birthday

What an amazing day this has been. I thought it wouldn't be all that remarkable, and on the surface, maybe it wasn't. But this morning I got calls from Atlanta, TN, and local friends, messages from WA, AR & Honduras, and a surprise plate of brownies from the cool Lutherans next door & the other Jen, complete with singing and a candle. Wow! Maybe there are those among you, imaginary and alien included, whose birthdays are always full of candles and singing and lots of raucous celebrating. But my family is pretty low-key about things like birthdays, and on top of that, for a good long while in my early 20's birthdays took a drastic turns for the worse...it may have been as many as 5 straight years when my birthday probably rated as the worst day of my year, for various reasons.

So turning 29 is good. The celebrating hasn't been raucous or anything, but the cool thing is, lots of people seem to have remembered, even people who aren't related to me or married to me. That's just really nice. And despite the requisite grousing about getting old, I'm really happy about it. I like being at an age where people accept you as a grown-up. I think I've been ready for this since I was about six, actually.

Oh, and I have such an awesome spouse. (I am saying spouse instead of husband because Brent has told me this is the way people do it around here, apparently.) I mentioned in a cutesy random comment on someone else's blog that an iPod would make a really nifty gift for my birthday (then a month away). And sure enough, friends, now I have one. Isn't that seriously amazing? I am very happy about this. Not just because I now have a cute little piece of technology but also because Brent has once again proved beyond all possible doubt that he is the most romantic and thoughtful guy in the whole wide world. Maybe not the whole universe, but perhaps our new alien friends can comment on that.

Okay, I can feel myself sounding actually bubbly so in the interest of dignity I will sign off. But thanks to everyone who made this an awesome day. I love you all.

greet our new foreign friends

Hello! Hola! Ni hao! Tag! Buon giorno! Zdrastya! Everyone, say hello to our new friends. This blog is now being beamed into space along with the 5:00 news and I Love Lucy. If you too would like to chit chat with our alien friends out there then visit http://www.bloginspace.com/ and sign yourself up. Many many thanks to Greg at kendallball.net for this blog upgrade. Now my blog audience is not just an elite few and a host of imagined passers by...but an elite few plus my imaginary friends plus my intergalactic neighbors. That is so much better!

By the way, new alien friends, please know that the movie reviewed in the last post was a crazy fictional scenario dreamed up by an obviously lonely British man with too much time on his hands.

War of the Worlds

note: this actually was over a week ago but this cute little baby distracted me and I forgot to post this.

Brent took me to the movies last night. It's always an interesting cultural experience to go to an actual theater. The theater in Hamilton is packed full of teeny-boppers displaying bellybuttons, tight ass jeans and attitude. They glare at you like you're invading their personal playground, which I guess we are. At nearly 30, we're as old fogey as you get.

So, the movie was actually pretty good. I have to say, it was by far the most faithful movie rendition of any sci-fi book I've ever read. If all science fiction movies were done that faithfully, maybe the majority of them wouldn't suck like they almost always do. But even better, the changes that were made to the script were generally good ones. Instead of a fussy British academic narrating the tale of his mostly solitary adventure, we have a New Jersey deadbeat dad attempting to return his kids to the safety of his ex-wife's parents' place in Boston. It worked, I think. They changed the aliens a bit, too; although they did portray them as dependent on mechanism, which is faithful to the book, they gave them fully developed bodies rather than simply being brains operating the machinery. This I feel neutral about. Other than that, the structure of the story remains intact, even the ending. I am especially happy about this, as I'm sure it would have been very tempting to play up the interstellar war thing and have America defeat the brainy bastards with our indomitable spirit and powerful weaponry. But, like the book, there's no "war" in War of the Worlds. Right as it looks like humanity has come upon its certain doom, the aliens mysteriously start to croak and the invasion falls apart. Earth's bacteria prove fatal to the alien invaders and, through no merit or effort of its own, humanity is saved from annihilation by the ecosystem.

One thing I found curious was that Tim Robbins' character carried over none of the religious hysteria displayed by the original character in the book. It would have been, I think, a very effective platform from which to make a statement on religious apocalypticism, and I am unsure why this road wasn't taken. It certainly would have added interest to the character and provided an opportunity for thought-provoking dialogue. As it is, Robbins is just a garden-variety kook, perhaps with a hint of incipient pedophilia setting in (there's a disturbing conversation between Robbins' character and Cruise's character's daughter). But, maybe that's just my preoccupation with all things theological kicking in again...I forget that I'm not normal.

So, that's it. Not a full review, certainly, but hopefully enough that those of you who, like me, have seen way too many bad movies made out of really wonderful science fiction novels and short stories will find it in you to hope once again that perhaps this time, it will be good. This time, I think, you'll find a movie worth watching.

amends

Now that's a cute kid.

Bet her mama's proud!

back in NJ

Well. Mount Rainier does exist after all. We got to see it on the drive to the airport as we were leaving. Here's what it looks like as you peer through the back window of a moving vehicle:

But Mt. Rainier, impressive though it is, was not the main attraction of our little jaunt to WA. Nor, wonderful though they be, were my folks. Nope. We went to see my sister and her new little baby Levi (heavily featured, by the way, in the archives of this blog), who are visiting my parents for a few weeks. Haven't seen Ally since she got married, over two years ago, and of course, since Levi didn't really exist until a few months ago, hadn't ever seen him. So mostly we just stayed in the house and made ridiculous faces at this incredibly good natured kid and competed for the privilege of holding him. Nothing like a new baby to dissolve the dignity of all grown-up persons in the vicinity. We were shameless.

I knitted 3 baby booties and 2 hats over the week. That is pretty much my main accomplishment. Why 3 booties? Well, the first one was experimental, and of course too small. Why 2 hats? Well, the first one was of course too small. Ally will take that one home to Honduras for Sol to use on her Cabbage Patch doll. Yes, Cabbage Patch. I have realized the awful truth that, not being a mother myself and having not babysat since high school, I have no idea of the actual dimensions of live babies. And while Internet knitting patterns are free, a big perk, they apparently really aren't that reliable in terms of sizing. I have the distinct and awful impression that basically everything I've knitted for every baby I've ever knit for (um, this is two babies so far) has been way too small. So, anyhow, once I finally finished the second pair of booties, which are actually too big (luckily time will rectify this problem), I was absurdly proud. I hope I feel this good about defending the dissertation. Somehow I doubt it.

But just so you can see what a cute kid this is, and what a witty little knitter I am, here you go:

Now, isn't that an awesome hat?

So, all in all, it was a great week, really restful. I didn't really get a lot of reading done, although I did finish a short biography of Bonhoeffer that was really interesting: A Spoke in the Wheel by Renate Wind. And I finished the Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics but I didn't get started on Critique of Pure Reason OR Strawson's Bounds of Sense. I meant to, really I did, but there was this baby to play with all the time. Really, it's all his fault.

It's nice to be back home though. I missed the cat, and she apparently really missed us. She's developed a weird meow while we were away, like a smoker's meow or something. I'm hoping it's not because she yowled in loneliness so much this week that she's gone completely hoarse. Overall though I prefer my kitty's codependent affection to the sulk routine some cats give you when you get home from a trip.

Well, that's it. I know this wasn't an exciting or thoughtful post but the pictures oughta make up for it, eh? Maybe after I get over the dopiness of the whole red-eye flight back and the losing of the luggage (again!) my brain will start working again. There won't be any more cute little babies to distract me from thinking my usual lofty thoughts. My loss, your gain.

strangers on trains

Since I relayed that very dismal train conversation I was inadvertently party to this past Sunday, I thought I would relate another little train vignette from the week before. This time I was by myself, and I had managed to get to Penn Station in time to catch the 8:03 express rather than the 8:14 local, which I was very happy about. But it turns out that the 8:03 express train to Trenton is very popular train indeed on Sunday nights, and this particular night it was packed. Not China-crowded or even Italy-crowded, but, you know, American sensibilities regarding personal space were being infringed upon everywhere you looked. So I snagged a seat fairly easily, being by myself, and was settled in before the crowds hit my train car, placidly ignoring the frantic and ruthless competition for seats by the hapless folk around me, reading Catherine of Siena's _Dialogue_. Pretty soon, the seat next to me is taken by a dark-haired woman about my age, whose companion, an extremely large woman carrying a fairly large (though apparently not heavy) box, sat in the aisle on the box. She was sporting a sticker on her blouse that said "Go Queer" and from the chatter, I think they had just come from a march of some sort. Anyway, pretty soon they noticed that I was reading a medieval woman mystic and, whoosh!, the conversation begins. Women's bodies, mystical experiences, religious experiences, religion, science, our respective religious upbringings and rebellions, and where we find ourselves now. It turns out that these two fascinating women are Unitarian Universalist, which I know next to nothing about, because while they rejected religious dogmatism, they didn't at all reject spirituality. It wasn't a deep conversation, but one of those very wide conversations of the sort you can really only have with strangers on trains.

It was relaxing to me. I'm sure that had we talked longer we'd've found things to disagree about, and perhaps the momentary camaraderie (thanks to Dr. Burks for making it impossible to type this word without flashbacks to Harding chapel) would have ended. But it was pretty liberating to discuss opinions and experiences candidly without worrying about how your audience will react to them. I can't talk to members of my own tradition like that. Which means the question we should all be asking of ourselves right now is, why the hell not?

It could be my problem. I've admitted before on this blog that part of its raison d'etre is practice finding my voice--despite the bravado of the title I'm not at all comfortable with actually being rude. I think over the last couple months I've achieved rudeness a few times, and so I think I'm making progress. But still: progress in the blogosphere doesn't easily translate into boldness in the personal sphere. So it could be my problem. I find myself wrapped up in anticipating who will think what and say what and what they will then think of me after they know what I really think about whatever. It's paralyzing.

But it could also be "their" problem. Why am I so paranoid about how what I say or think will be received? Why is contemplating that an occasion of dread? Quite possibly because it's something legitimately dreaded, because "they" can be quite dreadful. But "they" is also the "we" that, for better or worse, I have cast my lot with...so, in all honesty, it comes back to being my problem, doesn't it?

Well, I'm sure this little dilemma will come up again sometime. In the meantime, here's a bit of wisdom from my mother: "Jesus told us to be salt, not sugar." Amen. Preach it, Ma!

sitting in a lab

July 4

Well, I'm sitting in a computer lab and, quite frankly, find it depressing. So don't expect any profundity. Coffee is not at hand, in fact is forbidden, and that is a prerequisite for composition of any sort for this proud American.

I'm in one of those anonymous bad moods, the kind where there's no apparent cause--it's just there, sitting gloomy and dusty and heavy on your shoulders and you can't shake it off. If it gets any worse, it's gonna sprout a head and limbs like those horrible old stoles people wore back in the Whenevers, you know, back when it was considered attractive to parade around with dead things that clearly were once alive on your shoulders. Oh, no, I don't mean like Neanderthals or cavemen or trogladytes. I mean like when it was cool to wear your dead animal with heels and chic purse. And if it gets any worse than that, it'll probably start growling. The mood, I mean. But clearly this metaphor has gotten way out of hand. As has the mood.

Maybe it's because I sat on a train last night on the way home from fairly intense theological discussion at church (yes, you read that sentence right: theological discussion at church, and I meant it) and listened to a quartet of loudmouths declaim the superficial and ridiculous about everything from how much wine it takes to get them drunk to how dumb PhD's are. Brent and I were 2 seats away from them and I could hear their conversation better than I could the woman sitting next to me on her cell phone. It occurred to me as I listened--at that volume I think eavesdropping becomes an obsolete concept--that it would be absolute hell to be trapped in a body that, no matter how hard you tried, only expressed the dumbest thoughts in the high school vernacular you never grew out of. These people seemed okay with it, though. They were 6 years older than me. I know this because they spent 5 minutes discussing how much better it is to have been born in 1970 than '69 (complete with reference to that song by whoever it was) because they can legitimately claim to be children of the 70's. But then they started on church. These laudable Ambassadors for Christ proceeded to blast everything I hold sacred by talking about it in the same inane and foolish way they talked about everything else--loudly, carelessly, irreverently, confidently, and self-servingly.

If there's anything that shakes my faith, and I say this very, very seriously, this is it. If this is Christianity, then this rotten boat full of holes is going down. By the time we all disembarked at Princeton Junction, I felt physically ill.

I really wanted to say something snide and confrontational as I walked past them--something like, "y'all have been real Ambassadors for Christ tonight. Keep it up." But I knew they wouldn't get it. They would pat themselves on the back. Maybe invite me to a Bible study.

So maybe that's it. Or maybe 'cause it's the Fourth of July and I don't find anything to celebrate. We're going to our NZ friends' place later and I plan to wear the KGB shirt the K's gave me a couple years ago. I don't want to spend the day complaining. But I don't want to celebrate, either. What is there to celebrate?

Yesterday on the TV I heard it asserted that we should honor the soldiers who have died because Jesus said, "there is no love greater than this: that a man lay down his life for his friends."

Well, I have to end the tirade because there are pasta salads to prepare and I should probably shower before showing up for the party. Perhaps I will find myself in a better mood at the end of all of this, but somehow I doubt it.

Communions

This past Sunday I accompanied Brent to church, which I try to do unless I'm overworked, overtired, overstressed, or just plain too lazy. As you might expect, it doesn't happen often enough, but I always love going. This Sunday was especially good, as I didn't have to sit by myself even though Brent was acolyting (I assume this can be a verb?). A couple of friends who live in Brooklyn came all the way out to Princeton to spend some time with us, and so we all piled into the little green car Sunday morn and bumped our way down Alexander Road to Trinity.

I've been to church with Brent enough now that things are beginning to feel familiar. I know the tune they sing the Doxology to and I can remember to sing their words and not the ones I grew up with. I know how to sing the Sanctus in the middle of the Great Thanksgiving leading up to Communion. I know how to navigate my way to the altar rail and I don't freak out about how to hold my hands just right to receive the bread, or worry that I'll confuse the person giving me the cup and end up with wine down the front of my shirt. And I no longer feel that everyone is looking at me all the way up to the altar and all the way back to my seat.

I bet all this sounds really silly to people who have been going up to an altar to receive Communion all their lives. But these are the things you feel when what you're used to is having an old man in a bad tie hand you a plate while you sit in the pew. The only thing you have to worry about is when they forget to come pick it up from you after it's been passed. This sometimes happens. It's a real problem if you're a woman and you feel like you can't stand up and take it to the guy (someone might think you're usurping, you know).

Anyhow, taking Communion at Trinity has become a very special thing for me. It truly is the focal point of the service. The sermon happens, is over, sometimes is good, and then we begin "The Great Thanksgiving," a very long (or so it seems to this CofC kid) liturgical movement which retells in gratitude the story and the meaning of the crucifixion, punctuated by responses from the congregation expressing thanks. Then we move to the altar. The bread is presented with the words, "The body of Christ," and the wine with, "The blood of Christ."

Sunday evenings, I take the train into Brooklyn and meet with a bunch of other Manhattan CofCer's who've committed themselves to Christ's Church for Brooklyn. Right now we're a house church. I've missed the house church dynamic after coming back from China. There's something unreproduceable about the intimacy of sitting in someone's living room. It's something like the difference between homemade and store-bought bread. Homemade church. This past Sunday, we sat around Joe and Laura's living room, around their coffee table, and shared communion after being invited to think about what this church would look like in a year: what new faces would there be around the table as we share communion together in the future? As we sat together, I imagined us all as various parts of the body, a la Paul's metaphor, and thought, which parts are we missing? What parts will join us and make us whole? Who will be a part of our journey together toward wholeness in Christ?

Two communions, separated by about 6 hours, an hour's train ride, the difference between high liturgy and informal address, the difference between altar and coffee table, church and living room. And yet, somehow, the essence of communion--being drawn together with God and with others--collapses those differences, making it plain that whatever the form, the bread and the wine function the same. The body of Christ, the blood of Christ. What else could make two celebrations so different one and the same?

hear ye, hear ye

I have an announcement to make.

I am a "bad Christian."

I have proof.

You can find out if you're a "bad Christian," too. Take the test. I would encourage you not to endeavor to improve your score (despite the exhortation at the end when you get your results back). Think of it like golf: the lower the better.

my interior castle

For part of my History of Doctrine comprehensive exam in the fall, I am reading women mystics: Teresa of Avila, Hildegard of Bingen, Catherine of Siena, and Julian of Norwich. I have never read them before, which is part of why I'm reading them now. The doctrine I am following in this part of the exam (and also in Augustine, in another section of the exam) is Christian anthropology, or as my professor prefers as more accurate, Christian psychology (using psychology in a radical way, referring to the psyche as the soul/mind, rather than the current professional use of the word).

And that's all very interesting. I am very interested in Christian anthropology/psychology, it is academically relevant to the direction I'm headed in with regard to the dissertation, etc., etc. But I have an ulterior motive here, too. I want to know what it's like to be a woman mystic. I want to know what "union with God" really means, not in an academic sense such as "when Teresa of Avila refers to the prayer of union she means x, y, z," & footnoted. I mean, I want to know what union with God is. I think I want a mystical experience.

Unfortunately for me, Teresa says quite clearly that union with God isn't granted for the sheer wanting of it. It's a fleeting and unpredictable favor which God grants to whom God chooses, inexplicably.

So I've been reading along in The Interior Castle, where Teresa compares the soul to a castle of clear crystal, within which are myriad "dwelling places," and within which, in the center, dwells God. Each dwelling place, in her metaphor, represents a certain level of spirituality. Union with God is a process, a journey through each of these dwelling places (although, as she points out, there's nothing ironclad about this process; God can give you a shortcut if God wants to). Not everyone makes this journey. And, it seems pretty clear to me, that Teresa thinks not everyone can, or should feel compelled to; she's not writing a pop-Christian manual for the laity, but to her Carmelite sisters.

There are seven dwelling places that Teresa talks about. I am about to begin reading about the sixth (which has eleven chapters to it--clearly this is something big!). I was going to finish the work before writing anything about it here, but I found something so wonderful in the third chapter of the fifth dwelling place that I had to stop and write about it.

As you might imagine, there's been a lot of stuff about spiritual consolations and spiritual delights of union...stuff that, while I can try to understand what she's getting at, I just don't have a personal experiential grasp of. But after all of this, she says:

"...it will be good to avoid giving the impression that those to whom the Lord doesn't give things that are so supernatural are left without hope. True union can very well be reached, with God's help, if we make the effort to obtain it by keeping our wills fixed only on that which is God's will."

I got very happy at this...and then very disappointed. I have in the past ranted (although not on this blog but I'm sure it will happen sooner or later) about the vagueness and uselessness of the trite phrase "God's will." (I especially hate when people affirm that vacuous sentiment "everything that's happened in my life has brought me to this point" and think that that's some kind of description of God's will. Uh, HELLO! Is it not obvious that everyone's life can be viewed as one long chain of cause/effect from any point? Shall we all pause before we get up off the toilet to reflect, "everything that's happened in my life has brought me to this point! Praise God!" Hmmm...guess that counts as a mini-rant and it seems to have happened sooner rather than later. But hey, "everything that has happened in my life has brought me to this point"...Praise God!)

So, I read on, a little disappointed in the Holy Mother, but thinking, well, obviously she has some idea of what that means even if I don't. But luckily for me, she goes on:

"There is no reason to doubt the possibility...of true union with the will of God. This union with God's will is the union I have desired all my life; it is the union I ask the Lord for always and the one that is clearest and safest. ...The Lord doesn't have to grant us great delights for this union; sufficient is what He has given us in His Son, who would teach us the road. ...Here in our religious life the Lord asks of us only two things: love of His Majesty [note: she often uses this phrase to refer to God] and love of our neighbor. These are what we must work for. By keeping them with perfection, we do His will and so will be united with Him. ...The most certain sign, in my opinion, as to whether or not we are observing these two laws is whether we observe well the love of neighbor. We cannot know whether or not we love God, although there are strong indications for recognizing that we do love Him; but we can know whether we love our neighbor. ...I have said a lot on this subject elsewhere, because I see, Sisters, that if we fail in love of neighbor we are lost. May it please the Lord that this will never be so; for if you do not fail, I tell you that you shall receive from His Majesty the union that was mentioned. When you see yourselves lacking in this love, even though you have devotion and gratifying experiences that make you think you have reached this stage, and you experience some little suspension in the prayer of quiet (for to some it then appears that everything has been accomplished), believe me, you have not reached union. And beg our Lord to give you this perfect love of neighbor."

It is astonishing to me that in what is basically a manual for prayer with the objective of achieving mystical union with God, in the middle of it, love of neighbor becomes the means of union with God. And how perfect is the last bit? Teresa of Avila scolding those who take their visions and emotional gratifications as proof of union without worrying about their neighbor. Can we hear this too much? I don't think so.

So maybe I'll stop worrying God for some kind of mystical experience. Maybe I'll take Teresa's advice and beg our Lord to give me this perfect love of neighbor instead. And we'll see what happens, sisters.

who sinned?

The disciples were gazing at a blind man. They probably were feeling something like "but for the grace of God there go I." And they wanted the explanation. Why him and not me? Who sinned, this man or his parents?

Yesterday the baby across the hall from Ira died. And now it seems everyone is searching for an explanation, one which will assure them that there's a reason this happened across the hall and not to Ira. One that will assure them that this won't ever happen to Ira, because Ira is safe from the dangers that strike other babies in the NICU.

It's too early in the morning for me to rant about this. It just makes me feel tired. Why haven't we learned? Why do we insist on fabricating neat little explanations for things that aren't neat and tidy? We read the Bible. We have Elie Wiesel and The Sparrow. Why don't we hear truth? Why do we close our ears to it and prefer to make comforting shit up?

Here's some truth. God didn't "spare" Ira because Joe is a good Christian man. God didn't "take" the baby across the hall because the parents didn't pray hard enough. And Satan is not "poofing" out my faith because I dare to notice and say these things. If Satan is involved in this in any way, I'd say he's playing the role of false comforter and dispenser of easy lies. Get thee behind me.

on my own

So, Brent is in Florida all this week for the Stephen Ministries training. I think this is a great thing and I'm really glad that Brent has been asked to help do it. But this is the first time I've ever stayed behind while he went off on a trip. I've been to OR twice to visit A & J up there, for a week each time, and left Brent behind. That was fine...but it sucks to be the one left at home. As I'm finding out, 2 hours into the deal. This place is so echoingly empty.

Thank goodness my cool Lutheran neighbors get back today from their vacationing so I'll have someone to hang out with when I get super lonely. In the meantime, I've got the cat. And LOTS of books to read. Up for this week:
the last few pages of H. Richard Niebuhr's The Responsible Self
Plato, The Republic
Teresa of Avila, The Interior Castle
Eberhard Bethge, Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A Biography (hopefully it arrives soon)

Of these, I've read Niebuhr before (and am almost finished with it anyway--will probably knock it out on the train into Brooklyn for church later today) and also the Republic. But I haven't read the Republic since 10th grade, except for a couple of times in various classes over the last decade where the Allegory of the Cave was excerpted. But I am so glad that I have read it. James Cockerell, wherever you are, bless you! It took some balls to put Platonic philosophy on a 10th grade reading list. But you did, and I read it, and now I'm reading it again...for a PhD comprehensive exam in philosophy & theology. Way to think ahead! Way to prepare us 10th grade self-absorbed neo-hippie deadbeats for our potentially bright futures!

Of course, this also means my copy of Plato is seriously and embarrassingly doodled all over with everything from sunbursts to "I love ..."! I really might find myself compelled to get another copy, especially if it turns out that there's agonizingly adolescent marginalia. I find margin notes from college embarrassing at this point now; I can't imagine what 10th grade notes are going to be like. And I was never one to write in pencil. (What's frightening about all that is, I remember doing it, and I feel exactly as mature now as I remember feeling then. So the question is, is this feeling of mature selfhood a total illusion? Or is that I'm doomed to fifteen-year-old consciousness for the rest of my life? Or am I reading back my own self-awareness now into my memories from then?)

So. Here am I, on my own for a week. What am I going to do? Probably watch a lot of movies, and Gilmore Girls re-runs instead of annoying Dr. Phil at 5:00 pm every day. Maybe finally change that flat on my bike and enjoy some of this awesome sunny hot weather we've been having. Start a new knitting project. Hit the West Windsor Library and check out some more sci fi. (I can justify this: I'm looking for sci fi writers who incorporate ideas about the posthuman into their fiction, for later use or reference in the dissertation. Any of you who read sci fi and are interested, send me recommendations.) Study for comps. Finish editing vH's mss. Bake some bread. Eat lots of things I like that Brent doesn't like. Make some strawberry jam (2 quarts from the farm this week! Wow). Call my parents 'cause I'm lonely (already). Blog overtime 'cause I'm lonely. Go to bed early so I can get up early maybe and do yoga. Maybe make some progress on that long overdue to-do list...

aardvarks and humans

Aardvarks and humans share the rare distinction of being the only surviving species of their genus.

Em? How 'bout a chorus of "I'm all alooone in the woooorrld"? Maybe the aardvarks'll join in...

tomorrow's fun fact

What do humans and aardvarks have in common?

(I'll take suggestions.)

recipe for Em

Pasta & Greens

1 bunch Swiss chard
1 bunch watercress
garlic
3/4 cup ricotta
salt, pepper, nutmeg
1 lb. penne or whatever you like

Saute the washed and coarsely chopped greens in olive oil with some garlic. Add your seasonings, don't forget the nutmeg. When they're nice and wilty, take off the heat. Put the ricotta and the greens in a blender and blend till smooth. Toss with your cooked pasta. Top with pinenuts, Parmesan, chopped tomatoes if you like.

P.S. The greens are interchangeable. Use spinach or whatever you can find.

the Chinese way

Thanks to everyone for putting up with my fit yesterday. I'm sure that there's some kind of decent reason for there to be an anonymous option for comments. Actually, a certain level of anonymity is what's attractive about blogging at all. People stumble across your words inadvertently, and without knowing anything else about you, learn what you think about the things that are important enough to you to blog about. That's a weird kind of anonymity that goes hand in hand with a real intimacy. You're inside someone's head...but you don't know anything else about that someone. We're all disembodied talking heads here in BloggerWorld.

So I'm not saying that's bad. A couple of weeks ago my husband told me the thing he liked best about this blog was that it reminded him of the emails we sent back and forth when we were dating/engaged, when I was in China and he was in Texas. I remember the freedom of composing those emails--I could say whatever I wanted, without editing, without worry. And this is kindof like that. I just get to be me, and follow whatever line of thought catches my fancy, and make whatever stupid puns or weird associations or abrupt subject changes I want. It's intimate to talk that way.

So, it's not really anonymity that puts my back up. It's just plain cussed meanness. Or maybe occasionally I mistake utter stupidity for meanness, but there's a point at which stupidity is inexcusable, too.

Abrupt subject change. Brent and I have joined a CSA (that's Community Supported Agriculture! I have now successfully remembered the meaning of the acronym without asking for help! YEA!!! For some reason I had been suffering terrible mental blockage on that one) for the summer, and every Saturday we drive out to Pennington, NJ, to the Honeybrook Organic Farm to pick up our share of various veggies for the week. So far we have been inundated with exotic lettuces, bok choy, arugula, and picked our own strawberries and sugar snap peas & a big bouquet of flowers as a bonus.

So Saturday night when we finally had our across-the-street neighbors over for dinner, we had a Chinese feast which included our bok choy and snap peas. This was da bai cai, not the small ones, so it was a little different from what we used to eat all the time in China. But it tasted right. So here's all you need to stir-fry some authentic Chinese greens: oil (with a high smoking point, because you need very high flame to properly stir fry), lots of garlic, greens, and salt. Yep, that's it. Let the oil heat in the wok and then toss in your garlic. Stir it around for just a few seconds and let it get fragrant. Then throw in your greens and stir them around. Maybe toss in a little water to steam them a bit, especially if they're taking awhile to get tender--stir fry should be fast. Salt to taste.

For the sugar snap peas I added some ginger along with the garlic, and seasoned with a bit of soy sauce and some sesame oil at the end.

We also had carrots, tofu, and eggplant. The eggplant wasn't from the farm, but I think we get eggplant in the future (maybe), so when that happens I'll be letting you all in on the Best Way to Eat Eggplant Ever. I love eggplant all kinds of ways, but the Chinese way is best.

Yes, I said "the Chinese way." I cannot count the times I heard the phrase--usually in the form of a censorious "that is not the Chinese way" in response to some clueless American lao wai question I'd just asked. Most often (predictably) I found I was not enthralled with "the Chinese way." But the Chinese way with eggplant...oh, yes.

plague of the anonymi

This is to all you anonymi out there.

Go get a name.

Quit hounding people with your cowardly, self-righteous, destructive stupidity.

Blogs are great. I love writing what I think, and feeling that every so often someone will stumble upon it, maybe read it, maybe think a little bit, and go on with life just a little bit changed, or encouraged, or challenged. But the dark seamy stinky underside of the blog world is YOU, Anonymous. You skulk. You take cheap shots and run away and hide under your non-identity. You SUCK.

But here's something for YOU to think about, no-name. Maybe in being Anonymous you have robbed yourself of your own identity. Maybe each time you write a wounding comment on someone's blog and click "Anonymous" you have eroded your very own self in the process. Maybe, if you do it enough, you will shrink down and fade away and eventually disappear from the earth with a soft, gushy little "pop!" and there will be no more of YOU. Maybe in betraying everyone else with your nasty, pusillanimous weaselly comments you are at the same time betraying everything good in your own self. Maybe in hiding who you are, you lose who you are and should be and might have become.

THERE. Go think about that as you skulk back to your evil slimy den and eat your Cheetos. And hey! If you want to comment on this blog, Anonymous, go right ahead. Because I already know how much an unsigned comment is worth. I won't delete it. I'll leave it there so everyone can witness what a coward you are. Maybe we'll laugh at you. Maybe we'll pity you. But we won't be able to respect you. Because there's no one there to respect.

life needs a soundtrack

(long mellow prelude)

baby, I see this world has made you sad
some people can be bad
the things they do, the things they say
but baby, i'll wipe away those bitter tears
i'll chase away those restless fears
and turn your blue skies into gray

why worry
there should be laughter after pain
there should be sunshine after rain
these things have always been the same
so why worry now
why worry now

baby, when i get down i turn to you
you make sense of what i do
and all it isn't hard to say
but baby, just when this world seems mean and cold
our love comes shining red and gold
and all the rest is by the way

why worry
there should be laughter after pain
there should be sunshine after rain
these things have always been the same
so why worry now
why worry now

(long mellow postlude, at some point the drummer wakes up)

Dire Straits, "Why Worry Now." I don't expect any of you to get what this song is for me. It's a piece of history. For awhile the only way I could sleep at night was to down a melatonin and put this song on repeat. That lasted about 6 months, maybe longer, and still, whenever I feel inextricably sad, I put this on. The song itself isn't profound. Just putting the words up doesn't really communicate. But there's something mesmerizing in it, something that doesn't offend by negating the sadness but sweeps it up and carries it.

During the insomniac phase I had a crisis. I was supposed to go to HUF and leave my cd player with its repeat button and go live in a villa and share a bedroom with 6 girls. How would I sleep? This was a problem. I was more dependent than ever on my song because I was trying to wean myself off the melatonin (Mom freaked out about it and, despite what she may tell you, I've always tried to make my mother happy). So my friend Ben recorded the song on both sides of a single-track cassette tape, and bought me a new Walkman that would automatically reverse and play all night long (as long as I had the battery power). I could listen to it in the villa on my top bunk, and I could listen to it on the many overnight trains. It was one of the most thoughtful things anyone has ever done for me.

So this is my recommendation for Joe. He asked for a song, not too fast or slow or too perky or preachy. This may be a bit mellow, but the drummer does wake up at the end.

a light

This is the first time I've ever seen a picture of Ira without his breathing apparatus. He is such a cute baby. It's so nice to be able to see all of his face!

This is a small victory, like all the others before it. The smallness can seem paltry. Insignificant. Swallowed up in the greater sense of the loss of what might have been otherwise. But it can also be a light, shining in the darkness, and the darkness does not overcome it.

woman+

My mom is proud of me 'cause I like to cook. I think she's also proud (or perhaps the word is relieved) that I keep a decently straight house. When I'm not stressed over writing papers, that is.

It's such a feminine sort of thing for me to do, and such a feminine sort of thing for my mom to be proud of. I don't know how I feel about that exactly. I do know that I have a fledgling vintage '50s apron collection, which I wear with pride and a distinct sense of deliberate irony (especially when it's the pink and white checkered one, which also sports a little lacy pocket).

Last semester when some other female students and I got together to read some classic feminist texts--we're still working on Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex--I brought my knitting to the discussion and we sat around drinking tea.

My former boss at the shoe store (still my sometime boss since I help out whenever she has need) is single, in her 50's, very liberated and liberal, has worked her way through several high-powered careers and been very successful, and now sells orthopedic shoes to old people with bad feet. And yet she still wears heels when she goes out.

Legally Blonde. She never loses that preoccupation with her appearance, even after undergoing a transformation into a successful and serious law student. Miss Congeniality. The whole point seems to be that a woman must also be feminine in order to be whole.

Over and over it seems like the task being handed to women is to be newer and better women--the old version, plus. Woman+ is cute and sexy, but smart and capable too. She can bake a souffle and entertain like Martha (or whoever Martha's replacement is at this point, I haven't kept up) but she can confront and win an argument when necessary too...only, she doesn't win her points like a man, but with polite finesse that leaves no one's feelings hurt. She can do everything your mother did, and so much more, and she'll never get cellulite or wrinkles, 'cause she takes care of herself, too... And look, we're all falling for it. Is there something wrong here? I don't know.

I like to cook, after all.

interstitial

No big thoughts for today. I just want to report that Ira seems to be doing well. I will see Joe and Laura again for the first time since Ira was born next Sunday. They will resume hosting church then. Joe's most recent post reports that doctors and nurses are commenting on how strong Ira is, and the words "miracle baby" are floating around. I don't want to analyze it. I don't want to theologize about it. I just want to bask in it.

And I need to get started on some more little baby booties. I think the hat & booties I knitted and gave them a few months ago will probably be too small now...

I still have a lot to do. I haven't checked my school email account yet today and when I do, I'll be reminded that I have to polish up that History of Doctrine comprehensive exam bibliography. And tomorrow starts the online course in earnest. But today, I think, I am not going to fret. Today I think I will finally go out and get some flowery plants to adorn the balcony (which could seriously use adornment). I may do some laundry, maybe scrub the toilet or something. Yes, this is a day off. A day to get my house in order and feel good about accomplishing the small necessaries of life that just slide, slide, slide when I get busy and fretful and overloaded. I will definitely watch a rerun of Judging Amy today on TNT over lunch. I may even put in Star Wars Episode 4, just because.

Because this is a happy day, a day with good news, an in-between day that I can do with as I please. Any ideas?

pleats

My pants have pleats in them. If there was ever anything a full-hipped woman didn't need, it's pleats. Why do they put them in our clothing? It's terrible. It just makes things look oh so much bigger than they really are.

That's it for this Sunday morning. I will continue to agonize over pleats as we drive to West Islip.

Boy do I wish CofCs used vestments.

lament: a lost art

Those of you who know Joe & Laura probably follow Joe's blog updates on baby Ira's progress. It's a roller coaster. Sometimes the posts are positive. Sometimes they're not. Sometimes they're so carefully matter-of-fact that it's heartbreaking.

There are always comments. Part of me is glad there are. Part of me is horrified by them, as previous posts on this blog testify. It's hard to know how to respond. I think part of our problem is simply that, as a culture, we don't know how to grieve with people. We don't understand this. We think that to be sympathetic means explaining more clearly to someone how things will get better tomorrow or the next day or next month--or whenever, but definitely sometime. But that kind of comfort can be oppressive. Sometimes it doesn't get better, and that's what everyone who hurts, in whatever way they're hurting, is afraid of. That it won't get better. To insist to them that it will, and that they must believe it, is cruel when they're hurting so bad they just can't do it. It makes them hurt worse, because it tells them something is wrong with them.

So here's a link to a prayer of lament. A prayer that doesn't shortcut to the happy ending, but just expresses the need and desire for a savior and a people to suffer with. May we learn from this model how to sympathize and move slowly with the hurting through their pain, instead of insisting on denying or anesthetizing it.

O Frabjous Day

Yea! Yea! Yea!

I'm finished. It is done. No more papers, ever. Well, except for that whole dissertation thing. But that's far far away and I don't have to think about it now. Right now, I can just revel in the fact that it is done, done, done.

And today, for the first time in a week, the sun is shining. And the kiddies on the playground down the street have some kind of childish happy music playing, the strains of which float serenely through the screen door of our balcony. And Brent just said pensively, I really wish they'd turn that music off.

Yeah, life is good.

There, didn't everyone NEED a happy post after the last, well, all of them?

What's next? Well, today I am going to work on cleaning up those comps bibliographies. I also will make some rapid progress on this sermon. The text is Matthew 7: 21ff, the "not all who call me 'Lord, Lord'" through the wise man/foolish man pericope. (I like the word pericope. It sounds smart.) Any thoughts on this? If they're good I'm happy to include them in the sermon AND give you credit. And later, I may take a little drive and buy some flowering plants and some yarn so I can begin Martin Rowe's hat. The plants won't necessarily be incorporated into the hat, in case you were wondering.

That's my day. It has already begun, really, for I have been awake an hour and a half and drunk coffee and commented on blogs and written email and lent towels to my neighbors for their day trip to the beach. I feel like such an efficient person. I have really missed that feeling, and it's good to have it back, even if it is just the result of the heady combination of caffeine, sunshine, and turning in that last paper.

boring miscellany

I bake under stress. Right now, I have three loaves of sourdough (thanks Ma! The starter you gave me is remarkably low-maintenance. I think I'll name it Marcus, since it's so stoic) rising on the stovetop, and 3 blackberry tarts and 1 apple mini-pie sitting on the countertop.

But the paper, praise be, is really almost finished. Hopefully I can avoid the Daily Meltdown today and just clean up the dusty corners, fix up a few footnotes, cobble together the Works Cited, and avoid reading it over so I won't get the urge to fix stuff. I need to be able to not care about how bad it is, and just send it off. I need to be able to forget that famous philosophers will be reading it. (With any luck, maybe they won't read it.)

So, what this means is, today I will be able to: get my TH221 papers back to the students via campus mail, start working on my sermon for Sunday, pull out my comps bibliographies and start working on finalizing them, and start thinking about the online course I'm teaching starting on the 31st and familiarize myself with whatever the heck I'm supposed to be doing for that. Anything else? Probably. Oh yeah, there's the thingy I should have finished and sent back to Hamilton ages ago, and the article that I never formatted to send off to Zygon that I should work on. I also need to make a menu & grocery list for the upcoming week.

So, I gotta get up off my cute round fanny and get going. But at least I'll have fresh baked homemade bread to fortify myself with...

burns me UP!

I was going to post something entirely different, but I made the tactical error of checking my email. Lately I've been getting a lot of very random junk German emails for some reason, with subject lines like "Kulturelle=Kriminal" and "Du weisst....?" See, I always knew that learning German would come in useful. But that's not what's got me bothered today. No, unfortunately, this was a legit email message from people that I know and like pretty well, and who probably like me pretty well, too. And I am oh so sorely tempted to send them back a reply which would make them most emphatically NOT like me anymore.

What did I ever do before this blog? Good grief.

After I graduated from Harding in 1998, I left the States to teach English in Wuhan, China. I worked at a college there, in the middle of this enormous city of about 8 million (that's roughly the size of NYC, people! Huge!) and taught conversational English, Brit lit, linguistics, composition...but I didn't go for the thrill of teaching English, which would have been easier & better paid here in the States somewhere. No. So why did I go? "Because I--am--a--MISSIONARY!" (Only Em will get this reference. The rest of you, who are mostly imaginary anyway, will have to go dig up an obscure film called "Walton Family Christmas," or something like that, and watch for the scene with the woman missionary who gives away old broken toys and dolls to the "heathen" children up in Appalachia.)

Yeah. Oh, youthful exuberance and delusion. I'm happy it's behind me.

The organization I went through is still placing people there. It's a CofC operation and as far as I know, only CofC people have been recruited. So that means exactly what you think: the best and the worst of us shipped off to China, with our 2 70-lb suitcases packed full of CofC baggage, whether we wanted to bring it or not. I learned this the hard way that first year. I have a lot of scary little anecdotes. One of them ends with the punchline, "Isn't God a man?" But, on the upside, in a lot of ways, I can locate my motivation for pursuing a theological degree in my experiences of that year.

Anyway, to get to the point. I am still loosely connected to this organization, just as someone who's been there and remains on the mailing list. And today I get an email which proclaims this urgent message (paraphrased): Urgent need to replace a male dropout as there are two women located at this rather isolated school with no male leadership.

I'm just, just, well, nearly speechless, frankly, at the amount of rage that I feel over this. I'm used to frustration and impatience. I'm used to a certain amount of disgust, even. But rage? Wow, when did I get in touch with my inner feminist? 'Cause I am ready to blast these sincere and faithful people into smithereens. Did they really mean to devalue the work of these two women in this way? Did they really mean to imply that God will only use penes to do God's work in the world? It kinda sounds that way to me. No, not kinda. It sounds exactly that way to me. I never realized how much one can do with a penis! I was under the impression that it was a sort of specialized organ, concentrating in one area of expertise...but apparently, this is just further evidence of my feminine ignorance, because obviously, the penis is what one reads and understands the Bible with, what one preaches with, what one prays with and hands out the elements of the Eucharist with...what a marvelous organ. Let us sing its praises--thank God, women are allowed to do that, at least. Otherwise we'd never get to open our mouths...except for...no, that's a little too rude, even for me.

cats and kiddies

Cats are much maligned creatures, in my opinion. Think about how horribly they're protrayed in the media. Garfield is fat and lazy and really at best only marginally humorous. Tom & Jerry: Tom is incompetent, irrationally mean, and constantly defeated. Sylvester & Tweety: well, much the same, plus the debilitating lisp. Suffering succotash. And those horrible Siamese animals in Lady & the Tramp! Yeesh. And think of the historical oppression of cats through the ages, witch's familiars and stuff. (Of course, they seemed to like cats in Egypt...good for them.) This is the reason my cat's named Tiamat, by the way. I figured, why not celebrate our reviled feminine chaotic-ness?

Well, anyway, in a world, or at least an apartment complex, full of dogs and dog lovers and dog poop picker-uppers, I have a cat. And I'm not sorry.

You may have missed this (ha) but I've been feeling pretty crappy lately. If you got to the bottom of the last post (if you didn't who could blame you?) you will have noticed that I was contemplating prospective simultaneous loss of intelligence, sanity, hair, and the onset of halitosis, body odor, those grody toenails they keep showing on TV... Yeah, my thesis being, failure is contagious and pretty soon everything's bound to go. So I guess you can say I've been feeling pretty bad.

Today wasn't, honestly, any better. I nearly overslept and missed a 10:00 meeting with 2 professors and 4 other students, arrived breathless, just a smidge late, with evident bedhead. I came home and had a lot of trouble making myself get to this paper and then worked diligently for hours on it and now have...whoopee...a paragraph.

But as I was sitting at the computer at my desk in the bedroom (not a great workspace, very claustrophobic), in comes the cat. She walks right up and jumps in my lap. Not satisfied, she decides to drape herself over my shoulder and settle in--kindof like the way moms prop their kids on their shoulders after feeding to be burped. But Tiamat wasn't (thankfully) experiencing any indigestion. She apparently just wanted to stay close and purr.

It was really nice. Cats can make you feel so special. Sure, they don't come when you call them, and I will never be able to break Tiamat of her dreadful habit of sharpening her claws in my Turkish carpet (lugged by hand all the way from Turkey, love that rug). And they don't do tricks like dogs and they look at you with disdain as often as not. But it means something when they seek you out and purr on your shoulder. 'Cause they don't have to, and they know you know it. Little kids are that way too. You feel this burst of "oh goodie" when they accept you, because they don't just like everyone. You're special. You're chosen.

So my day got a little better. The universe has shown me some gratuitous affection. I don't have kids, but I have a cat. And yep, that's enough for me. Well, maybe I could handle another cat.

prophets

In preparation for beginning the very last term paper I will ever write to complete a course, ever, I thought a little random musing was in order. And where better to randomly muse. Yes, better not put it in the actual paper...so let me get it out of my system here.

The topic for this very last paper, let me emphasize again, ever, is prophetic speech as a strategy for effecting political change. Maybe that sounds odd, but don't blame me. I'm just trying to tell you in a phrase what the deal is. This paper is for the seminar I took over at the university on "contemporary pragmatism," and we read people like Robert Brandom and Henry Levinson and Cheryl Misak and Mark Johnston and Richard Rorty. Most of these people I hadn't even heard of before taking this course. And I don't even know if that's admitting gross ignorance or if that's the case with everyone. Anyway, who cares. So: the topic for the week I did my seminar presentation bit on was "feminism and pragmatism." For that week we read some Rorty and his proposal was basically that pragmatism is useful to feminists politically because it makes room for prophetic speech. Prophetic speech for Rorty is basically a radical vocabulary shift, a shift that makes room for new concepts by providing new possibilities of expression. This is different from someone making a rational case for something, because making a compelling rational argument depends on convincing someone of your position in the vocabulary they already accept. Rorty argues that feminism won't win on this strategy, because what feminists want to advocate for can't be expressed in the ruling (patriarchal) vocabulary; this is what necessitates "prophetic speech."

Now that's not so hard to grasp, I think, especially since language is one of those issues focused on and critiqued by feminists, anyway.

The insight Rorty has that I really like is this one, though. He goes on to say, instead of appealing to some sense of "Reality" to make your case for the full humanity of women (or anything else), which is bound to fail 'cause ain't no such thing, appeal to the alternate practices of an imagined community. This is what makes prophetic speech really prophetic, the appeal to an imagined community where life is different from what we observe here & now.

This is so fascinating to me, because Rorty isn't talking about religion here at all. He's just talking politics. And offering a paradigm of political change that sounds like it's straight out of the Old Testament or something. So, anyway, that's all well and good. The problem is, Rorty's "imagined community of alternate practices" is a placeholder vision; it has no content; it is filled in by whomever is producing the prophetic speech. The prophet, then, becomes a Romantic figure whose personal charisma supplies content to the vision and gathers up followers. (Nancy Fraser critiques Rorty for this strain of Romanticism in his thought on this point. I am a student and therefore feel compelled to give credit. Just be happy it's not in a footnote.) This is why Rorty's proposal is "as useful for fascists as it is for feminists"--an admission he makes in a footnote. Guess he thought it would be less disturbing in 10 pt. font.

So, here's what I want to say. I want to say that 1) I think the basic insight that we'll get further by appealing to imagined future practices than to Reality is pretty sound; 2) Rorty attracts harsh and deserved criticism because he offers only a placeholder without content, which can be filled in by anyone with enough zeal and charisma, & therefore this paradigm doesn't work in a setting where the content of the prophetic vision is not communally agreed upon; 3) this paradigm works great in a religious setting where there is content supplied to the vision, available to the community and re-articulated by the prophet figure. That's basically it. This last move then brings in the role of tradition, the situating of the prophet as part of the community rather than a lone figure outside of it (Rorty's Romantic characterization), and makes prophetic speech both rational and irrational, because it initiates discourse continuous with the shared vision (tradition) but discontinuous with current practices/beliefs.

Now, this isn't brilliant and I don't think it's new. But I've got three days to write a paper and this is what I've got. Well, I have more than three days because this Friday is the deadline I've set myself, but it's already 10 days late and I am SO tired of this semester's work dragging on and on and on and on. I finally finished all that stupid grading today and I feel terrible about it. I feel terrible about everything, lately. Today I tried to make myself breakfast and dropped an egg on the floor. Smash. Goo. Expensive free-range organic goo. It's like the feeling of failure is contagious and leaves no area of life untouched. Can't grade papers? Can't write your own? Can't organize your bibliographies for comps? Can't cook? Can't clean? Can't drop the 5 stress pounds you gained over this horrible semester? Can't shake the tree-pollen allergies you've all of a sudden succumbed to? Just wait! Pretty soon you'll have halitosis, high-school grade acne, and your hair'll start falling out...maybe get those icky toenails, too...

I like Chinese

the world today seems absolutely crackers
with nuclear bombs to blow us all sky-high
there's fools and idiots sitting on the trigger
it's depressing, and it's senseless, and that's why.

There are few things that I find comforting when I hit that flat place where nothing really seems appealing. (I've been grading all day.) But here's one. My sister Emily made me this marvelous cd with all sorts of odd things on it. The theme song from the Tick--the long version, no less. A wonderful song Brent & I discovered on a promotional film made by Mormons to encourage young people to go on their 2-year mission (the chorus goes, if you're curious, "You're gonna go to hell, go to hell"). Odd little audio clips, like this one: "I wouldn't worry nearly as much about the atom bomb if it were to kill ya right out...What scares me is that awful gas that deforms ya!" (Yeah. That would be bad.) Yep, these things just brighten my day. Oh, and, of course, "Troglodyte" (gotta finda woman, gotta finda woman, gotta finda woman). I don't really know the names of these songs or who sings them or where they came from. I just know them by heart and they make my day better. Probably they also make people's grades come out better, too.

So, thanks Em. And now it's back to my boring life...

wo ai zhongguo ren (x 3)
ni hao ma, ni hao ma, ni hao ma, zai jian!

"affirmative"

Heh heh heh. "Affirmative," that reminds me of K-9 on Doctor Who. I don't get a lot of that nowadays since Brent refuses to watch any Doctor Who and he's the one who controls the queue for Netflix.

Anyhow, there's this interesting thing out there in cyberspace (is it cyberspace or is that just the result of reading too much William Gibson?) that Krister very thoughtfully linked to in a comment on Brent's blog. A Christian Affirmation 2005. It reads very much like a creed, and yet, it isn't. It reads like it ought to be something new, and yet, it isn't. It seems like something we all ought to sign on to, and yet...

Well, all ye that are interested, go read it and see what you think.

bothered

I'm bothered. I know that there are people in the world who think PhD's are stupid. Pieces of paper that get framed and hung on walls, and if they mean anything, mean something like, "The person whose name appears here thinks she knows more than you and doesn't really know how to do anything practical."

But it's one thing to know that that's "out there" and another to run up against it. Gosh, I'm glad it was only an internet confrontation. If it had been personal, I might've cried. How embarrassing. And not quite fitting for the rude truth speaker.

But of course all of you really know that I suck at speaking rude truth, and that's the real reason for the blog. To practice. Because I don't have nearly the courage required. And somehow, I have to figure out where to get it. So start small: a little blog that no one reads, where I can cuss when the occasion requires and yet feel safe that no one knows. How long will it be before I'm ready to speak the truth to the real, wide, unfriendly world?

A long time, my imaginary friends and readers. In the meantime, here I am. Practicing.

So, anyway, I'm bothered. I wish that people valued what I'm doing. But it seems that if they're not offended by the fact that I'm a woman daring to study theology, then they're of the opinion that studying theology is pointless to begin with. And I feel so beaten down at this point by my studies, wondering if I can even hack it, that I find myself really in need of affirmation. Which is not to be found.

oh the times, they are achangin'

I don't really keep up with Harding news. I get a letter updating me about English dept. stuff every so often, and I used to be on an email thing with alumni news. I think we get one of those magazines but honestly, I'm not sure.

But here's a tidbit that has somehow made its way even to my ears. There is a new Dean of the College of Bible and Religion. And who is it? you ask. It's Bruce McLarty, formerly the minister at the College Church of Christ in Searcy, AR.

Now, this is no ad hominem attack on Bruce, whom I know nothing about, really, except that when I went to Harding he was the College Church minister, and he happens to share a name with my dad. (I think he may also have a mustache, but I'm not sure.) No, it's not about him. It's about the fact that Harding has made a decision to hire someone for this position who is not qualified for it. As someone aspiring to claim a place in the academy, sweating it out, working my ass off, losing my sanity and my confidence and almost but not quite my religion, it pisses me off that a school I went to so obviously doesn't care about educational standards. It's quite the slap in the face, really. (So, you wanna teach in a university, do you, Jen? So, you're working on a doctorate? How cute! You should know, you don't really need to go to all this trouble! Just preach at a huge church next door to your school of choice for a few years...OH! Oops, can't do that, either.)

Maybe that sounded ad hominem. Let me say, then, that I really feel quite sure that Bruce McLarty did not angle for this job and it probably is as much a surprise to him as it is to everyone else. Not that I know. But it's hard to imagine that he approached Harding. I feel pretty sure it's the other way 'round.

And what does this tell us? Well, I think it tells us a couple of really interesting things. First, the obvious salient criterion for who is hired in College of Bible & Religion is not academic qualifications; it's "who can we trust to be orthodox." Second, it may also tell us that maybe there just isn't anyone with proper academic credentialing interested...which goes back to #1. Who in their right mind would want to teach at a school where you have to answer a multiple choice orthodoxy exam correctly?

For a much more informative and better written reflection on this, check out James Wiser's blog.

letdown

So, I finished a paper today. Normally I feel great when I finish and hand in a paper. I like the squaring away the details at the end: formatting the footnotes, filling in the title on the cover page. Especially if it's a good title. This time the title may be the only good thing about the paper, except for the enormous fact of it finally being done. I just don't have my done-with-the-paper high this time.

So, let's face it, my life is really boring. All the good stuff that you'll ever read about here is stuff that's really happening to someone else, whom I happened to be married to or related to or live next door to or met on the street yesterday or something.

My husband is becoming Episcopalian. This means that all of you who know me will need to know that "Episcopal" is the adjectival form, as in "the Episcopal church," and "Episcopalian" is the noun, as in "he is an Episcopalian." For all you grammar nuts who are scrutinizing my original sentence, therefore, maybe it will interest you to know that I first wrote "Episcopal," intending it as a predicate adjective, but it looked a little funny, so I replaced it with "Episcopalian," which functions as a predicate nominative. Anyhow, I don't know much about the Episcopal church, although once in high school I wrote a paper on Henry VIII and religion. I hadn't realized it before Brent started this journey seriously, but I had some prejudices built in regarding the Episcopal church. Like, it only exists because some fat king wanted a divorce. It does seem a hard thing to dispute, regardless of the gross oversimplification (and I mean gross both ways). Plus, I've grown very suspicious of over-friendly relations between church and state...just look at the mess going on now...and the idea of a state church makes me wince, not because I am afraid of my civil liberties being infringed (although that consideration is starting to take on more weight as we all get sucked into GWB Happy Christian Crusader World) but because it makes the church the bastard child of the state. How can the church be the church if it's appended to the government? You're just asking for corruption and hypocrisy and power abuse. Fred would say I'm sounding dangerously Hauerwasian, I suppose, but this is something I think he gets right. So there. Anyhow, I was talking about Brent. So I have had to get over my suspicion of the Anglican church's origins. It IS more complicated than the fat lusty king model, I admit. And I suppose a desire for pristine origins is only to be expected in a Restoration Movement girl, and doubtless will get me nothing but disappointment...

I'm trying to talk Brent into a confirmation party, but I can't get him to agree to the white lacy dress.

can't get enough

Sol, Ally, and Levi

Okay, so I can't get enough pictures. But pictures are all I have! Especially now that Ally has her hands full, more than literally, with stuff and can't go to the office and IM anymore, for awhile anyhow. I find it so incredible that I am an aunt, now twice, to children I've never laid eyes on in the flesh. Before you think I'm just plain horrible let me remind you that they live in another country! And since Sol is Honduran, she is not allowed to come with Ally and Jarrod when they visit the States. So, someday, hopefully someday really soon, I will go there...since that's the only way I'll get to see her. Plus, I just want to go! I want to see how Ally and Jarrod live, I want to walk around and breathe in the air they breathe and see and hear and smell what their everyday reality is like. Ooh! And I wanna ride those horses. But anyway, I was saying, it's hard to believe I'm an aunt...and Brent is an uncle, which apparently had to be pointed out to him yesterday by my friend Amy; it hadn't hit him yet. "Aunt Jennifer" is kinda nice. Makes me sound old, though, or if not old precisely, then grown-up and responsible-ish. Better than "Auntie Em," which just really does sound like a gray-haired old spinster, thank goodness that's Em's problem and not mine! (You know it's inevitable...besides, I'm going to do everything I can to get it stuck in their impressionable little heads...just for laughs.)

Yeah, so I just needed to sneak away from paper-writing and get another look at those gorgeous baby pictures, and think about something lovely for awhile...and so now I have done and maybe this rambly garrulity will transfer into a fluidity of composition on Hans Frei and Church of Christ hermeneutics...what do you think??? Yeah, I reckon it's a lot easier to ramble about being an aunt to charming beautiful children.

Big Sister

fascination

Ira

Ira Lester Hays

This is Ira. This picture was taken after the surgery that put his organs in their proper places. You can see how beautiful he is, even with all the tubes and monitors and restraints.

It is so very odd for me, right now, to be rejoicing with Ally and Jarrod and Sol in the birth and good health of my little nephew Levi, who is just a week older than Ira. And to be, at the same time, grieving and hoping and fearful and angry, for Joe and Laura and Sophia, at Ira's struggle for life, life that came so easily to Levi.

Ira isn't doing so well at the moment. Joe's latest post sounds...despondent. I want so badly to say something, something true, something comforting, something solid. I don't have anything. I've already written about the struggle to post a comment. The other day I thought maybe it was admirable of people to go ahead and just SAY something, even if I want to criticize it theologically or whatever, heck, at least they have the balls to say something.

Tonight I don't feel so charitable. In fact I feel downright rude. Here's a sentence that, if I could, I would delete from the comments on Joe's blog: "This child has changed the hearts of so many in just a few short days. " Well, isn't that sweet. I'm so GLAD that Ira's struggle to breathe has changed so many lives for the better. Doesn't that just make it all fucking worth it.

Happy Birthday!

mommy picture



daddy picture

big sister



Here's Jarrod's email:

Our son was born at around 11:00 AM this morning at the Honduras Medical Center in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. 12 hours of pretty hard labor ended in the need for a cesarean section due to Levi’s position. At 10 AM I said goodbye to Ally and watched her be wheeled away into an operating room in a third world country to receive what we wanted to avoid if at all possible, an epidural. It was not possible. God wrapped her in His hand, as he has done for us time after time, and everything worked out just fine. Ally is now resting after not sleeping any last night. Levi is wrapped up tight like a little burrito in the nursery at the hospital. Thank you for all of your prayers. A dear friend of ours and fellow missionary, Gena Hines, came to the hotel at 2 AM to stay with Sol, thank you so much. God has been so good to my family. Our little girl Sol brings new found joy to us everyday, we are so excited about this new journey that we are embarking on today with the addition of our son. We share this with you today electronically and wait to share it with you all personally in Honduras.

My thoughts:

Ally looks disgustingly beautiful. Women are supposed to look haggard and sweaty and altogether unattractive in these mommy shots from the hospital. She broke the code, damn her beautiful eyes.

And isn't Sol beautiful? I love being a big sister, I know she will too. Look at her getting into the role already. Pretty soon she'll be bossy and imperious and overprotective just like a big sister should.

And isn't that just the consummate daddy picture? I love it.

And yes, it looks to me like Levi has the Brown nose, make sure you read that with the capital and the space, we're not talking about character flaw or disposition here, but hey, I love a man with a strong nose.

There they are, my family. I am so proud of all of them, even Levi, who's too young to have done anything spectacular yet, but he's doomed to greatness, obviously, just look at his parents and big sis. Someday he'll be saving the world, too.

Levi Santiago Brown

Ally in mommy dress

Has such a damn fine name, don't you think?

He is being born RIGHT NOW in a hospital in Tegucigalpa, Honduras.Everything seems to be going okay, but Ally is having a C-section, because of how Levi is turned or something. 30-second cell phone updates don't yield very much info. But Brent didn't sound worried so I assume Mom wasn't sounding worried...so I'm not worried...not really...

But here is the prayer I chose for Ally for during labor:

Lord, you are here,
Lord you are there,
You are wherever we go.
Lord, we need you,
Lord, we trust you,
You are wherever we go.
Lord, you guide us,
Lord, you protect us,
You are wherever we go.
Lord we love you,
Lord, we praise you,
You are wherever we go.

("A Daily Chant," a prayer of the Dinka of the southern Sudan, from The Harper Collins Book of Prayers, 124.)