dental procedures. That existed for the purpose of providing necessary care for animals with owners of limited means.

Dr. Janet Ficarra at Downtown Veterinary Clinic on 9th Avenue and 19th St., YOU ARE MY CAT'S HERO.

I rushed home, called the Humane Society, asked a couple questions, and WOW. I still haven't talked to Brent, and services aren't free, but it's doable, and really, considering what it costs to make an appt every couple months at this point, more cost-effective than the steroid and antibiotics that aren't working well anymore.

So WHY oh WHY didn't this occur to me? Or WHY is it only now, with vet #3, that I get this recommendation in response to my guilty mumbled explanations of "I know we need to do it, but we just can't right now..."?

Clare says, "O-ba-ma!"

I did not, I promise, coach this. She spontaneously exclaimed "Obama!" earlier in the song, I grabbed the camera, and waited for the magic to happen again.

You can find the new Obama video here. Thanks for the link, Tracy.

this week is CRAZY LOCO!

So, Brent's week is crazy, my week is crazy, and Clare is thankfully oblivious. Oh for the simplicity of a toddler's life, where the only major academic achievement on the agenda is mastery of the ABC song. Not that I'm belittling this. This is major stuff. That girl can memorize like nothing I've ever seen. I probably should get her started on the Gettysburg Address or something.

Crazy item #1: Bonus opportunity to collaborate with my favorite feminist theologian! On feminism and cyborgs and spirituality! Yay!

Crazy item #2: AAR deadline thankfully extended to March 1 but dreadful pain in the ass trying to make a paper proposal on transhumanism align with my interests in the posthuman.

Crazy item #3: AAR deadline basically simultaneous with ACU deadline for September lectureship class topics/titles/description. Theme for '08: Righteousness of God: Exploring Romans. (Rats! Why didn't I take that Jimmy Allen class years ago when I was at Harding?) Ah well...no matter, I'm talking about cyborgs anyway. Don't believe me? Just wait. Assuming they don't take a look at my class titles and revoke the invite for reasons of sheer lunacy.

Crazy item #4: received my copies of the Leaven issue with the Canaanite woman sermon in it. Wow!

Crazy item #5: received word from the Christian Scholarship Foundation that they have renewed my grant for next year, and even more generously. Wow and wow again...and many, many thanks. It's not exaggerating to say that without this support, the dissertation would not be happening at all. I'd be waiting tables with Clare on my hip.

Summation: crazy GOOD. It's not only encouraging to have good work to do, but wildly affirming to hear an offer of collaboration, and be published, and of course, receive funding from people who have enough trust that what you're doing is worthwhile that they're willing to meet the bottom line for you.

buffering, please wait...

Not quite live blogging the debate here. We don't get MSNBC, and going to msnbc.com on Brent's computer resulted in unflattering frozen expressions, multiple reboots with requisite annoying commercials, and a lot of time sitting and staring at the words...

buffering, please wait...









Oh, we're back. So my first thought on the debate is, MSNBC sucks. Thanks a lot for taking an event of national political import, something which could potentially affect an enormous amount of people, and refusing to make it as widely available as possible to all people in multiple venues in favor of keeping the broadcasting rights all to yourself. Lovely! What does this say about the intersection of capitalism and American political process? Sure, NPR will broadcast the debate...starting at 11 pm. Gee, that's convenient.

So mainly, I'm hoping that nothing really important happened because despite intentions and a decent amount of effort, I didn't get to see it.

babies, church, and Good News

See Joe's post here.

It was such a privilege to participate in Joshua's dedication, and to pledge along with everyone else that we, CCfB, with God's help, will be Joshua's church family and nurture him as he grows in maturity and faith.

And as others have done before me (I remember a moving Communion meditation from a couple of years ago from Erin), the language of family was uppermost in my mind as I pondered the meaning of Communion this week:

When we take the time each Sunday to celebrate Communion, we recreate
together the night when Jesus first sat at the table with his disciples, and
broke the bread and drank the wine with them in the intimacy of a family eating
dinner together. These men and women who followed Jesus, learned from him,
ate and drank and talked and laughed with him, who left their homes and all that
they had out of loyalty and love for him, were his family. Jesus has said
so; earlier, when he’s told his mother and brothers want to see him; he looks
around at the people who have chosen to gather around him and says, this is my
family. Today we honor Trish and Ehi and the new family they have created,
by choosing each other and choosing this child, Joshua; at the same time, we
affirm that we are also family, all of us in this room, and promise to be that
family for Trish and Ehi. We have done this many times now; for Jasper,
for Ira, for Clare, for Annalise, and now we are privileged to do so again for
baby Joshua. This is the reality of what it means to be a church. It
is the family of God, and it is no coincidence that Paul calls us brothers and
sisters in Christ, and adopted children of God the Father. This language
of family is not casual. The language of family extends even to our
language for God. When we call God Father, especially as we prepare to
share in this meal together, we also call Jesus the Son. And when we
consider what it means that God the Father would call Jesus the Son to the
awesome responsibility of teaching and leading, and ultimately dying for and
rising up to new life again, for the sake of us—his adopted brothers and
sister—we see that the metaphor of family defines not just how we relate to each
other…but how God has chosen to relate to us.

Jesus looked around
at his family and said, “Take and eat; this is my body, broken for you.”
And he said, “Drink this, all of you; this is my blood of the new
covenant. Do this for the remembrance of me.” As we do this together
today, we remember and recreate and affirm those acts of sacrificial parental
love, of God the Father, and Jesus the Son of God, which make us all brothers
and sisters and children of God.

Yes We Can

Watching the Obama SC victory speech, I couldn't believe, even while experiencing it, that the Bob-the-Builder slogan chanting was so powerfully moving. What is it about "yes we can" that works?

When I blogged about that speech later, I ended with a halfhearted sense that maybe I would think more about the theological anthropology of "yes we can." I have been pondering this on and off since then but I don't think I can blog about it. For one thing, I've got some other deadlines to meet (thank you AAR for extending the Feb 25 deadline to Mar 1!) and for another, I'm now officially sick as a dog.

But I have noticed that my own speech has changed as a result of this slogan. When Clare gets frustrated with the buckle on her high chair--a relatively new fine-motor-skill achievement for her--I don't say, "Mommy help," I say, "Yes you can."

In fact, I chant it. I'm waiting for Clare to start joining in. I want "Yes We Can" to be something she learns so early on that she never wonders IF she can be a part of making the world the better place we all wish it was. When she catches on--and I've no doubt she will, my little verbal genius--move over, James Brown. "Baby baby baby" is cute, but "Yes We Can" is hope.

why I hate "You've Got Mail" and what has that got to do with ecclesiology? or politics?

No, it's not just because it happened to hit theaters just when Brent and I were starting to get serious with the emailing.

Honestly, I hate it because cute little Meg Ryan is all feminine-ly helpless in the face of male aggression--and the culmination of the plot is her seduction by the indifferent corporate villain and her assimilation into the children's section of a bland outsized bookstore. And we're supposed to be happy about it. Because, it's a romantic comedy. She falls in love, so it's all okay.

I, however, don't want to be assimilated.

I hope there are some folks out there who don't want that either.

***

Watching the Super Fat Tuesday coverage I happened to hear a news anchor sum up Huckabee's appeals to voters as "vote for me, I'm the candidate who's most like you." It seemed to be offered as a genuinely straightforward description, which made it all the more horrifying. In direct contrast to Obama's deliberate work to pull together a coalition that celebrates the diversity in its ranks, the strategy of "vote for me I'm like you" is revealed as a base xenophobic appeal. In my most polite and understated euphemism ever: YUCK.

***

If you were to talk about the nature of church, and the task of drawing people into deeper and more meaningful involvement in church, (is this the task? to get people involved in church?), what ecclesial vocab springs to mind? Incorporation into the body of Christ? Ingrafting into the kingdom of God? Full inclusion in the community of saints?

Or if we were really honest would we talk about assimilating people into our group so they'll be just like us?

super fat tuesday

Okay, so I'm glued to the TV and here in a minute we'll be breaking out the scotch.

***

I just realized what it is that I like so much about Obama. He's the cyborg candidate.

Oh, I don't mean he's a wired up cyborg or even that he's more technologically savvy than anyone else (although Katie Couric's been talking all about how well Facebook has been working for the Obama campaign). I mean it in Haraway's political sense. Hybridity defying categorical identity, and therefore offering a promise of potential unity on the basis of something other than "natural identity." On the basis of something like common sense. Or even hope.

But you've got to think that it's possible. And that's the other aspect of cyborg thought that Obama embodies so well. Haraway's cyborg is all about agency. Yes, we can.

***

I'm a bit afraid that Clinton, despite how much I like her, were she to get the nom, would fall prey to the temptation to play the Men's Game bigger and better. Fall prey to the temptation to prove that she is "strong" and a legitimate leader. And I don't think that we can survive any more political pissing matches.

***

My gut says that if Clinton gets the nomination, we can kiss the South good-bye. I think there are a lot of people who might vote for Obama instead of voting Republican but who would never vote for Clinton. My mother is one of them. I think there are a lot more.

***

verdict: Laphroiag is a lot smokier and complex than Glenlivet.

voted

Yes, we can.

warm fuzzy

I like being tagged for blog memes, it makes me feel warm and fuzzy. Thanks, Krister!

The game is:
Pick up the nearest book of at least 123 pages
Find page 123
Find the first 5 sentences
Post the next 3 sentences
Tag 5 people.

Attempt #1: Haraway's Modest_Witness displays a painting by Lynn Randolph, "Self-Consortium," on page 123. Haraway uses quite a lot of Randolph's work in this text. Randolph also produced the painting below, entitled "Cyborg," in response to Haraway's famous "Cyborg Manifesto."

So, attempt #2:

The third goal is to demonstrate what practical difference this counter discourse might make in respect to the formation and performance of Christian convictions within an emerging technoculture. This objective is completed in the final section by focusing on the central role of formative practices.

It was argued in the previous chapter that Christian theological claims about providence and anthropology are devoid of any meaningful content in the absence of eschatology.

My five: TKP, Mom, Em, Ally, Brent. Most of whom don't blog worth a damn anymore, but oh well.

cynicism sucks. I'm on board.

(Mom, this post is for you. Hope you're still "considering.")

I'm listening to the SC victory speech on youtube right now. And if I hadn't been for Obama before, I would be now.

Personally, I've been cynical for so long that I've found it difficult to shake. There's security in it; if you're cynical about all political process and all political candidates and all political rhetoric, then you're never going to be disappointed, you're never going to feel betrayed. You never expected anything better. And I experience Obama as a temptation. A temptation toward resuscitated hope and optimism and a trust in personal agency. And despite my like for him as a candidate, there's been a part of me that's resisted getting totally on board. I've been cynical too long. I don't want to contemplate what it may mean to trade it in for what still feels like a naive idealism, the kind that inevitably gets crushed by the implacable momentum of indifferent reality.

What's so powerful about this speech, to me, is that--whatever else is in there--Obama recognizes this.

"We're up against forces that feed the habits that prevent us from being who we
want to be as a nation...a politics that tells us we have to think, act and even
vote within the confines of the categories that supposedly define us... But
we're not just up against the ingrained and destructive habits of
Washington. We're also up against our own doubts, our own fears, our own
cynicism. The change we seek has always required great struggle and great
sacrifice. And so this is a battle in our own hearts and our own minds
about what kind of country we want, and how hard we're willing to work for it."

The message to me, and to those like me, is to take the risk. Of climbing out of the security of cynicism and daring the vulnerability of hoping, and working toward the America we wish we lived in. Of making our citizenship something we can legitimately take some pride in, instead of adopting fake Australian accents when overseas.

And the chorus: "yes, we can." On the theological anthropology behind this speech, maybe another post.

unsettled

I've decided there's no sense in pretending I'm any good for academic working today, after getting to bed at about 3:30 a.m. and not getting to sleep until well after that. After getting Clare off to the Children's Garden (warmly bundled, lunch in hand, and bitterly protesting the injustice of it all, for about 30 seconds until I was out of sight when she could buckle down to really enjoying herself) I came back home, popped in a BG and went right back to sleep.

So, HOPE was a great thing to do and I enjoyed myself quite a lot--not something you anticipate about walking around in the cold for hours, attempting to interview people who don't want to be interviewed. Our CCfB team got a bit split up, so I had the privilege of teaming up with a couple who, as it turns out, are not only inspirational themselves in all sorts of ways, but friends-of-friends. So it was a joy to spend a few hours getting to know them while doing something concretely helpful together.

Despite Brent's penchant for anxiety, and the police escort which trailed us (for the first half of the night, anyhow), nothing at all unsettling happened the whole night. Until I got on the train to come home.

As you might imagine, the trains were mostly empty at 2:50 a.m. My car had a couple people sleeping on one end. And a bunch of guys who immediately became very loud when I stepped into the car and sat down, in the middle between them and the sleepers. Despite myself I felt uneasy. I didn't want to, but I did. And they got louder and louder and more flamboyant--cursing, telling lurid stories about girlfriends. And I just sat and tried to control my body language so that a glance at me wouldn't proclaim "scared white lady wants OUT!"

Nothing happened.

One by one they exited the train at various stops, until the last guy came and sat down directly opposite me, right before getting off at 14th St. And then he stood up, walked to the doors right next to me, looked at me and said, "You are beautiful. Just can't get off this train without sayin'." Uh, thanks. Have a good night.

Unsettled. Convicted. Ashamed. Confused.

HOPE

In about an hour, I'm going to dress as warmly as I can and head out the door to PS 261, where I'll meet up with folks from church (and others) for HOPE Count 2008. You can read more about it through the link, but basically, every year NYC does as accurate a count as possible of the homeless in an effort to improve services.

This isn't the first year CCfB has participated in the HOPE count, but last year, as a still-new mom and NJ resident, getting to Brooklyn at 10:30 p.m. and working through the night was not really an option. So this is my first time to do this.

Yeah, I'm nervous. I don't worry about safety (this is a well-organized sort of thing). My nervousness is more the sort that I get when I have to interact with people in less than well-defined social situations. This nervousness pretty much plagues my existence generally, but it gets acute when I encounter people whose lives engender a feeling of guilt and helplessness in me.

But that's no reason not to do something, really the opposite--a reason to do it. Fear of the other, the stranger, the alien...this is only countered by coming face to face.

more on universalism

This past Thursday I got to lead the follow-up discussion on universalism on Thursday night--the follow-up on universalism & the Bible. I wish I'd done a better job, since I always get rambly and too talkative when it comes to hermeneutics. It's not really my bag, and while you'd think that would make me talk less rather than more--well, it makes me nervous, and Nervous JTB talks a lot more than Normal JTB. So, it wasn't as good as I'd hoped, on my end anyway; but some good things got said (by everyone else).

Anyhow, since the topic was really more the biblical witness and whether/how universalism comes out of that, the direction my thoughts have been going lately wasn't quite right for the discussion. I'm satisfied with acknowledging the fact of biblical plurivocality and the burden of conscious, responsible interpretive judgment that places on anyone who dares pick up the Bible and read it. As I confessed on Thursday (and have on this blog before), there are times when the early childhood spiritual formation kicks in (right around the gut area) and I think, Oh God, am I going to hell for this? But even as I work out my hermeneutic in fear and trembling I know there's no other way to do it; if you're not reading the Bible and doing your damnedest to understand it, in fear and trembling, then whatever you've got in your hands is not God's word...no matter what the leatherbound cover says.

One question I took with me from Joe's first sermon on the topic was, what constitutes the difference, categorically, between inclusivism and universalism? Because it seems to me that, if you're willing to consider that people outside the few (elect?) who explicitly believe in Jesus Christ can be saved through Jesus anyway, how would that not run inevitably to universalism? So in pondering these theological categories what I realized was this. Exclusivists exclude on the basis of belief in right doctrine. If you don't believe, you aren't saved. (And of course, as we all know, there's the inevitable reductio ad absurdum inherent in this way of thinking, leading to the kind of sectarianism that refuses to recognize Christ might save anyone who doesn't do X, Y, Z exactly the way we do.) But if inclusivists reject explicit belief as the criterion, on what basis would people not be saved? Looking at inclusivism I realized that inclusivists, too, require that people merit salvation somehow--not by having the right belief, but by measuring up in some other way, usually cashed out in terms of moral behavior or moral character. Those who are saved by Christ, despite their non-belief, are the good pagans, the ones who somehow figured out how to live out the Christian life despite the handicap of not being Christian.

Now, sure, this is an improvement on a steadfast refusal to recognize that non-Christian people can ever be moral or good (a position I have heard sincerely advocated in the past). But still, what we have is a doctrinal position which requires people to merit salvation.

And we know that's wrong, right? I mean, our stubbornly plurivocal uncooperative biblical text does seem pretty clear that--no matter what else you hold regarding salvation--that human beings do not do anything which merits it and obligates God to save them. So why is it that options 1 and 2 are built around implicit convictions that it all hangs on what we believe or do?

Coming to it this way, it seems obvious to me that as long as we accept that the proposition that human beings do not merit salvation is biblical (note that I have not made a textual argument for this, see I told you, this is not my bag. You biblical scholars out there, feel free to construct it or challenge it), then both exclusivism and inclusivism (which I think we should call "soft exclusivism") are revealed as "unbiblical," because they implicitly teach that human beings merit salvation (or don't).

***

Anyhow, there are couple of good recent reflections on universalism by some others to send you to: Casey's Communion reflection here, and Feminarian's latest post here. (And of course, if you're looking to really buckle down, Dr. Beck's series of posts here.)

sad

Tuesday night, my sister called. Wednesday when I checked my email, my mom had emailed. Wednesday night, I sat with two dear friends and talked about it, trying to discern what was so sad--amidst more immediate and personal sorrows--about the death of a person that we never knew. I'm still not sure, but the fact is, we're all sad.

And while there are those who will exploit the human temptation to voyeurism and hysteria, and make the profession of sorrow from all of us so remotely connected (or totally unconnected) burdensome and suspect to those who personally grieve...the fact remains that we are all truly sad. It's a strange thing to grieve for people you don't know, not least because the best way to express it is in keeping a respectful distance.

technology's Janus face

Turning off Dora today after getting Clare to the Children's Garden, caught a bit of C-Span's retrospective/re-enaction on abortion debate. The National Right to Life Committee Congregational Liaison and NOW President were going at it. And apparently on the agenda for the Right to life Committee is to push for legislation requiring women to view an ultrasound before granting access to an abortion: the Ultrasound Informed Consent Act.

I've blogged about this proposal before. What strikes me today, however, is how useful technology is rhetorically. Technology is often demonized--in fact, I heard it demonized (abortions are murder, they have the technology to dismember the baby in the womb, you can see it happen on the Internet) right before Technology became the Moral Savior of Misguided Women Seeking Abortions...through the ultrasound.

I've read some stuff here and there about how the introduction of the ultrasound changed how women experience pregnancy and the reality of their baby. Women didn't use to rely on this technology to make their baby seem real to them. It used to be the result of the cues of their body: the subtle changes, the obvious changes, and of course, quickening. But now technology mediates this experience for us, not just in an additional way, but (it seems) in an increasingly definitive way...so much so that right to life advocates are banking on the moral impact of an image on a screen. Morality Check, brought to you by technology.

Or, as the NOW pres pointed out, requiring a woman to view an ultrasound hikes the price of the procedure to double or more...making abortions out of reach for those who are most desperate.

shameless

Now, I know that I created a whole separate blog for Clare just so that rude truth wouldn't get totally overrun with cute baby stuff.

But I can't help post this on here too. So sue me.

universalism

CCfB's in the middle of a sermon series on universalism. As Joe explains it, he got caught slipping a subversive little paragraph into one of his Advent sermons and the result, a three week sermon series to explain himself. We're also taking a break from our Luke study on Thursday nights for follow-up discussion on the topic.

Last night, discussion was rich and intelligent and the best kind of theology--collaborative, sincere, and systematic. We started with this question of soteriology, and from there, noted connections to theology/Christology, atonement, hermeneutics, pluralism.

After some open discussion where we all tossed out what we'd been thinking on since Sunday's sermon, Joe pointed us toward this post from Experimental Theology.

I often try to keep my mouth shut in these discussion because the things I notice, as a trained theologian, are idiosyncratic and therefore distracting and generally unhelpful in moving the discussion in a generative direction. So here's the grab-bag of thoughts I didn't express in our discussion, because more important stuff was being said.

Talbott's "logical problem of soteriology" (my label), as Beck summarizes it, is exactly parallel to the basic logical problem of evil; it's simply the soteriological-specific form of it. Thus:
1. God's redemptive love extends to all human sinners equally in the sense that he sincerely wills or desires the redemption of each one of them=God is good.
2. Because no one can finally defeat God's redemptive love or resist it forever, God will triumph in the end and successfully accomplish the redemption of everyone whose redemption he sincerely wills or desires=God is all-powerful.
3. Some human sinners will never be redeemed but will instead be separated from God forever=evil exists.

Talbott's analysis (again, acc. to Beck) claims that any two of the three can be logically consistent but not all three together; again, classic form of the logical problem of evil dilemma. Talbott's universalist resolution rejects (3); he is denying that (this specific soteriological) evil exists. What this says regarding Talbott's theological tendencies regarding the problem of evil, I've no idea. Probably nothing. But I find the parallel intriguing. But I'm theologically uneasy with denying that evil exists as a solution to the problem of evil--does this mean I should also feel uneasy with Talbott's universalism?

Other random thoughts: regardless of whether one is Arminian or Calvinist, exclusivist views of salvation produce uneasiness and fear because of inevitable human epistemological uncertainty. We desire certainty; but we are perpetually uncertain if we have really completely chosen God (Arminian), or if God has chosen us (Calvinist). So we fear...because we can't be sure that we're not one of those unfortunate damned.

Evangelistic fervor. We think this is the result of an exclusivist's enthusiasm to reduce the number of lost souls in the world. But in thinking of my own experience in the church and on the "mission field," I think it's the other way around. I love this quote from RAH: "Never seek to persuade for the pleasure of having another share your views" (Moon is a Harsh Mistress). I think that describes exactly what most evangelistic fervor is about: seeking to persuade for the joy of having someone else agree with us. And our doctrine follows our inward motivation--we give ourselves a doctrinal reason for doing what we want to do, go out and make people like ourselves. Because we like people who are like us. We want to make more of them. It certainly explains why house churches in China were little homemade replicas of CofCs in middle TN.

routine

After being bad parents and missing Clare's 15 month appointment, we finally scheduled her 18 month appt with a doc here in the city. This was just a routine, well-baby visit. But of course a first visit to a new doc means a lot of paperwork and a lot of questions.

Unfortunately, after getting Clare undressed down to her diaper, I realized that she was stinky. Bad stinky. Sick stinky even. And, bad mom that I am, I had left the house with an underprepared diaper bag: one diaper and only 2 wipes. I've watched my sister Ally make a single wipe last a whole diaper change by ingeniously folding it like an origami piece of practical poop art, but not me. Those two wipes barely even made a dent. All the while I'm trying to change this nasty diaper, clean an uncooperative Clare with no supplies, I'm answering questions about this and that. I was totally flustered, felt like an absolute incompetent, and then got an earful from the doc about my inadequate cleaning job ("there's poop in her vagina!" "yes, I see that," I said, "like I mentioned before, I'm out of wipes. Any ideas?"--which finally resulted in a little help. Wet cottonballs work great.)

Routine questions. I'm bad at them, and I was flustered. I did manage to get my own age right, but ethnicity? "Um...generic Anglo-mongrel?" That didn't communicate well. She wrote down "british." And Brent's? "white, I guess," I said. Wrong! "White is race, I asked about ethnicity," said the doc, staring at me like I'd grown another head. "Oh," I said, chastened. "Okay. Texan."

But nothing beats this exchange:

doc: "And Clare is your only child?"
me: "yes."
doc: "And she is her father's only child?"
me: "yes."
doc: "are you sure?"
me: "uh, yes."
doc: "father's occupation?"
me: (taking a semantic shortcut) "he's a priest."
doc: "Catholic?"
me: "um--no--Episcopalian."

thinking about food

I spend a lot of time and brainpower thinking about food. It generally takes over an hour to plan a menu and a grocery list for the week, and it's not something I can do easily while Clare is awake and clamoring for my attention, so it's an after-bedtime task. It's logistical. It takes sustained concentration. Why? Because we have to eat cheap. But I am also determined that we shall eat well. These two things don't easily go together, the way our culture does food. And so I spend hours putting menus together so that ingredients dovetail and there's no waste. If I buy an out of the ordinary cheese (for budget purposes, read: anything other than cheddar) then I must use ALL of it somehow, which means more than menu item using it. If I buy meat, I stretch it to cover at least two meals, and try my best to use a cheap cut or find something on sale. (But almost never ever ground beef...I mean, there's only so much you can do with it, and I think early in childhood I was chronically overdosed on ground beef casseroles. That's no slur on my mom--it takes a cook of extraordinary dedication and brilliance to make ground beef into something truly edible and nutritious on a weekly basis. Unlike her, I'm just not up to it.) I try very hard to buy produce in season (difficult in the winter, especially when your spouse is not overly fond of winter squashes). And if something goes bad in the fridge, I feel it like some kind of moral failure.

So I love me a good cheap recipe full of inexpensive ingredients that can be transformed into something yummy and good for you. And because I know how hard it is to eat cheap and well, I am going to share a couple from our menu this past week.

Brent's pick: Andouille Red Beans and Rice. This is a super-quick recipe, also a bonus. You can skimp on the sausage, freeze what's leftover and use it for another recipe or for this one when you make it again.

My pick: Lentil Soup with Chard. Lentils are dirt cheap. And this is an amazing soup. Very earthy and flavorful, and the squeeze of lemon at the end really brightens it up. Even if you don't like lentil soups, I would still say give it a try. You might be surprised.

And if you like people who recommend good recipes, go here.

a feminist grouch

A while back, Casey posted a link to a lament for the old Sesame Street, complete with hallucinations of imaginary friends, grouches and utter disregard for the nutritional needs of children. And real cows.

I have a different complaint.

Clare received Elmo in Grouchland for Christmas (gee thanks, Nana and Pop). We're watching it daily nowadays. Someday soon I hope the newness and fascination will wear off, but until then, I expect to hear Vanessa Williams chipper little ditty as the Queen of Trash, and see Mandy Pitimkin's crazy eyebrows, in my dreams.

That's par for the course, however, and hey, honestly, it could be worse. Those songs really are catchy. And at least Mandy tosses us poor parents an inside joke once ot twice.

No, my complaint is entirely different in nature and has to do with an aspect I suspect is another indication of the difference between the Old and the New Sesame Streets. Back in the Bad Old Days, the classic fuzzy monsters were simple. Eyes, big bulgy nose, fur in some fun random color. Add some eyebrows for Oscar to make him grouchy, and that's it. Nothing else needed. Simple. But nowadays, monsters are all fancied up. Complicated, fussy monsters instead of simple fuzzy ones.

Take Elmo and Zoe, for example. I know Elmo's an icon for the New Sesame, but his existence predates Elmo's world by many years and his evolution as a monster has been an incremental process. Zoe pops onto the scene in 1992, specifically designed as a counterpart to Elmo.

And this gets to the heart of my complaint. Elmo is a simple classic monster--eyes, big bulgy nose, red fur. Zoe, on the other hand, has a spangly hairdo, barrettes, a necklace and apparently permanently wears a tutu due to her girlish fascination with ballet. Before I was fully initiated into the wonders of Elmo's World, I thought of Elmo as androgynous: a sort of monster-Kinder for whom gender was a not-yet-significant aspect of identity. But with Zoe as a counterpart, Elmo can no longer be androgynous. Zoe is clearly marked as a female: the fussy hair, jewelry, tutu. And so in the New Sesame Street, the unmarked standard is male, and female is signified with all the markers you'd expect of frilly girly girls: hair, bows, ribbons, barrettes, necklaces, whatever.

Maybe that's not any better than just having all your monsters be male, which is certainly the case in the Bad Old Days. But the New isn't any better. Now we have girl monsters, but to be a girl means having to be specially marked as different from the norm. I don't want Clare to learn that.

But the truth is, I get suckered in too: I love Legally Blonde and Miss Congeniality. And their portrayal of the strong, ideal woman is one who's smart, successful, assertive...and wears high heels. And, as RRR tells us in Sexism and God-Talk, a woman's liberation can be measured in inverse proportion to the height of her heels.

The ideal before us: smart...and yet still sexy. I don't want Clare to have to deal with this, the angst of how to be smart and still be a girl. How to juggle talent and intelligence and yes, ambition, and concern for hair and makeup and how to make herself attractive for everybody. I don't want her to feel she has to compensate for being smart by making herself as beautifully feminine as possible. I just want her to be.

But not even the fuzzy monsters on Sesame Street seem to be able to achieve that. And if it can't happen in that imaginary, sunny place...

thuriflinging

Christmas, knitting, and Wii

My determination to knit all my Christmas gifts wasn't enough for me to actually complete them all exactly on time. I owe Elliott another fingerless mitt (unless he has some dreadful accident requiring amputation of an arm in the next few weeks) and my dad his fuzzy slippers. But on the whole it was a lot of fun to knit gifts for everyone and I'm very pleased with the slippers. Here's a pic of how they turned out (credit to Malda for being my foot model).

Here are a few more gratuitous pics from our Christmas, and a priceless video of my Mom and Dad playing tennis on Em and Elliott's Wii (note how my mother shamelessly gloats at the end).

me, Brent, Leroy, Malda and Clare at Rockefeller Center

Brandon's hat & mitts, knit by yours truly

Clare hugs her baby doll

Clare loves her baby doll!

Mom's gift to herself (photo by Em)

stockings were hung by the chimney with care...see Clare's stocking on the left? and mine so heavy the loop broke and it's on the hearth behind Dad...

Emily. Loves. Butterscotch.

only decent pic of me all season. Nifty hat & scarf, right? I'm not the only Christmas knitter around...Thanks Ma!

Scrooge: the rich man and Lazarus re-written

In my Christmas Cartoon Canon, alongside Grinch, Charlie Brown and Rudolph (all three of which Richard Beck at Experimental Theology has posted on in a lovely series on Christmas cartoon theology), is Mister Magoo's Christmas Carol. There are multiple classic versions of this Dickens story, of course, and the Muppet version is also part of the canon.

The Magoo version stands out for several reasons: there is a lot of dialogue verbatim from the original Dickens story, a possibly off-color pun on the name Dick at one point, occasional jokes worked in about Magoo's nearsightedness, and a quite extended scene with "the laundress, the charwoman and the undertaker" (see below)--an element quite often deleted from adaptations of the story as it is both narratively superfluous and kind of gruesome. (I inevitably wonder every time I see this part of the cartoon about the implications for estate sale practitioners...) And the whole third ghost sequence is undeniably kindof scary for a kid's cartoon. (Not a cartoon for Sophia, Joe!)



But mainly what I've been wondering lately is how deliberate Dickens might have been in crafting this story as a retelling of Jesus' story about the rich man and Lazarus the beggar. Remember that one? The rich guy ignores Lazarus, begging at his gate, and then they both die and in the afterlife are separated by an uncrossable chasm; the rich man, now in hell and who therefore understands that he should have been a lot better person, asks that someone go talk some sense into his five brothers so they don't end up in hell too. And the answer comes back: if they haven't listened to Moses and the prophets to begin with, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.

And of course, that's the exact plot of Dickens' Christmas Carol: Marley comes back from the dead with a message to Scrooge to repent, or else. And Scrooge listens. And so the Carol is a mirror image of Jesus' story, where the answer is essentially a denial of the possibility of a Scrooge repentance. If Scrooge hasn't listened to Moses and the prophets, why should he listen to Marley and the three ghosts?

It's a hard answer and one I don't really like. I prefer the Dickens story, with the optimism and hope that everyone, even the most hardened and greedy and awful of us, can change given the chance...and that that chance will always be there. I guess the question is, which one is more true to life?

christmas tree

I'm not one of those people who thinks the day after Thanksgiving is the mandatory time for pulling out the Christmas decor, or who hums carols to herself all day long, or whatever. I have been watching Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer more or less constantly since last Christmas, but that's Clare's fault. I was totally horrified one night, nearly a full week before Halloween, to see that the local Duane Reade already had a Christmas display up in one of its shop windows.

But I do love Christmas trees.

Our tree is a pathetic $16 Wal-Mart fake we bought the first year we were married, nothing to get real happy about. I hope next year we will finally be settled enough and have space enough (wherever we are) to upgrade to some kind of decent Christmas tree. I am totally envious of people who can buy one of the gorgeous, sweet-smelling real trees they're selling just outside the seminary. (I am going to console myself by purchasing a $10 wreath.)

But I love our Christmas tree anyway, even though it is a dreadful fake that sheds plastic bits, has a broken stand, is consequently precariously wobbly, and was purchased long ago from The Evil Empire. Because our Christmas tree, like the very best Christmas trees anywhere, is totally ours.

We have three "first Christmas together" ornaments (this is what happens when you get married a week before Christmas). These are always the first things on the tree. Our basic glass ornament sets--in gold and white--are from the tree we decorated for our wedding reception, and these are the next things on the tree. Then the antique ornaments from Brent's mom, Malda, from her own treasured store of beautiful things gathered from estate sales over the years: Brent's favorite, a little elf that sits in a nook (or a cranny, depending on my mood), an antique glass ornament, a little rocking horse, assorted Santas, and my favorites, a pair of pink glass clip-on birds that perch jauntily on the ends of branches. A picture frame ornament, from my Aunt Nancy, with Clare's Christmas picture from last year in it. A set of Charlie Brown Christmas ornaments I bought last year while shopping with Ally. Some dainty woven ornaments that Sarah & Andrew gave away as party favors at last year's Christmas bash. A set of little Chinese dolls from keyrings that I don't remember acquiring in China that make much better tree ornaments than keyrings...

Underneath our tree this year is a quite respectable collection of Christmas storybooks (especially considering Clare doesn't read yet), all gifts from people who love her. And a beautiful white plush teddy bear in red scarf and stocking cap, her "Mimi bear." But no presents. And there won't be many, this year. But--except for the fact that my eye is of course trained to behold Christmas trees without presents underneath as "naked"--that's not the point of Christmas trees. It's all about the history--what each little item says about who we are, and where we've been, and who we love and who loves us.

I love that on my parents' Christmas tree there are still, every year, things from our childhood. The ceramic mouse ornament that I cast and painted in the 6th grade. The drummer boy drum Ally made in 4th grade (that has Denessa's name on it too from when she tried to steal it). The preschool picture of Emily glowering at the camera like she wanted to shoot the photographer in the butt with a BB gun. I can't wait till Clare gets old enough to start making hideous additions to our Christmas tree history every year. I want the construction paper, the scribbles, the glitter, the smeary glue, the sullen I-won't-smile-for-you-right-now pics, all of it. And I especially want an elf head with a scary crooked grin and a paper clip hook stuck in him sideways, made out of dried playdough.

BIG LOSER

So, as you can tell, for the second year in a row I have not been a NaNoWriMo winner. I did better this year than last, but even so, didn't even make the halfway mark. You can see from the graphic to the right that I didn't write anything for the last few days of November. Too sick to care. Midnight November 30 came and went and I was awake but not even thinking about NaNoWriMo; mainly I was thinking about my sinuses. Maybe next year I will finish this novel, or maybe not. In any case...big loser.

Also after like a month of dragging my Facebook Scrabulous stats up by finally winning some games with my mom, about a million people challenged me to games all at once and I am losing ALL of them. I have decided that four person games suck, in general, and in particular I never want to play with GKB, Scott and Travis ever, ever again. Hear that guys? Next time I'm just resigning. Last time I held on to "jeez" for like the entire game angling for a triple word spot, which I could never get...so this time, I played "quoit" right away, but again--the prime spot I was hoping for got blocked by someone else's word and quoit didn't get nearly the points it deserved. After that I decided I was going to lose anyway and quit trying...big loser.

Plus I'm still sick and that really sucks. I could go into detail about all the snot but that would be gross.

So I'm just feeling bad. Big snotty loser, signing off.

Nanowrimo

My Facebook status optimistically proclaims that I am dissertating but really, I'm doing this. Brain's not working too well yet, gotta slide into the day kinda easy.

Since I can now drink coffee again, I've decided to get serious with the Nanowrimo thing. I let myself coast on last year's word count for the first 2 weeks, and then realized that was totally stupid. It's probably cheating, actually, and it certainly violates the spirit of Nanowrimo, and it didn't do anything for my writing discipline either--which is really the whole point. Of course, it's not like I've been sitting around on a beach sipping tap water at my leisure or anything. If all the verbiage I've produced this month went into my novel word count, I'd probably already be at the finish line. But those words get divided up into two sermons, a bible study and a dissertation chapter. (And a couple of sad little excuses for a blog post, barely worth mentioning.)

But, I had a great night a few nights ago where I wrote about 3,000 words in one sitting, resulting in this new surge of affection and enthusiasm for my little novel idea. Things are coming together, and even better, new connections and possibilities keep popping up, and so fast that sometimes I can't keep track and some of them are going to get lost before they can get written. But I have a whole new theoretical angle to work into the thing now, one which very nicely captures the kind of tension and ambiguity I want this posthuman (of course!!!) novel to have. And I may even be closing in on a title--something which, as Dr. John could attest (that is, if he at all remembers me) from my Creative Writing course with him at Harding, I have a dreadful time with.

Plus, I'm writing exciting stuff now like birthing scenes...and eventually will work up the nerve to write a steamy sex scene between two virgins, a cyborg and an illegally genetically engineered guy. Yup. It just doesn't get any better than that, folks.

So, I'm going to put a little word count widget on this blog somewhere and do my very very best to catch up. I'm still way behind, and don't manage to write every day, and that's a problem. So I'm looking for motivation and that is what this blog post is all about.

Any other Nanowrimo's out there? I could use some writing buddies...

It's over! Yay!!!

I was really good and only slipped up once. But seriously, the best I could figure that I saved from not consuming beverages other than tap water was seriously less than some other people. Now, that could make me feel smug and virtuous, as in, wow I spend so much less than other people, blah blah blah, or it could make me feel like a heel for not generating a whole lot of revenue for the organization we're donating to. I'm a little conflicted about it. But the truth is, I pretty much drink water and coffee--and the coffee I brew at home. So my estimates were a good faith effort to reflect reality...but I'm glad we have a few Starbucks junkies around to make up for my lack. I don't know yet what our final tally as a church is.

Best of all, Brent helped me celebrate the end of this spiritual discipline with a brew from Grumpy's.

another sermon

A new sermon is up over at rude sermons. And, God help me, there's a podcast.

in CCfB training

Check it out.

Day 2

So, if you also read Joe's blog, you've read about this. The H2O project. Joe's blogged about it eloquently so I'll skip all that and get straight to the bitching.

I really need coffee.

And no, I haven't cheated. Sunday evening I had a ritual last cup and made it all through yesterday. Today will be tougher. Not just because it is Day 2 but because it is a Dissertating Day, and I typically make it through the day on cups of coffee and not much else as I sit shackled to my computer and try to think thoughts at a speed that really requires some cyborg-type upgrading. I take a grudging break to slap together a sandwich at some point, generally, and then take it to the desk and cram it down while at the computer. Caffeine is sort of a requirement for this sort of crazed academic output.

I will probably have gained 5 pounds from the amount of compensatory chocolate I'll be consuming over the next two weeks.

I could just cheat, I know. But I have this feeling that the point is more than just collecting the money I'm (theoretically) saving by drinking only tap water for two weeks. I have this feeling that there's some good to this consistent reminder that my "right" to coffee is illusory and nothing more than my habitual expectation of a rather cosseted existence. Or that there will be, once I pass through the five stages of caffeine withdrawal (I'm out of "denial" and into "pissed off"--I wonder what comes next?)

economics, sociobiology, and the brethren

Last week, in the class I'm auditing on theology & economics, discussion turned to the similarity between the economic theory of Gary Becker and the common sociobiological theory of the evolution of altruism. This occasioned a diagram, a bunch of concentric circles each representing a differing and weaker level of moral relatedness: close family, extended family, friends, acquaintances, ..."society," and so on. Until of course, there is no obligation perceived at all.

This was not a new thought for me, but what was astonishing, and made me giggle aloud as I sat there and contemplated the blackboard diagram, is that it reminded me forcibly of a particular afternoon at Harding in the Benson auditorium, where I beheld a diagram remarkably similar while listening to a lecture on fellowship from an author based on his recently-published book.

This can hardly be a coincidence.

biting!

Clare came home from daycare today with a very symmetrical distinct round of teethmarks on her shoulder. Yep, she got bit today.

I know that this is fairly normal but I feel almost ready to bite someone myself...that maternal protective instinct is fierce!

for the Bible tells me so

On Saturday night Brent and I went and saw For the Bible Tells Me So.

I was the only woman in the theatre.

Apart from that, my main observation about the film is that I was pleasantly surprised that the inevitable negativity toward Christianity was not the whole message, but was rather well-balanced by the stories of Jake Reitan (Lutheran), Bishop Robinson (who grew up Disciples of Christ in KY but now, obviously, Episcopalian), and others. Rather than simply dismissing Christianity as a religion too hateful and xenophobic to accept gay people, the film makes the case that hatred is not the center of the Christian gospel.

from the Sundance review article:

Karslake mostly avoids demonizing the religious right, instead simply
holding up the families at the heart of his story and saying: Here they are.
These are the gay people you so fear, and they are your sons and daughters, your
brothers and sisters, the neighbors you've known for years. Karslake has made a
powerful film, one that I hope will be widely seen, because it addresses the
fulcrum of the religious right's objection to homosexuality without attacking
those who hold those beliefs. Rather than smacking down with a righteous hammer,
Karslake instead simply takes those who would believe that there is no common
ground between faith and homosexuality and gently, relentlessly chisels away at
every argument that bolsters those beliefs.

One of the more striking things about the film is the difference in the quality of religious speech made so obvious by the film. Karslake "mostly avoids demonizing the religious right" because the religious right's own words--from the mouths of Jimmy Swaggart, Dr. James Dobson and others--so self-evidently angry and fearful and hateful, do the job without any outside help. The vitriol is paired against the quiet, ultra-reasonable, peaceful replies of people like retired Bishop Desmond Tutu, and the difference is never directly commented upon but allowed to remain implicit and yet unmistakeable.

My one disappointment: that I was the only woman in the theatre, and Brent and I probably the only two straight people. This isn't, in the end, a film for gay people or for welcoming and affirming Christians. It's a plea directed toward those people, like the families featured in the film, who find themselves caught in the middle between intolerant beliefs and the moral imperative to change. But those people weren't there. And they weren't likely to be, at the Quad Cinema in Greenwich Village. Will the film reach the people for whom it is an offering? I don't know. But if it does not, in fact, make it to a theatre near you (in Abilene or Oklahoma or Tennessee or wherever you are)...Netflix.

do androids dream of electric vodka?

Today I walked by one of these.

Perhaps you think that's bizarre. If so, you need to check this out.

Comments?

Theotokos

Someday, I'm going to have to write this book. A book on theology and childbirth. A chapter on Christmas and Advent and the important but often ignored fact of birth in the Christian narrative. A point in there somewhere about women's experience and why it's still discounted as theological resource. I'm going to have to look into Mariology and see what that's all about. I'm going to give a shot at figuring out why the hell anyone would write "women will be saved through childbirth."



Any other suggestions? What have I missed in my musing? Or has someone already written this book, and I should just go check it out and read it?

a modest request

I don't have any money to spare these days, no matter how much I would love to give fistfuls of it away to anyone with the heart and intelligence to use it wisely in solving the world's pressing problems of hunger and oppression and violence.

But I do have a blog (thank goodness blogger is free) and GKB's modest request is to link back to his website to let as many people as possible know about the work he'll be doing through the organization Invisible Children. I haven't checked statcounter.com in forever and for all I know, only 2 people ever even read this blog anymore, but hey, you two, if you can spare some $$ to help get GKB over to Africa and do some good work there...God bless you, and GKB, and the children that no one sees that Greg will be photographing on this trip.

The Brave One

Brent and I went to a movie Saturday night, thanks to Maria's offer to hang out with a not-yet-sleeping Clare. It's been a while since Brent and I went to a movie--the last was a doubledate to Harry Potter with Sarah & Andrew. I'd forgotten how much nicer it is to see a movie in your pj's on your own couch. The snacks are better, the bathroom's cleaner, the seat's comfier, and the comments from the peanut gallery are generally much more intelligent.

Since the point was just to get out while the gettin' was good, there wasn't anything in particular we wanted to see. It ended up a toss-up between The Brave One and The Kingdom. I like a good no-brainer action movie as much as anyone, but I can't say I was real excited about either. Jodie Foster's pretty good, but brutalized-woman-seeks-revenge-then-realizes-she-has-become-her-own-worst-enemy just sounded ho-hum. But, who cares...we're out and we're Clare-free!

So off we went. I must say that going to a movie in NYC was different from going to a movie anywhere else I've ever been. I now understand so much better why Law & Order is so packed with those god-awful cheesy one-liners. New Yorkers eat it up. Nicky Katt's whole function in the movie was to deliver Law & Order style dialogue (which, I have to say, he did with enough comedic flourish that it was on occasion funny). But the movie as a whole was disturbing, and even more so because we saw in a theatre in NYC. Jodie Foster's character, Erica Bain (despite the alternative orthography, certainly a symbolic nomenclature at work there), understandably traumatized, begins carrying a gun--and repeatedly experiencing situations in which she uses it fatally to protect herself and/or others from violent harm. There's an issue of plausibility throughout the movie, but passing over the need to suspend one's disbelief beyond the level ever required by an SF tale, the real issue I have with this movie is the frank and unnuanced sanction of Erica's action. Erica's counterpart, the good cop who befriends her, the steady symbol of respect for the law and restrained ("moral") use of force, at the crucial moment departs inexplicably from his convictions, hands her his gun (with the inevitably unfunny one-liner) and not only makes it possible for Erica to execute one of the men who had assaulted her, but also devises her escape. Erica is ready to be arrested, even after his complicity in the execution, but he tells her to run. The most disturbing thing of all: when she shoots the guy in the face, the audience whooped and hollered and applauded.

The movie ends with Erica climbing the steps in Central Park, the site of her assault, with a voiceover that makes clear that she has been irrevocably changed and damaged by the incident and its aftermath, and that there is no going back to the person she had been and wished she still was. In the last, say, ten seconds of the movie, it seems that the violence has been futile and pointless and has not changed anything--except Erica, who is less than she was. But the possible message of total lack of redemption in the violence she's perpetrated was probably lost on the audience that cheered her on as she blew the dude's head off.