So, Rich Little has been hosting a series of guest bloggers sharing their thoughts on our alma mater's Presidential transition. So I thought I'd share the perspective of an out of work alumna on my own blog. (These thoughts will be a lot less polished than the high-profile public statements on Rich's blog.)
Like the bloggers that shared their thoughts so far, I have fond memories of Harding. Those memories revolve around a roommate who is the longest-standing female friend of my life and her husband and the girls I played soccer with and the year I roomed with my little sister and HUF and the classmates I learned with and the professors I learned from.
I also have some terrible memories. Harding is the place where I entered into a mode of such deep self-deception that I willingly continued what I now understand was an emotionally abusive relationship, and subsequently a depression that didn't lift until years after leaving there.
It seems appropriate in the midst of all the nostalgia and fond reminiscing, meant as a sort of bona fides for "despite the fact that I'm going to be slightly critical but first let me prove to you how much I love Harding," to point out that "the Harding experience" is not wholly positive for everyone. And hell, I was a rule-following straight white CofC girl from Tennessee--it's not like I didn't fit the Harding mold. I imagine "the Harding experience" might have been significantly more nightmarish if I were gay, or a Baptist who loved her instrumental music.
Others have expressed eloquently their concerns about transparency and academic rigor and faithfulness and the inadequacy of maintaining the status quo as a strategy for leadership in an institution. These are excellent concerns, but they aren't my primary concerns. It surprised me to begin drafting this post and realize that what I most wanted to say didn't, after all, revolve around the academic implications of the presidential transition. It's important to me, as a professional academic myself; don't get me wrong. I think this decision reflects a larger trend of decline of terminal degrees in the faculty, particularly Bible department faculty. This makes me sad, because I personally received an education from Harding that prepared me well for subsequent degree programs. I would like to trust that this was still a priority, but this decision doesn't bode well.
But even that's not why I won't send my daughters there. I won't send my daughters there because I don't want them to experience a culture where the second-class status of women is so unquestioned that it not only shapes chapel, Bible classes, church, devotionals and specifically God-related stuff, but pretty much the whole "Harding experience."
Is that too large a claim? I don't think so. I was an RA in Cathcart, Searcy Hall and New Marrieds; every night for three years I made curfew rounds, every week I did a housekeeping check. I policed dress code violations. And as everyone at Harding knows, these things only apply to girls. Even then, I knew this was something to grumble about as more than just an annoyance. An institution that literally keeps its girls locked up in a tower, and then, because we're safe under lock and key, lets the boys be boys? Sure, that's not sexist or anything.
Then there's that whole "MRS" degree thing. My dad still shakes his head in disbelief when he tells how, in the new Harding parent thing he went to, President Burks guaranteed everyone that their child would find their future spouse at Harding. (He always ends that anecdote with threatening to get his money back, though I'll note that as a technicality, I did meet Brent at Harding even if he never bothered to ask me out while there.) I took a class where married students got an extra "skip" and where we were told we'd get extra credit for going on a first date during the semester (that turned out to be false advertising--I tried it.) Only married students can live off-campus. Oh, and there's that better-not-to-burn-with-lust thing plus the front lawn--talk about entrapment... Even leaving aside the questionable ethics of promoting a culture that rushes people into marriage (a huge issue to just politely bracket!), the marriage factory culture creates an assumption that at least some female students are not there as students but as sex objects--I mean, future brides.
And then there's the serious stuff. The way that female students get penalized differently than male students for having sex. The way that women aren't always offered the same academic scholarship opportunities that men are. The way that everyone knew it was laughable to even pretend that a female candidate for the position of President had a chance in hell of actually getting it.
The way that, in a relationship that I was sure was going to get me my own Mrs. degree, I took emotional abuse as my due penalty for disclosing past sins of my previous dating life. Because, after all, I owed this guy total honesty and had grievously betrayed him before I even met him and so it was all my fault. The way that for years after I struggled to regain any confidence that anyone could ever love me, such a damaged wreck.
The great irony for me is that Harding is where I simultaneously learned my second-place place and began my process of unlearning it. Harding is the place where I took the infamous class called "Christian Home"--and even then knew enough to pitch the textbook across the dorm room more than once before giving up reading it. Harding is the place where I met my spouse, an ardent feminist and liberated man indeed. Harding is the place I learned biblical Greek--but "for fun," because what would be the point of taking it seriously? Harding is the place where I learned to craft my voice; Harding is the place that taught me I'd have to go to China to use it. Harding is the place where I preached my first sermon. And Harding is the place where I was told not to go to seminary because I'd be "getting dressed up with no place to go."
The critiques of this presidential decision that worry about the inadequacy of preservation of the status quo as an institutional leadership strategy aren't wrong. But many fall short of addressing the real question, which is, what is wrong with the status quo? Why shouldn't it, after all, be maintained?
There's much more to say in answer to that. But this is my answer. This is one thing that is wrong with the status quo. And the one thing on which everyone seems to agree, supporters and critics alike, is that this is what the presidential decision here was all about.
So, I hope that's wrong. I hope that some of these deeply embedded practices in Harding's campus life, policies, and institutional structure are named, recognized as a problem, and constructively addressed. Because you shouldn't have to unlearn as much you learned at college. Because your faith shouldn't be an instrument of oppression, externally or internally. Because God made us with brains and guts and voices as well as wombs and vaginas, and we're supposed to use all of it as we see fit to the greater glory of God. Because Harding ought to be helping its women do exactly that, not locking them in a tower.
Thursday, November 08, 2012
Wednesday, November 07, 2012
the GOP's "demographic dilemma"
I lost count how many times I heard this and variations of this phrase on the news this morning. And it reminds me forcefully of something I learned from a wise colleague not long ago.
"Demographics" is code.
And the GOP's "demographic dilemma" is a polite way to avoid pointing out that their chosen political strategy was racist. And the question all the pundits are so politely talking about--how will the Republican party answer their "demographic dilemma?" is being analyzed in terms of ideology versus pragmatism and educated guesses about which attitude will prevail.
But no one seems to be saying this. A representative democracy must actually represent: represent the people who live and work and go to school and vote and care. People with uteruses. People with accents. People with health problems. People with kids. People with money and without.
This shouldn't be about pragmatism. It should be about democracy.
Two nights ago I read "Horton Hears a Who" as Clare's bedtime story. All the invisible Whos on the dust speck are shouting out, "we are here, we are here, we are here!" I want to know what the Kangaroo party is going to do now.
"Demographics" is code.
And the GOP's "demographic dilemma" is a polite way to avoid pointing out that their chosen political strategy was racist. And the question all the pundits are so politely talking about--how will the Republican party answer their "demographic dilemma?" is being analyzed in terms of ideology versus pragmatism and educated guesses about which attitude will prevail.
But no one seems to be saying this. A representative democracy must actually represent: represent the people who live and work and go to school and vote and care. People with uteruses. People with accents. People with health problems. People with kids. People with money and without.
This shouldn't be about pragmatism. It should be about democracy.
Two nights ago I read "Horton Hears a Who" as Clare's bedtime story. All the invisible Whos on the dust speck are shouting out, "we are here, we are here, we are here!" I want to know what the Kangaroo party is going to do now.
Monday, November 05, 2012
"her body doesn't belong to you!"
My current parenting conundrum is the recurring difficulty in getting my 6-year-old daughter to quit hauling around her 1-year-old sister around like a sack of potatoes. And jumping on her head. And moving around her sister's arms and legs like she's a great big animate doll. And yelling at her to quit picking her nose (an irony, since I still can't keep her 6-year-old fingers from digging for gold). Over and over and over I say, calmly, exasperatedly, quietly, loudly, in small words, in big words, in just-in-time-edited words, "her body is not your plaything, it does not belong to you, she is not your toy, treat her body with respect, she is a person just like you, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah." Yeah. The thing is, she understands all that. It just doesn't make a difference in what she does. Yet.
So this weekend I'm saying this thing over and over, as a frustrated mommy, and it hits me. I'm also saying this same thing over and over, as a frustrated feminist theologian, on that glorious series of tubes that connects us all (except for when horrible hybrid hurricane nor'easters disrupt things), the Internet. My weekend has a weird symmetrical monotony.
So, once upon a time, a much-anticipated book by a well-known author was dropped by a major Christian bookstore chain, apparently for containing a reference to the vagina. And there was protest. And there was a promotional contest for free copies of the book, which invited limerick submissions specifically referencing vaginas. Then there were a couple of people with time on their hands and brains in their heads, and vaginas, who felt a little odd about that--appreciative of the spirit of the whole thing but a little unsure about the strategy. And there was discussion. And ongoing discussion.
What I want to do here is blog through what I think is the best critical observation offered yet, which is that there's a bit of hypocrisy involved in Chris, Julie and me objecting to the limerick contest hosted by Tony as participating rather than subverting the dominant cultural assumption that women's bodies (and in this case it is one specific woman's body) are "public property," in the sense that it's okay for them to be objects of commentary and public consumption. I stand by that critique. I think the contest can't subvert that assumption, and I think that that is the underlying assumption that makes the original "Vaginagate" kerfuffle at Lifeway truly problematic. It's not just simple censorship, in other words. There's something else going on. The interesting critique of our effort at pointing this out is that--this is my gloss on it--that of course we're doing the same thing. We're talking about vaginas as public objects--and again, in this case, the whole discussion is at least loosely tied to one specific woman's body. And look! I'm blogging about it! I'm doing it again! Argh!
Is it hypocritical? I'd contest that characterization. I'd say rather that this conundrum neatly demonstrates the larger point Julie and I were getting at, which is the difficulty of negotiating these contextual assumptions and power dynamics in efforts to stand with others as allies and craft meaningful gestures of solidarity. We don't stand above that any more than the original contest does.
Leaving it here might be depressing--as if the ultimate conclusion is just that everything is bound to be flawed at some level, and oh well. Zenme ban, what can you do. That's not untrue--I think that taking ethical stands and risking action is always going to involve that kind of flaw. Purity is not an actual thing in this world. I'm not really looking for a pure gesture of solidarity.
But that doesn't mean that, when we get ready to jump in and get our hands dirty, that there aren't better and worse ways to go about it and we just shouldn't feel like it's necessary to take the time to ask that question. As my favorite philosopher says, "we must cast our lot with some ways of living and not other ways"--even if all ways of living mean that our hands will undoubtedly be unclean. So, the hard question is, how could it have been done better? Is it possible for the contest to have been framed in a way that did take into account the problem of women's bodies as publicly consumable objects, and avoided compounding that issue?
That's an open question. Winning answers might receive a book about cyborgs. :)
And this quick post is the best this theologian-at-large mama can do, because it's time to pick up the big girl from school.
So this weekend I'm saying this thing over and over, as a frustrated mommy, and it hits me. I'm also saying this same thing over and over, as a frustrated feminist theologian, on that glorious series of tubes that connects us all (except for when horrible hybrid hurricane nor'easters disrupt things), the Internet. My weekend has a weird symmetrical monotony.
So, once upon a time, a much-anticipated book by a well-known author was dropped by a major Christian bookstore chain, apparently for containing a reference to the vagina. And there was protest. And there was a promotional contest for free copies of the book, which invited limerick submissions specifically referencing vaginas. Then there were a couple of people with time on their hands and brains in their heads, and vaginas, who felt a little odd about that--appreciative of the spirit of the whole thing but a little unsure about the strategy. And there was discussion. And ongoing discussion.
What I want to do here is blog through what I think is the best critical observation offered yet, which is that there's a bit of hypocrisy involved in Chris, Julie and me objecting to the limerick contest hosted by Tony as participating rather than subverting the dominant cultural assumption that women's bodies (and in this case it is one specific woman's body) are "public property," in the sense that it's okay for them to be objects of commentary and public consumption. I stand by that critique. I think the contest can't subvert that assumption, and I think that that is the underlying assumption that makes the original "Vaginagate" kerfuffle at Lifeway truly problematic. It's not just simple censorship, in other words. There's something else going on. The interesting critique of our effort at pointing this out is that--this is my gloss on it--that of course we're doing the same thing. We're talking about vaginas as public objects--and again, in this case, the whole discussion is at least loosely tied to one specific woman's body. And look! I'm blogging about it! I'm doing it again! Argh!
Is it hypocritical? I'd contest that characterization. I'd say rather that this conundrum neatly demonstrates the larger point Julie and I were getting at, which is the difficulty of negotiating these contextual assumptions and power dynamics in efforts to stand with others as allies and craft meaningful gestures of solidarity. We don't stand above that any more than the original contest does.
Leaving it here might be depressing--as if the ultimate conclusion is just that everything is bound to be flawed at some level, and oh well. Zenme ban, what can you do. That's not untrue--I think that taking ethical stands and risking action is always going to involve that kind of flaw. Purity is not an actual thing in this world. I'm not really looking for a pure gesture of solidarity.
But that doesn't mean that, when we get ready to jump in and get our hands dirty, that there aren't better and worse ways to go about it and we just shouldn't feel like it's necessary to take the time to ask that question. As my favorite philosopher says, "we must cast our lot with some ways of living and not other ways"--even if all ways of living mean that our hands will undoubtedly be unclean. So, the hard question is, how could it have been done better? Is it possible for the contest to have been framed in a way that did take into account the problem of women's bodies as publicly consumable objects, and avoided compounding that issue?
That's an open question. Winning answers might receive a book about cyborgs. :)
And this quick post is the best this theologian-at-large mama can do, because it's time to pick up the big girl from school.
Sunday, October 07, 2012
A conversation with Clare
Listening to Peggy Seeger's "Gonna Be An Engineer" this morning from my Girl Power Playlist, Clare listened intently. "What's this song about Mom?" she asked. "It's about all the things people have told her about being a girl that are wrong." "Oh," she said. Then, "I think being an engineer sounds like one of the cool jobs." "It is cool. Did you know you know someone who's an engineer? J's daddy is an engineer. You can ask him about when we visit next if you want." "That would be awesome!" Pause and listen to the lyrics some more: ...an engineer could never have a baby..." And a snort of laughter from the backseat. "Mom! That one was REALLY wrong! J's dad is an engineer and he has TWO babies!"
Sunday, September 02, 2012
It's probably really annoying for Ryan North that multiple someones have made the Dino Comics template available so freely on the series of tubes we all rely on. But I offer this in sincere tribute to his genius. T-Rex and Utahraptor make excellent objective mouthpieces for our human religious hermeneutical squabblings. Also: if you like the idea of having fun making your own Dino Comics, check this out: a whiteboard template for writing passive-aggressive but comedic messages to your significant other!
Friday, August 31, 2012
moms say the darnedest things
Well, not me. I say the damnedest things and unfortunately, Clare now knows all the words she--and I--should not say.
My mom, however, manages to say the most astonishing things, and their force is undiminished by their (mostly) G-ratedness.
While I'll stand by the last post, there is as you might guess a certain "rest of the story" that goes unreported. And while indeed that was the comment, I missed a great deal of its intent--as if I hadn't known that having a serious convo in a room full of small children enjoying (mostly) themselves very loudly was the sort of absurdity that farces are made of. Anyhow. The good thing is, we finished the truncated convo over the phone a couple days ago, with only poop in the bath and pee on the floor to complicate things.
So, though my mom is blessed (so she says) without giving a damn, sorry, darn, what anyone who might read this blog thinks about her, she was a bit peeved to come off as June Cleaver. Which she is not.
And that is true, and in the impossibly long version if the previous post (now deleted and only recoverable for those with supergeek skills), I had a long paragraph reflecting on what it is I learned from my mom as she negotiated these matters herself.
And what I learned was that, like me, my mom believes that being a good parent to your children is your most important priority, and at the same time, is a woman of intellect and drive and vision that she requires a context larger than the four walls of her own house to operate in. When my mom began, after her years as SAHM with the three of us, her professional life in education, I watched her work hard, receive professional recognition, and enjoy seeing that what she did was significant in people's lives. She's still doing that. My mom is one of those teachers that grown people with their own kids walk up to and say, "do you remember me?"
I didn't have June Cleaver as a mom. I had someone a damn, er, darn sight better.
Even if she does say the darnedest things sometimes.
My mom, however, manages to say the most astonishing things, and their force is undiminished by their (mostly) G-ratedness.
While I'll stand by the last post, there is as you might guess a certain "rest of the story" that goes unreported. And while indeed that was the comment, I missed a great deal of its intent--as if I hadn't known that having a serious convo in a room full of small children enjoying (mostly) themselves very loudly was the sort of absurdity that farces are made of. Anyhow. The good thing is, we finished the truncated convo over the phone a couple days ago, with only poop in the bath and pee on the floor to complicate things.
So, though my mom is blessed (so she says) without giving a damn, sorry, darn, what anyone who might read this blog thinks about her, she was a bit peeved to come off as June Cleaver. Which she is not.
And that is true, and in the impossibly long version if the previous post (now deleted and only recoverable for those with supergeek skills), I had a long paragraph reflecting on what it is I learned from my mom as she negotiated these matters herself.
And what I learned was that, like me, my mom believes that being a good parent to your children is your most important priority, and at the same time, is a woman of intellect and drive and vision that she requires a context larger than the four walls of her own house to operate in. When my mom began, after her years as SAHM with the three of us, her professional life in education, I watched her work hard, receive professional recognition, and enjoy seeing that what she did was significant in people's lives. She's still doing that. My mom is one of those teachers that grown people with their own kids walk up to and say, "do you remember me?"
I didn't have June Cleaver as a mom. I had someone a damn, er, darn sight better.
Even if she does say the darnedest things sometimes.
Monday, August 27, 2012
I look HOT.
That's what my 6-year-old said to me as she twirled in her dress. "I look HOT in this. Right, Mama?"
"No, honey," I said. "You look wonderful, and beautiful, and fancy, and super-cute, and your dress is awesome, but you don't look 'hot.'"
"Yes I do. I look HOT." And she waggled her hips for good measure.
"Do you know what 'hot' means?"
"Um, duh. Like I look really good and--stylish."
"No, sweetie. 'Hot' means you look sexy. And sexy is something grown-up bodies can look like, but your body isn't grown up yet. So, you look great--but you don't look hot. And no one should think you look hot, because you're not grown up enough yet to look hot or be sexy."
"Oh. Well, I'll just have to tell the girls at school to stop saying 'hot' then. I guess they don't know. But I can teach them!"
Yep. Yep, you can.
"No, honey," I said. "You look wonderful, and beautiful, and fancy, and super-cute, and your dress is awesome, but you don't look 'hot.'"
"Yes I do. I look HOT." And she waggled her hips for good measure.
"Do you know what 'hot' means?"
"Um, duh. Like I look really good and--stylish."
"No, sweetie. 'Hot' means you look sexy. And sexy is something grown-up bodies can look like, but your body isn't grown up yet. So, you look great--but you don't look hot. And no one should think you look hot, because you're not grown up enough yet to look hot or be sexy."
"Oh. Well, I'll just have to tell the girls at school to stop saying 'hot' then. I guess they don't know. But I can teach them!"
Yep. Yep, you can.
Thursday, August 23, 2012
her first wedding
Last Saturday, Clare went to her first wedding. She was ecstatic about it--planned her outfit meticulously, asked me to put her hair in curlers the night before, demanded to wear a pair of heels from her dress-up chest (sigh)...and donned her pink fairy wings for the occasion. She also enthusiastically embraced the role of junior amateur photographer and I now have a small collecton of blurry photos of people standing around in a church on my camera roll. She had a great time--as we all did, except for maybe Zadie, who was uncharacteristically silent all the way to Brooklyn and then, as soon as we entered the church, decided that this wide open echoing space was constructed just so that she could fill it up with bee-yoo-tee-full noise. I spent a lot of the ceremony walking her around in the back, vainly shushing.
I am very glad she was loud and that we were hanging around in the back, or I'd've missed my favorite moment of the wedding: the fist-pump and "YES!" on the way out. :)
Clare was still full of excitement about her first wedding on Sunday. When her Sunday school teacher asked the kids if anyone had done anything especially awesome this weekend, Clare's hand shot up into the air like a rocket. "I did!" she exclaimed. "I went to a WEDDING!!!" That's great, said her teacher. Then, "did the bride look beautiful in her dress?" (This was not, as you might think, a generic follow-up question--she knows my fancy, girly girl well.) "Um," said Clare after a pause. "Well, it was two boys actually." And teacher says, without skipping a beat: "Oh. Well, did they both look very handsome?" Which, of course, they did. You can't help but be your handsomest when glowing with happiness.
After this exchange--the first time I've seen my girl be her full natural chatterbox self in Sunday school--she turned and looked over her shoulder at me & Z on the couch, grinned, and gave me a thumbs up. Full of joy and completely pleased with herself at having such a great weekend report to share.
Thanks, guys. You made our weekend. Blessings on beginning your married life together!
I am very glad she was loud and that we were hanging around in the back, or I'd've missed my favorite moment of the wedding: the fist-pump and "YES!" on the way out. :)
Clare was still full of excitement about her first wedding on Sunday. When her Sunday school teacher asked the kids if anyone had done anything especially awesome this weekend, Clare's hand shot up into the air like a rocket. "I did!" she exclaimed. "I went to a WEDDING!!!" That's great, said her teacher. Then, "did the bride look beautiful in her dress?" (This was not, as you might think, a generic follow-up question--she knows my fancy, girly girl well.) "Um," said Clare after a pause. "Well, it was two boys actually." And teacher says, without skipping a beat: "Oh. Well, did they both look very handsome?" Which, of course, they did. You can't help but be your handsomest when glowing with happiness.
After this exchange--the first time I've seen my girl be her full natural chatterbox self in Sunday school--she turned and looked over her shoulder at me & Z on the couch, grinned, and gave me a thumbs up. Full of joy and completely pleased with herself at having such a great weekend report to share.
Thanks, guys. You made our weekend. Blessings on beginning your married life together!
Wednesday, August 08, 2012
And then she said,
"I'm glad you didn't get that job."
I think she was trying to make me feel better.
I know what she meant. At least this year, I won't be juggling a full-time gig and the demands of a newborn, increasingly sleep-deprived and constantly facing feelings of professional and domestic and personal failure. At least now I can stop feeling guilty for leaving my baby to go to class and for all the volunteering I couldn't do at my eldest's school, and equally guilty for all the sketchy lecture notes and belatedly returned papers. At least now, I'll only have one full-time, demanding job, instead of trying to juggle two.
At least now I might get some sleep.
But I'm not happy I didn't get the job, and despite understanding, mostly, what I think my mom meant...it wasn't comforting.
Because just like being a mom is who I am, so is being a theologian. Losing a job doesn't make me not a theologian, of course, but it does mean I no longer have a forum or reliable opportunities to theologize. And it means that there's no place in my life where I am regularly affirmed in that aspect of my identity, in the form of collegiality, respect, and, of course, not insignificantly, financially. (Toilets not only seem indifferent to regular faithful scrubbing; they're pretty meh on professional God-talk as well. Likewise, the piles of laundry and stacks of dirty dishes remain unmoved by my eloquence in invoking divine intervention.)
While I welcome the recognition that juggling full-time paid employment and a newborn is an attempt to live the superhuman impossible, I don't think it's because being a mom and being a theologian (or whatever your vocation) is essentially mutually exclusive. I suspect that my mom does, and so, she's uncomplicatedly happy that I no longer am attempting to juggle impossibilities. I'll be happier, I think she thinks, without trying to carry a full-time teaching load. I'll get some rest. I'll be able to do fun things with my children. I'll be able to keep the house to a satisfactory if minimal standard of orderliness. I'll be able to knit, make bread, read books for fun, do yoga, go on walks, blog, play, nap, feed my family nutritiously and deliciously and feel virtuous about it, volunteer at Clare's school, etc., etc. All the stuff I haven't done in a very long time because every single waking minute had to be devoted to Getting Something Utterly Necessary Done--while staving off the looming anxiety about the other pressing agenda items that therefore weren't getting done because I was doing Something Else Utterly Necessary.
It sounds absolutely reasonable. And I'll do all that stuff, and more besides. I can fill up my time. But I'm not going to be happier. I may be better rested, I may be healthier, skinnier, a little less tense, but I won't be happier. Because I'll be missing doing one of the things I love most.
I theologize. I can't help it. For awhile I had a forum for this, and now...well, I have a blog. And a Facebook group. (Not that y'all are chopped liver. Love and kisses!)
What I need--what we all need--are workplaces that value our motherhood, and households that value our vocations.
That, and I could use a job.
I think she was trying to make me feel better.
I know what she meant. At least this year, I won't be juggling a full-time gig and the demands of a newborn, increasingly sleep-deprived and constantly facing feelings of professional and domestic and personal failure. At least now I can stop feeling guilty for leaving my baby to go to class and for all the volunteering I couldn't do at my eldest's school, and equally guilty for all the sketchy lecture notes and belatedly returned papers. At least now, I'll only have one full-time, demanding job, instead of trying to juggle two.
At least now I might get some sleep.
But I'm not happy I didn't get the job, and despite understanding, mostly, what I think my mom meant...it wasn't comforting.
Because just like being a mom is who I am, so is being a theologian. Losing a job doesn't make me not a theologian, of course, but it does mean I no longer have a forum or reliable opportunities to theologize. And it means that there's no place in my life where I am regularly affirmed in that aspect of my identity, in the form of collegiality, respect, and, of course, not insignificantly, financially. (Toilets not only seem indifferent to regular faithful scrubbing; they're pretty meh on professional God-talk as well. Likewise, the piles of laundry and stacks of dirty dishes remain unmoved by my eloquence in invoking divine intervention.)
While I welcome the recognition that juggling full-time paid employment and a newborn is an attempt to live the superhuman impossible, I don't think it's because being a mom and being a theologian (or whatever your vocation) is essentially mutually exclusive. I suspect that my mom does, and so, she's uncomplicatedly happy that I no longer am attempting to juggle impossibilities. I'll be happier, I think she thinks, without trying to carry a full-time teaching load. I'll get some rest. I'll be able to do fun things with my children. I'll be able to keep the house to a satisfactory if minimal standard of orderliness. I'll be able to knit, make bread, read books for fun, do yoga, go on walks, blog, play, nap, feed my family nutritiously and deliciously and feel virtuous about it, volunteer at Clare's school, etc., etc. All the stuff I haven't done in a very long time because every single waking minute had to be devoted to Getting Something Utterly Necessary Done--while staving off the looming anxiety about the other pressing agenda items that therefore weren't getting done because I was doing Something Else Utterly Necessary.
It sounds absolutely reasonable. And I'll do all that stuff, and more besides. I can fill up my time. But I'm not going to be happier. I may be better rested, I may be healthier, skinnier, a little less tense, but I won't be happier. Because I'll be missing doing one of the things I love most.
I theologize. I can't help it. For awhile I had a forum for this, and now...well, I have a blog. And a Facebook group. (Not that y'all are chopped liver. Love and kisses!)
What I need--what we all need--are workplaces that value our motherhood, and households that value our vocations.
That, and I could use a job.
Monday, June 25, 2012
At the Newark MVC
It's as grim and pointless as you're imagining.
And so I'm imagining ways to make it less grim and awful.
First, the number of small, suffering children (and therefore, mothers) stuck here in a dirty crowded place with nothing to do but howl their misery to the unfeeling ceiling tiles above (heaven not being visible in this place). Why the hell are there not childcare facilities attached to every MVC and every other horrible place people are legally obligated to go and sit and wait for one reason or another? How hard would it be to sort that out? I mean, IKEA has a play area for goodness sake.
Second: Starbucks is missing an incredible revenue source from a captive, restless, bored and probably mostly hungry crowd. In fact, I bet that they could cash in on a lot of folks twice: get here needing your morning coffee and you might still be here, starving, at lunchtime.
And how hard would it be to get rid of those completely dehumanizing cattle rope lines and give people little buzzers like in restaurants? Put comfy chairs around instead of things arranged in rows like we're all back in after school detention?...Hell, let's just SELL the MVC to Starbuck's altogether, with a % of the profits coming back to the state, and make the whole place a cafe and add a revenue stream without raising property taxes. Are you listening, Gov. Christie?! Tossing out pearls, here.
And so I'm imagining ways to make it less grim and awful.
First, the number of small, suffering children (and therefore, mothers) stuck here in a dirty crowded place with nothing to do but howl their misery to the unfeeling ceiling tiles above (heaven not being visible in this place). Why the hell are there not childcare facilities attached to every MVC and every other horrible place people are legally obligated to go and sit and wait for one reason or another? How hard would it be to sort that out? I mean, IKEA has a play area for goodness sake.
Second: Starbucks is missing an incredible revenue source from a captive, restless, bored and probably mostly hungry crowd. In fact, I bet that they could cash in on a lot of folks twice: get here needing your morning coffee and you might still be here, starving, at lunchtime.
And how hard would it be to get rid of those completely dehumanizing cattle rope lines and give people little buzzers like in restaurants? Put comfy chairs around instead of things arranged in rows like we're all back in after school detention?...Hell, let's just SELL the MVC to Starbuck's altogether, with a % of the profits coming back to the state, and make the whole place a cafe and add a revenue stream without raising property taxes. Are you listening, Gov. Christie?! Tossing out pearls, here.
At the Newark MVC
It's as grim and pointless as you're imagining.
And so I'm imagining ways to make it less grim and awful.
First, the number of small, suffering children (and therefore, mothers) stuck here in a dirty crowded place with nothing to do but howl their misery to the unfeeling ceiling tiles above (heaven not being visible in this place). Why the hell are there not childcare facilities attached to every MVC and every other horrible place people are legally obligated to go and sit and wait for one reason or another? How hard would it be to sort that out? I mean, IKEA has a play area for goodness sake.
Second: Starbucks is missing an incredible revenue source from a captive, restless, bored and probably mostly hungry crowd. In fact, I bet that they could cash in on a lot of folks twice: get here needing your morning coffee and you might still be here, starving, at lunchtime.
And how hard would it be to get rid of those completely dehumanizing cattle rope lines and give people little buzzers like in restaurants? Put comfy chairs around instead of things arranged in rows like we're all back in after school detention?...Hell, let's just SELL the MVC to Starbuck's altogether, with a % of the profits coming back to the state, and make the whole place a cafe and add a revenue stream without raising property taxes. Are you listening, Gov. Christie?! Tossing out pearls, here.
And so I'm imagining ways to make it less grim and awful.
First, the number of small, suffering children (and therefore, mothers) stuck here in a dirty crowded place with nothing to do but howl their misery to the unfeeling ceiling tiles above (heaven not being visible in this place). Why the hell are there not childcare facilities attached to every MVC and every other horrible place people are legally obligated to go and sit and wait for one reason or another? How hard would it be to sort that out? I mean, IKEA has a play area for goodness sake.
Second: Starbucks is missing an incredible revenue source from a captive, restless, bored and probably mostly hungry crowd. In fact, I bet that they could cash in on a lot of folks twice: get here needing your morning coffee and you might still be here, starving, at lunchtime.
And how hard would it be to get rid of those completely dehumanizing cattle rope lines and give people little buzzers like in restaurants? Put comfy chairs around instead of things arranged in rows like we're all back in after school detention?...Hell, let's just SELL the MVC to Starbuck's altogether, with a % of the profits coming back to the state, and make the whole place a cafe and add a revenue stream without raising property taxes. Are you listening, Gov. Christie?! Tossing out pearls, here.
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
Thoughts on Christian Scholars Conference 2012 (Part 1)
I still have not quite recovered from my insanely busy schedule at this year's CSC: 4 out of 6 concurrent sessions, three of them basically back-to-back on Friday, and one Saturday morning. Plus, trying to promote the book on the side...and then skedaddle back up to NJ for a week packed full of Clare's 6th birthday, kindergarten graduation, Family Field Day, annual church picnic...and poor me and baby Z are still trying to get back into some kind of normal rhythm. Believe me, at least at this moment, I am looking forward to SAHM status for awhile.
The really annoying thing about being so booked for a conference is that you miss all the really interesting sessions you want to attend, because you're giving a paper or running a session yourself somewhere else. And so I missed some of the most important things of the conference, and am quite grumpy about it; and so some of what I'm about to say is not firsthand. I was off talking about cyborgs while other people were slogging through some of the most important and crucial and difficult work of reconciliation elsewhere.
For those of you who aren't "CofC" or who are but are unfamiliar with the conference, a little background here. The theme for this year's conference, a conference for interdisciplinary Christian scholarship, was "reconciliation." It was a deliberate, and salutary--if long overdue--move to focus specifically on the topic of racial reconciliation, both broadly and specifically within our own Church of Christ denominational history. That history is, it's always seemed to me, especially egregious on this issue; I'm not a historian, and that's a personal opinion more so than a scholarly one, and it may just be that I'm more sensitive to the sins of my own people than those of others. It is, however, undeniable that our tradition and its representative institutions have a great deal to confess to and repent of, and we have been unpardonably slow in doing so.
In the session “Race and Reconciliation in Churches of Christ: Civil Rights Activism at Harding College, 1949-1964” convened by Jeff Baker and Michael Brown, a story which I (though an alumna) had certainly never before heard told emerged--a story of both moral conviction and courage and of moral cowardice and conformity. You can read that story here. In brief, it's a story of student activists making their voice heard, calling for integration of the university--and the story of the administrators of the time turning a deaf ear.
It's a stark contrast to another story that got told at the CSC, a story that I am pleased, not to have told myself, but to have aided in the facilitating of the telling.
Two years ago I sat in Academic Dean's office at New Brunswick Theological Seminary, in a preliminary convo about an adjunct gig, and heard for the first time the acronym "ARTT," which stands for Anti-Racism Transformation Team. As the Dean, Dr. Renee House, described ARTT and its purpose, its importance to the seminary and some the changes within the seminary community that had come about through ARTT, I found myself thinking two thoughts: first, "I want this job. This is a place I want to be," and second, "this is something that my CofC alma maters need to know about."
And then, unexpectedly, I found myself once more on the NBTS campus as a full-time prof...and the upcoming CSC's theme was "reconciliation." And I realized I might could make something happen, for real.
So I started talking about it. And I enlisted the help of Jeff Baker and Jimmy McCarty, and I started twisting Jesse Pettengill's arm, and I started trying to figure out how one goes about organizing a session of this sort. It's not my strong suit. But as St. Paul says: God's strength is perfected in weakness, and if God can organize something through me then I think that's about the strongest argument for God's existence anyone can hope to come across.
And it came together. It came together at the last minute, and it involved some creative Plan B type thinking, but it came together beautifully, and it was, I think, a really powerful testimony to the potential of human beings and, importantly, human institutions, to hear challenging and unwelcome truths and to respond graciously, honestly, repentantly, and actively. See, at NBTS, the story also starts with students: students who courageously voiced an uncomfortable truth to the powers-that-be, that this institution, despite the good intentions of those who peopled it, remained racist in significant, systemic, structural ways. But unlike the HU administrators who found reason upon reason not to listen to those voices, those in power at NBTS listened, and took decisive action. The Board of Trustees created a mandate for ARTT--without even fully understanding what this action would mean, but knowing that it was necessary. And it has changed things. Not everything--and certainly not everything that needs to be changed. But NBTS offers an example of what it means to take the task of becoming an anti-racist institution seriously, and living with and through the consequences of that effort. We can do more than wring our hands. We can do more than raise our consciousnesses. We can do more than formally apologize. We can do more than just talk. That's what this institution's example can teach us in the C'sofC.
The final word belongs, I think, to Dr. Warren Dennis: "We should not be afraid of this. We're bigger than this...we are much, much bigger than this."
The really annoying thing about being so booked for a conference is that you miss all the really interesting sessions you want to attend, because you're giving a paper or running a session yourself somewhere else. And so I missed some of the most important things of the conference, and am quite grumpy about it; and so some of what I'm about to say is not firsthand. I was off talking about cyborgs while other people were slogging through some of the most important and crucial and difficult work of reconciliation elsewhere.
For those of you who aren't "CofC" or who are but are unfamiliar with the conference, a little background here. The theme for this year's conference, a conference for interdisciplinary Christian scholarship, was "reconciliation." It was a deliberate, and salutary--if long overdue--move to focus specifically on the topic of racial reconciliation, both broadly and specifically within our own Church of Christ denominational history. That history is, it's always seemed to me, especially egregious on this issue; I'm not a historian, and that's a personal opinion more so than a scholarly one, and it may just be that I'm more sensitive to the sins of my own people than those of others. It is, however, undeniable that our tradition and its representative institutions have a great deal to confess to and repent of, and we have been unpardonably slow in doing so.
In the session “Race and Reconciliation in Churches of Christ: Civil Rights Activism at Harding College, 1949-1964” convened by Jeff Baker and Michael Brown, a story which I (though an alumna) had certainly never before heard told emerged--a story of both moral conviction and courage and of moral cowardice and conformity. You can read that story here. In brief, it's a story of student activists making their voice heard, calling for integration of the university--and the story of the administrators of the time turning a deaf ear.
It's a stark contrast to another story that got told at the CSC, a story that I am pleased, not to have told myself, but to have aided in the facilitating of the telling.
Two years ago I sat in Academic Dean's office at New Brunswick Theological Seminary, in a preliminary convo about an adjunct gig, and heard for the first time the acronym "ARTT," which stands for Anti-Racism Transformation Team. As the Dean, Dr. Renee House, described ARTT and its purpose, its importance to the seminary and some the changes within the seminary community that had come about through ARTT, I found myself thinking two thoughts: first, "I want this job. This is a place I want to be," and second, "this is something that my CofC alma maters need to know about."
And then, unexpectedly, I found myself once more on the NBTS campus as a full-time prof...and the upcoming CSC's theme was "reconciliation." And I realized I might could make something happen, for real.
So I started talking about it. And I enlisted the help of Jeff Baker and Jimmy McCarty, and I started twisting Jesse Pettengill's arm, and I started trying to figure out how one goes about organizing a session of this sort. It's not my strong suit. But as St. Paul says: God's strength is perfected in weakness, and if God can organize something through me then I think that's about the strongest argument for God's existence anyone can hope to come across.
And it came together. It came together at the last minute, and it involved some creative Plan B type thinking, but it came together beautifully, and it was, I think, a really powerful testimony to the potential of human beings and, importantly, human institutions, to hear challenging and unwelcome truths and to respond graciously, honestly, repentantly, and actively. See, at NBTS, the story also starts with students: students who courageously voiced an uncomfortable truth to the powers-that-be, that this institution, despite the good intentions of those who peopled it, remained racist in significant, systemic, structural ways. But unlike the HU administrators who found reason upon reason not to listen to those voices, those in power at NBTS listened, and took decisive action. The Board of Trustees created a mandate for ARTT--without even fully understanding what this action would mean, but knowing that it was necessary. And it has changed things. Not everything--and certainly not everything that needs to be changed. But NBTS offers an example of what it means to take the task of becoming an anti-racist institution seriously, and living with and through the consequences of that effort. We can do more than wring our hands. We can do more than raise our consciousnesses. We can do more than formally apologize. We can do more than just talk. That's what this institution's example can teach us in the C'sofC.
The final word belongs, I think, to Dr. Warren Dennis: "We should not be afraid of this. We're bigger than this...we are much, much bigger than this."
Monday, May 21, 2012
My superpower
Today I volunteered for an hour at Clare's school, while the kindergartners made cheese in the Learning Kitchen. (Yeah, she goes to an incredible school like that!) While they were watching the process they were answering questions, like "what animals make milk we can drink?" Cows. Sheep. And:
"Clare, you have another animal that makes milk?"
"humans." Slight pause. "My mommy makes milk."
Yes, I do. And so proud of my little girl naming it like it's the most normal and obvious thing in the world...'cause it is!
"Clare, you have another animal that makes milk?"
"humans." Slight pause. "My mommy makes milk."
Yes, I do. And so proud of my little girl naming it like it's the most normal and obvious thing in the world...'cause it is!
Monday, March 12, 2012
Which Side Are You On?
Just bought the new Ani DiFranco album, Which Side Are You On?, this week. It's amazing--it's hard to choose which song cuts the deepest. For starters, track 1 gives a first person narrative in a homeless woman's voice, who laments--or rejoices?--"every time I open my mouth, I take off my clothes." But there's a line in the following song which strikes me every time as just right:
"Trust: women will still take you to their breast. Trust: women will always do their best."
It's a political song, about a lot of political issues concerning women--but for me, this is what they all come to. Trust. Trust us. Trust us as human beings. Trust us as grown-ups. As citizens. As moral agents. As bearers of the imago dei, twice over. Trust that the decisions we make for ourselves and our children are the best decisions we can make, and that we understand--understand in a way no one else can--what they are and what they mean. Trust: women will still take you to their breast. Trust: women will always do their best.
"amendment" by Ani DiFranco
wouldn't it be nice if
we had an amendment
to give civil rights to
women
to once and for all just
really lay it down from
a point of view of
women
I know what you're thinking
that's just redundant
chicks got it good now
they can almost be president
but worker against worker
time and time again
as the rich use certain issues as a tool
and when I said we need the ....? cause I'm a fool
it's cause without it nobody can get away
with anything cruel
you don't need to go far like
just over to Canada
to feel the height and sense of
live and let live
what is it about Americans
like so many pitbulls
trained to attack them
to never give
we gotta come down abortion
put it down in the books for good
as central to the civil rights of women
make diversity acceptable
make it finally understood
through the civil rights of women
and if you don't like abortion
don't have an abortion
teach your children
how they can avoid them
but don't treat all women
like they are your children
compassion has many faces
many names
and if men can kill
and be decorated instead of blamed
when a woman called onto mother
can choose to refrain
and contrary to aeons
of oldtime religion
your body is your only true dominion
nature is not here to serve you
or at any cost to preserve you
that's just some preacherman's oldtime opinion
life is sacred
life is all so profane
a woman's life
it must be hers to name
let an amendment
put this brutal game to rest
trust women will still take you to their breast
trust women will always do their best
trust that our differences make us stronger, not less
in this amendment
family structure shall be free
to be the right to civil union
if we take unions of all kinds
unions of hearts and minds
to give society communion
let's do more than tolerate
let gay and straight resonate
and emanate all things human
with equal rights and
equal protection
intolerance finally ruined
and then there's the kids rights
they'll naturally be on board
a funnel through which
womens' lives are poured
our family is so big and we're all so very small
let a web of relationship be laid over it all
over the strata of power piled up into the sky
over the illusion of autonomy on which it relies
over any absolute that nature does not supply
...and the birds say woman shall regain her place
in the circle of women, ina sacred space
turn off the machine, put away them knives
this amendment shall deliver from bondage, midwives
"Trust: women will still take you to their breast. Trust: women will always do their best."
It's a political song, about a lot of political issues concerning women--but for me, this is what they all come to. Trust. Trust us. Trust us as human beings. Trust us as grown-ups. As citizens. As moral agents. As bearers of the imago dei, twice over. Trust that the decisions we make for ourselves and our children are the best decisions we can make, and that we understand--understand in a way no one else can--what they are and what they mean. Trust: women will still take you to their breast. Trust: women will always do their best.
"amendment" by Ani DiFranco
wouldn't it be nice if
we had an amendment
to give civil rights to
women
to once and for all just
really lay it down from
a point of view of
women
I know what you're thinking
that's just redundant
chicks got it good now
they can almost be president
but worker against worker
time and time again
as the rich use certain issues as a tool
and when I said we need the ....? cause I'm a fool
it's cause without it nobody can get away
with anything cruel
you don't need to go far like
just over to Canada
to feel the height and sense of
live and let live
what is it about Americans
like so many pitbulls
trained to attack them
to never give
we gotta come down abortion
put it down in the books for good
as central to the civil rights of women
make diversity acceptable
make it finally understood
through the civil rights of women
and if you don't like abortion
don't have an abortion
teach your children
how they can avoid them
but don't treat all women
like they are your children
compassion has many faces
many names
and if men can kill
and be decorated instead of blamed
when a woman called onto mother
can choose to refrain
and contrary to aeons
of oldtime religion
your body is your only true dominion
nature is not here to serve you
or at any cost to preserve you
that's just some preacherman's oldtime opinion
life is sacred
life is all so profane
a woman's life
it must be hers to name
let an amendment
put this brutal game to rest
trust women will still take you to their breast
trust women will always do their best
trust that our differences make us stronger, not less
in this amendment
family structure shall be free
to be the right to civil union
if we take unions of all kinds
unions of hearts and minds
to give society communion
let's do more than tolerate
let gay and straight resonate
and emanate all things human
with equal rights and
equal protection
intolerance finally ruined
and then there's the kids rights
they'll naturally be on board
a funnel through which
womens' lives are poured
our family is so big and we're all so very small
let a web of relationship be laid over it all
over the strata of power piled up into the sky
over the illusion of autonomy on which it relies
over any absolute that nature does not supply
...and the birds say woman shall regain her place
in the circle of women, ina sacred space
turn off the machine, put away them knives
this amendment shall deliver from bondage, midwives
Thursday, March 01, 2012
call it like it is
I dislike euphemisms. Perhaps this can be attributed to early childhood training; Mom was a biology major and taught us to label our anatomy and functions accurately. I didn't learn any cutesy demeaning nicknames for my genitalia. I have a vagina, boys have a penis, no one has a "v-jay-jay" or a "wee-wee" or whatever. There's even an apocryphal story in my family about Mom trying to teach the barely articulate toddler me the word "urinate," because she hated hearing other small kids yelling in grocery stores "Mama I have to pee-pee" and stuff. This, so they tell me, resulted in a tearful confrontation in which I burst out with "I am not a Nate! You're a Nate!"
So. Maybe it's my mama's fault, but I have little patience for euphemism, in just about all contexts. (Which helps, now that I think of it, to explain my attraction to the blog motif of "rude truth." Rude--straight up--unvarnished--blunt, non-euphemistic talk to be had here, y'all.)
A large part of my personal frustration with politics therefore takes the form of hating the euphemistic mode of communication taken for granted there. Particularly on issues of race or sex where euphemisms contribute to, not just befuddlement, but the maintenance of the status quo. If you can't label it accurately, you can't talk about it honestly.
One thing bugging me in particular these days is this "social issues," "culture wars," "religious freedom" (?!), "values voters" stuff. Campaigning as the real Christian or most Christian candidate, while dragging up the euphemistically labeled "social issues" (abortion, contraception) to attract the euphemistically called "values voters" (a certain brand of nationalistic biblicist who want a Christian theocracy) is just another form of blatant identity politics, even if no one will call it that, and it's high time we did. It's also, not coincidentally, the current manifestation of white identity politics. And that puts "Christian identity" in bed with racism, whether or not you want to say so out loud.
I think these phrases ought to hit our ears like the dirty words they are. Euphemisms are pretty masks for ugly realities, and meant to be so so that we can leave the social contract to ignore ugly reality undisturbed.
Another apocryphal story comes to mind now, thus one from college and by way of JBB. Once upon a time there was a stand-up Christian dude, who had obeyed all the laws and commandments since he was a child, even studiously and obediently avoiding all cursing and foul language, except that he frequently used the n-word. A friend of his was greatly disturbed by this and confronted him but to no avail. And so this friend devised a plan: every time he heard that word from the guy, he would respond by yelling "FUCK!" as loud as he could. Pretty soon Mr. Stand-Up Christian got the point.
Call it like it is.
Christian identity is being euphemized into a racist, sexist political identity by people who see this as their route to power. I think Christians should probably be objecting to that. Don't you?
So. Maybe it's my mama's fault, but I have little patience for euphemism, in just about all contexts. (Which helps, now that I think of it, to explain my attraction to the blog motif of "rude truth." Rude--straight up--unvarnished--blunt, non-euphemistic talk to be had here, y'all.)
A large part of my personal frustration with politics therefore takes the form of hating the euphemistic mode of communication taken for granted there. Particularly on issues of race or sex where euphemisms contribute to, not just befuddlement, but the maintenance of the status quo. If you can't label it accurately, you can't talk about it honestly.
One thing bugging me in particular these days is this "social issues," "culture wars," "religious freedom" (?!), "values voters" stuff. Campaigning as the real Christian or most Christian candidate, while dragging up the euphemistically labeled "social issues" (abortion, contraception) to attract the euphemistically called "values voters" (a certain brand of nationalistic biblicist who want a Christian theocracy) is just another form of blatant identity politics, even if no one will call it that, and it's high time we did. It's also, not coincidentally, the current manifestation of white identity politics. And that puts "Christian identity" in bed with racism, whether or not you want to say so out loud.
I think these phrases ought to hit our ears like the dirty words they are. Euphemisms are pretty masks for ugly realities, and meant to be so so that we can leave the social contract to ignore ugly reality undisturbed.
Another apocryphal story comes to mind now, thus one from college and by way of JBB. Once upon a time there was a stand-up Christian dude, who had obeyed all the laws and commandments since he was a child, even studiously and obediently avoiding all cursing and foul language, except that he frequently used the n-word. A friend of his was greatly disturbed by this and confronted him but to no avail. And so this friend devised a plan: every time he heard that word from the guy, he would respond by yelling "FUCK!" as loud as he could. Pretty soon Mr. Stand-Up Christian got the point.
Call it like it is.
Christian identity is being euphemized into a racist, sexist political identity by people who see this as their route to power. I think Christians should probably be objecting to that. Don't you?
Monday, February 20, 2012
So, tonight I made a vegetable curry and got out my "Extending the Table" cookbook to make chapati, and noticed, not for the first time, the anecdote on the bottom of the page. (See picture.) this time, however, I though, "this is why we need birth control."
Not (just) because we ought to be in charge of our own bodies. But because we are also in charge of theirs.
Not (just) because we ought to be in charge of our own bodies. But because we are also in charge of theirs.
Nickname
So, I've been wanting a nickname for Z. Of course, Zada Eloise already has nicknames: we call her Zadie, I call her Z, but I wanted a term of endearment. One that fit her emerging, adventuresome, curious, exuberant personality.
We called Clare "Clare-Bear" from the very beginning almost. The nickname that came to my mind for her sister was "scamp." A sort of combo of impish and scamper--perfect for my little explorer. But then Brent objected: you can't call her that, hd said. It sounds like "skank" combined with "tramp."
Yikes.
So, I started over. What sort of nickname could I find for my energetic happy girl that suggested her fearlessness and awesomeness? And then my sister rescued me. Scout, she said. It's perfect.
It is. And now she responds to "Scout" almost as readily as she does "Zadie."
We called Clare "Clare-Bear" from the very beginning almost. The nickname that came to my mind for her sister was "scamp." A sort of combo of impish and scamper--perfect for my little explorer. But then Brent objected: you can't call her that, hd said. It sounds like "skank" combined with "tramp."
Yikes.
So, I started over. What sort of nickname could I find for my energetic happy girl that suggested her fearlessness and awesomeness? And then my sister rescued me. Scout, she said. It's perfect.
It is. And now she responds to "Scout" almost as readily as she does "Zadie."
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
#ows
Too busy now for my own words. Am borrowing from Elizabeth Johnson's Quest for the Living God, from chapter 4, "Liberating God of Life," which we are covering in class for this week:
It won't fit on a sign. But it is to the point. I don't know if Jesus would #ows, but I wouldn't be surprised to see Sister Elizabeth there.
"Idolatry entails putting alien gods before the true God of the Bible, worshiping something which is not divine. In the Latin American situation these gods are money, the comforts it brings, and the power necessary to make and keep it. Starting with the conquistadores and continuing for five centuries through successive ruling systems up to multinational corporations today, greed has divinized money and its trappings, that is, turned them into an absolute. Core transgressions against the first commandment have set up a belief system so compelling that it might be called moneytheism, in contrast to monotheism.
Like all false gods, money and its trappings require the sacrifice of victims. Whether the poor are offered up indirectly through the economic conditions necessary to produce profit, or directly through the violence necessary to sustain those conditions, their lives are the sacrifice. What is most insidious is the way traditional preaching and theology put a superficial veneer of Christian belief over the face of these idols...Neutral in the face of injustice, the racist, sexist, classist image of God perverts the actual contours of the living God in the service of moneyed interests" (79-80).
It won't fit on a sign. But it is to the point. I don't know if Jesus would #ows, but I wouldn't be surprised to see Sister Elizabeth there.
Thursday, October 13, 2011
breaking bad
FTR, I am ripping through these episodes like a, well, like an addict or something. (Thank you Netflix, you're such an enabler.)
And I love it. Not least because it makes me miss those gorgeous views of the Sandias I got to enjoy those brief summers I got to live in ABQ.
But two things really irk me.
First. Yes, this is highly personal and has to do with the constant, chronic and let's just own up to it, debilitating sleep deprivation I'm currently experiencing (the number of record screw-ups in the last few weeks! like, leaving my phone on the hood of the car, and misreading my own course schedule re the midterm date). I am so utterly pissed off at the way in which TV pregnancies, births, and babycare are depicted. The Whites are supposed to be living on a teacher's salary, and yet Skyler has a maternity wardrobe that never repeats itself? Come on. I will admit that the whole birth sequence was less annoying than is typical. No ridiculous scenes of women lying prone in hospital beds, screaming, cursing their spouses, and demanding immediate medication. But what's really bugging me at the moment, at episode 29, is that Baby Holly is the world's most autonomous, care-free infant. It's just No Big Thang to load her up and take her along to the bookkeeping office, where of course, she does nothing to interrupt getting work done. (I have yet to make good on my intention to book some office hours at NBTS with Baby Z in tow, and I struggle to do my course prep on a laptop on the living room floor beside her jumper contraption thing. It's pretty difficult to write a coherent lecture in 15-minute blocks of time interrupted more or less regularly by various demands for attention.) And at the hospital vigil? "Where's Holly?"/"I got a sitter." Right. Because it's No Big Thang to first, find a sitter, and second, feel completely comfortable leaving your newborn infant in someone else's hands for an extended and indefinite period of time. WTF. But for TV this is typical. The moment the drama of seeing the hotties morph into hot mamas with their baby bellies stuck onto curiously otherwise unmodified female frames (and then of course, morph smoothly right back to "normal" afterward...no postpartum bods to be found on American television), and the drama of the unexpected public waterbreaking and screaming cursing medicated hospital-practice-dictated birth sequence is done...well, the baby's just not that interesting, and stories about people who function just above zombie level due to the intense energy drain that is actual care of a real infant just don't cut it. So TV babies are magical--they don't need feeding, certainly not breastfeeding, (oh the logistical horror of negotiating that on a TV show, right?), and they don't require any actual interaction on an ongoing basis. A symbolic bottle waved in the air, a symbolic diaper change--and then they disappear from the viewer's sight. You'd forget that they exist, except for the perfunctory references to them here and there in the dialogue. And all this from a show that, really, does a better than usual job on this stuff. SIGH. It makes me want to tear my hair out, but Baby Z's already regularly doing this for me.
And second, I was so totally struck by Walt's line to Jesse re the airplane crash: "I blame the government." The irony of this willingness to pin something like this on the government just blows me away, in this context where Breaking Bad as a narrative wouldn't even exist if Walt's cancer treatments weren't completely inaccessible for financial reasons. There's plenty of personal moral failure here, but really, on some level...I blame the government.
And I love it. Not least because it makes me miss those gorgeous views of the Sandias I got to enjoy those brief summers I got to live in ABQ.
But two things really irk me.
First. Yes, this is highly personal and has to do with the constant, chronic and let's just own up to it, debilitating sleep deprivation I'm currently experiencing (the number of record screw-ups in the last few weeks! like, leaving my phone on the hood of the car, and misreading my own course schedule re the midterm date). I am so utterly pissed off at the way in which TV pregnancies, births, and babycare are depicted. The Whites are supposed to be living on a teacher's salary, and yet Skyler has a maternity wardrobe that never repeats itself? Come on. I will admit that the whole birth sequence was less annoying than is typical. No ridiculous scenes of women lying prone in hospital beds, screaming, cursing their spouses, and demanding immediate medication. But what's really bugging me at the moment, at episode 29, is that Baby Holly is the world's most autonomous, care-free infant. It's just No Big Thang to load her up and take her along to the bookkeeping office, where of course, she does nothing to interrupt getting work done. (I have yet to make good on my intention to book some office hours at NBTS with Baby Z in tow, and I struggle to do my course prep on a laptop on the living room floor beside her jumper contraption thing. It's pretty difficult to write a coherent lecture in 15-minute blocks of time interrupted more or less regularly by various demands for attention.) And at the hospital vigil? "Where's Holly?"/"I got a sitter." Right. Because it's No Big Thang to first, find a sitter, and second, feel completely comfortable leaving your newborn infant in someone else's hands for an extended and indefinite period of time. WTF. But for TV this is typical. The moment the drama of seeing the hotties morph into hot mamas with their baby bellies stuck onto curiously otherwise unmodified female frames (and then of course, morph smoothly right back to "normal" afterward...no postpartum bods to be found on American television), and the drama of the unexpected public waterbreaking and screaming cursing medicated hospital-practice-dictated birth sequence is done...well, the baby's just not that interesting, and stories about people who function just above zombie level due to the intense energy drain that is actual care of a real infant just don't cut it. So TV babies are magical--they don't need feeding, certainly not breastfeeding, (oh the logistical horror of negotiating that on a TV show, right?), and they don't require any actual interaction on an ongoing basis. A symbolic bottle waved in the air, a symbolic diaper change--and then they disappear from the viewer's sight. You'd forget that they exist, except for the perfunctory references to them here and there in the dialogue. And all this from a show that, really, does a better than usual job on this stuff. SIGH. It makes me want to tear my hair out, but Baby Z's already regularly doing this for me.
And second, I was so totally struck by Walt's line to Jesse re the airplane crash: "I blame the government." The irony of this willingness to pin something like this on the government just blows me away, in this context where Breaking Bad as a narrative wouldn't even exist if Walt's cancer treatments weren't completely inaccessible for financial reasons. There's plenty of personal moral failure here, but really, on some level...I blame the government.
Wednesday, September 07, 2011
First Day of School!
This morning we woke up to an alarm. For a long time Clare herself has been our morning wake-up service. Her techniques have varied from pouncing to simply picking up midsentence with whatever conversation we were having prior to her falling asleep. It sounds lovely but in reality, it's just as brutal as having an electronic thingy yell at you from the bedside table. Worse, actually. You can turn the electronic thingies off.
But not today, and maybe not ever again. This morning was the First Day of School and from now on, for the next thirteen years, everything will be different. Clare's not so aware of this, but I am. She's a Big Girl now, for realz, even if I still can't break the habit of calling her "baby." From now on, we have a schedule, a place to be, and a place we have to be on time. And this place will be what defines her day: shaping her conversation topics, her interests, her friendships, her moods... And who knows what-all this is going to change? It's the First Day. We'll have to wait and see.
But for now, Brent is back to work after his time off, Clare is at school, and it's me & Baby Z hanging out at home, wondering what our days will look like together as we slide into our own new groove of working-from-home and playing-with-baby. Possibly on Wednesdays we might go put in some office hours at NBTS together--but not today. Today is for contemplating the First Days of School and enjoying the sound of the rain. And doing some laundry. :)
But not today, and maybe not ever again. This morning was the First Day of School and from now on, for the next thirteen years, everything will be different. Clare's not so aware of this, but I am. She's a Big Girl now, for realz, even if I still can't break the habit of calling her "baby." From now on, we have a schedule, a place to be, and a place we have to be on time. And this place will be what defines her day: shaping her conversation topics, her interests, her friendships, her moods... And who knows what-all this is going to change? It's the First Day. We'll have to wait and see.
But for now, Brent is back to work after his time off, Clare is at school, and it's me & Baby Z hanging out at home, wondering what our days will look like together as we slide into our own new groove of working-from-home and playing-with-baby. Possibly on Wednesdays we might go put in some office hours at NBTS together--but not today. Today is for contemplating the First Days of School and enjoying the sound of the rain. And doing some laundry. :)
Sunday, August 14, 2011
and in case you were wondering, this is the next little project we'll be undertaking: http://babytoolkit.blogspot.com/2007/12/clear-unsightly-blemishes-case-of.html
I'll keep y'all posted on whether or not I have as much success with the acne cream + sunlight solution to the ballpoint penned doll face issue.
I'll keep y'all posted on whether or not I have as much success with the acne cream + sunlight solution to the ballpoint penned doll face issue.
a gospel for cyborgs and other unnatural creatures. (that is, everyone.)
If I asked you, what's the most unnatural thing you can think of, what would be your answer?
Clones?
Artificial intelligence, robots, androids?
Gay sex?
Would the Incarnation even make your list? Because seriously, what could be more unnatural than divinity assuming human flesh?
The gospel is good news because it is unnatural. It defies the "natural" opposition of Creator and created, of God versus humanity. We are not doomed to forever relate to God as God's opposition. The unnatural act of reconciliation has taken place, initiated by a God who doesn't care about pretentious and ignorant human categories of the natural.
Clones?
Artificial intelligence, robots, androids?
Gay sex?
Would the Incarnation even make your list? Because seriously, what could be more unnatural than divinity assuming human flesh?
The gospel is good news because it is unnatural. It defies the "natural" opposition of Creator and created, of God versus humanity. We are not doomed to forever relate to God as God's opposition. The unnatural act of reconciliation has taken place, initiated by a God who doesn't care about pretentious and ignorant human categories of the natural.
I know what God looks like
Clare: "I know what God looks like."
me: "and what does God look like?"
Clare: "He has brown hair. And a white jacket. With red and yellow stripes."
me: "and what does God look like when God is a girl?"
Clare: "She has blonde hair in a ponytail. And a red dress. With pink flowers on it."
Okay, then.
me: "and what does God look like?"
Clare: "He has brown hair. And a white jacket. With red and yellow stripes."
me: "and what does God look like when God is a girl?"
Clare: "She has blonde hair in a ponytail. And a red dress. With pink flowers on it."
Okay, then.
Friday, August 12, 2011
We worship at the altar of a petty God
a God who sweats the small stuff
and demands that, for righteousness' sake, we sweat the small stuff too.
Not just any old sweat. The right kind of sweat, worked up in the right kind of way.
Most acceptable is the holy sweat lathered up in the frenzy of outraged righteous indignation,
second best, that which drips from the effort of perfecting symbolic sacrifice.
Getting it just right is important. (Ask Cain.)
Getting those who don't get it right is even better.
This God cares: cares about how we love, who we love, what we love--
but not really why. Why is a big question, and this is a petty God we worship;
it's easier than worshiping a God we don't get.
a God who sweats the small stuff
and demands that, for righteousness' sake, we sweat the small stuff too.
Not just any old sweat. The right kind of sweat, worked up in the right kind of way.
Most acceptable is the holy sweat lathered up in the frenzy of outraged righteous indignation,
second best, that which drips from the effort of perfecting symbolic sacrifice.
Getting it just right is important. (Ask Cain.)
Getting those who don't get it right is even better.
This God cares: cares about how we love, who we love, what we love--
but not really why. Why is a big question, and this is a petty God we worship;
it's easier than worshiping a God we don't get.
Friday, June 24, 2011
the F word on Christian campuses
I think I've blogged about this before. I like the F word. I wear it on a t-shirt. I say it a lot. Freely. Gratuitously. Egregiously. With feeling. In appropriate and inappropriate contexts. Like this:
Feminist, feminist, feminist, FEMINIST!
So, I'm musing about this again because of a comment at a session I attended at the CSC last week. It was the first response to a question about what we can do on Christian higher ed campuses to support and promote scholarship among aspiring female academics, both students and faculty. And this responder made the case that we need to hear from women who don't identify as feminists if we want to make progress on this.
It was an odd and unexpected sentiment to hear--at least from my perspective--after the full-throated fem roar of the presentation itself, which did not shy away from the abysmal stats regarding female presence in the academy and the even worse data on female presence in Christian higher ed. Simply to state these things is a feminist act--so why is it that the solution is somehow to hide our feminism? How would you even do this? Are we supposed to privately encourage our female students, but not do anything to rock the boat because that would be "counterproductive?" Covert support like that is not exactly real supportive: it simply encourages more women to throw themselves into a hostile environment, without challenging the expressions of hostility. Here ladies, gird up your loins for battle--you're strong and smart, you'll survuve it. And hey, here are my battle-scars--pretty soon you'll have some great ones yourself. Come back in a few years and we'll compare. Good luck!
Okay, I'm being unfair. No doubt this was not the intended message. Though I'm pretty sure that, regardless of intent, this is what shying away from feminism gets us.
More than likely, the intended message was more something along these lines: "find something you want to do, and go be great at it." Ditch the feminist whining and just do your thing. Feminist whining will hold you back, distract you, brand you as troublemaker, make you depressed and angry... So don't bother with being "feminist," just go be what you want.
And "go be what you want" is a great message--one which I try every day to hand to my precocious 5-year-old (baby Z is a little young for indoctrination, though I do my best not to gender-code her onesies. It's the least I can do). But it misses something important. And that is, it's f-word hard to "do what you do" when what you do is something that, wittingly and unwittingly, you keep getting stopped from doing because you're a girl. Whether you're in that male-dominated math-and-science world, or getting an MDiv within a tradition that doesn't ordain women, this is what you face: a culture which has for so long assumed that a girl can't, shouldn't, and really deep down doesn't want to, do these things means that simply trying to "do what you do" makes you a walking-around in-your-face F-word. You can try to mitigate that by not labeling yourself with that offensive word...but I don't see how that helps you navigate reality. Instead, you've taken on the additional burden of resolutely not naming the problem you navigate. And if you can't name it, the boys can't either. And it will persist.
So I use the F word. Lots. And I think you should too. Until we get over that ridiculous Rush-Limbaugh-femi-Nazi caricature we've been indoctrinated with, and realize that feminism is, simply, about supporting women who are trying to "do what they do." We absolutely don't need women who don't identify as feminists. We need men and women who do.
Feminist, feminist, feminist, FEMINIST!
So, I'm musing about this again because of a comment at a session I attended at the CSC last week. It was the first response to a question about what we can do on Christian higher ed campuses to support and promote scholarship among aspiring female academics, both students and faculty. And this responder made the case that we need to hear from women who don't identify as feminists if we want to make progress on this.
It was an odd and unexpected sentiment to hear--at least from my perspective--after the full-throated fem roar of the presentation itself, which did not shy away from the abysmal stats regarding female presence in the academy and the even worse data on female presence in Christian higher ed. Simply to state these things is a feminist act--so why is it that the solution is somehow to hide our feminism? How would you even do this? Are we supposed to privately encourage our female students, but not do anything to rock the boat because that would be "counterproductive?" Covert support like that is not exactly real supportive: it simply encourages more women to throw themselves into a hostile environment, without challenging the expressions of hostility. Here ladies, gird up your loins for battle--you're strong and smart, you'll survuve it. And hey, here are my battle-scars--pretty soon you'll have some great ones yourself. Come back in a few years and we'll compare. Good luck!
Okay, I'm being unfair. No doubt this was not the intended message. Though I'm pretty sure that, regardless of intent, this is what shying away from feminism gets us.
More than likely, the intended message was more something along these lines: "find something you want to do, and go be great at it." Ditch the feminist whining and just do your thing. Feminist whining will hold you back, distract you, brand you as troublemaker, make you depressed and angry... So don't bother with being "feminist," just go be what you want.
And "go be what you want" is a great message--one which I try every day to hand to my precocious 5-year-old (baby Z is a little young for indoctrination, though I do my best not to gender-code her onesies. It's the least I can do). But it misses something important. And that is, it's f-word hard to "do what you do" when what you do is something that, wittingly and unwittingly, you keep getting stopped from doing because you're a girl. Whether you're in that male-dominated math-and-science world, or getting an MDiv within a tradition that doesn't ordain women, this is what you face: a culture which has for so long assumed that a girl can't, shouldn't, and really deep down doesn't want to, do these things means that simply trying to "do what you do" makes you a walking-around in-your-face F-word. You can try to mitigate that by not labeling yourself with that offensive word...but I don't see how that helps you navigate reality. Instead, you've taken on the additional burden of resolutely not naming the problem you navigate. And if you can't name it, the boys can't either. And it will persist.
So I use the F word. Lots. And I think you should too. Until we get over that ridiculous Rush-Limbaugh-femi-Nazi caricature we've been indoctrinated with, and realize that feminism is, simply, about supporting women who are trying to "do what they do." We absolutely don't need women who don't identify as feminists. We need men and women who do.
Thursday, June 23, 2011
CSC 2011: Faith, Science, Babies
This is a conference I don't skip and always look forward to, and I'd been looking forward to this one for a solid year or more--ever since learning that the theme was "Science, Theology and the Academy." And, since I was lucky enough to be informally included in some of the brainstorming and planning, I got invested in it early. And though I had exhausted myself in 2010 with multiple sessions and vowed not to ever do that again (mainly, because it means that you're always missing out on sessions you really, really want to attend but can't), I couldn't just sit on the sidelines for this one. In fact, I was so excited about it all that I made all sorts of plans, sessions I wanted to convene and papers I wanted to write and present--and it was months before a basic fact of life clicked: a baby due in April = babe-in-arms in June. Yikes! So then I had to revise expectations a bit, and figure out how I was going to make that work.
But, I'm very happy to say, it did seem to work, and I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Teresa Pecinovsky a.k.a. TKP, who volunteered to be my child-care-support (especially since it turned out that Plan A, a.k.a. "Nana," my mom, Pat Thweatt, could not attend as originally planned!). I'm sure that there were some sessions and networking and whatnot that TKP missed out on, and walking a howling desperately hungry babe around is no fun (Baby Z is quite unaccustomed to being made to wait 10 minutes for meals. She thought the world was ending.) However awesome my baby Z is--and she IS--it was still a sacrifice and one without which I could not have done the introducing/presenting I needed to do.
And, although one effect of having babe-in-arms at the CSC was a definite sense of being only half-there, perpetually late and a little unfocused and in general, just a little less than my professional best--I am super glad that I did it (with help). First, because I simply could not miss this conference. And second, because it just shouldn't be impossible for a woman to be a scholar and a mother, and simply walking around with a baby in a sling at an academic shindig makes that statement better than grousing about it on a blog.
And, next time I present something at a conference (coming up in November, where I present something on Haraway cyborg & theology in front of Haraway her very own self), if I get nervous, I can now say to myself, "Self, you got up in front of folks with about six episodes of spit-up evident on your shirt and pee on your foot. You can get through this."
My favorite question from the conference (apart from: "how old is she?"): "you're listed as 'Independent Scholar'--what exactly does that mean?" Um...polite euphemism for unemployed, and thank you for asking. Do you know of anyone with a need for some professional God-talk? I'm available. (Got a tip the other day from a friend about hawking my God-talk services--apparently someone is having some success with this! Who knew?)
Re the academicking side of things, I am very pleased to report that the session I organized on "Theology, Science and the Hermenautics of Interdisciplinary Reason," starring my superstar colleague Ken Reynhout, my ACU prof & advisor Fred Aquino, and fellow ACU alum/SMU PhD candidate David Mahfood, was a huge success (IMO). I was not anticipating a huge turnout, but the room, with 50 seats, was about 3/4 full, and the Q&A time had less awkward downtime than any AAR session I've ever been to. Apparently people are way hungrier for epistemological musing than I bargained for! So--while I have a mental list of self-critical "do this better next time" notes, I think the session itself was brilliant and I am very proud to have brought such a marvelous bunch of guys together.
My other session was also brilliant, though only a handful of folks know that firsthand. :( And again, it's Ken who really shined there--I was pretty fatigued by Friday afternoon, plus I had pee on my foot, so I was less than awesome. But despite my less than awesomeness, the topic of our session--the Science for Ministry Institute that Ken & Wentzel direct at PTS--is such a great program and model for interdisciplinary science and religion dialogue that the session rocked anyway. Just wish more folks had found their way to our little room to hear about it!
There were, of course, lots of sessions I wish I could have attended and couldn't--not just those that conflicted with mine, but sitting through a session with a babe means, really, not sitting at all, and hoping that coming in & out multiple times is less annoying to everyone than baby noises. Chris Dowdy's panel session, "After Apology: A Conversation with Royce Money on Apology, Race and Christian Higher Education," was the first session I half-attended (an incredibly important dialogue, and I have the impression that it went extremely well.) There were also several sessions on gender in the CofC, most of which I couldn't go to, but which add an important dimension to the ongoing dialogue about this within our tradition in their contribution of empirical research into attitudes and practices about gendered roles in (and out of) church. One session I did attend addressed specifically the overlap between academia and theology on gender issues: Christian institutions of higher education and the specific challenges faced by female scholars and administrators within them. Academia in general is not, ahem, very "woman friendly"--if you doubt this, cruise on over to the blog What is it like to be a woman in philosophy?--and in a Christian context, this atmosphere is often additionally entrenched with theological justifications. To hear this said out loud, bluntly, to a roomful of interested women and men who then proceeded to ask the constructive question--how do we change this? what practices need to be changed and what new practices invented? what structures need to be torn down and what new ones built? who are the key players in the institutions for doing these things and how do we teach them what needs to be done?--while I sat there, an un(der)employed academic with a baby at my breast, while the topic at hand was the how-to promotion of women scholars--I can't even really put into words what that sort of affirmation felt like.
One regret that won't go away: I missed my chance to meet John Polkinghorne. Baby Z got a little hungry for second breakfast right before the Saturday morning session, and so I was late making my way to the room. Session was already underway when I got there--and I had to catch my plane. That chance won't be coming back, and I'm a little heartsick about it.
However, I did get to meet J.J.M. Roberts, finally! Since we just missed each other at PTS, it took years and a trip to Malibu to make that happen.
But, there's next year in Nashville to look forward to, for lots of reasons. The theme is "reconciliation," I'm honored to now be a part of the science & religion planning committee, and middle TN is Home. See y'all there.
Wednesday, June 08, 2011
Clare and I often engage in a little verbal competition to see who can create the most hyperbolic I love you's. Tonight's contest spawned a bit of theological reflection for my almost 5-year-old.
Clare: "I love you bigger than...bigger than God!"
me: "but baby, God is love. So when you love, you just make God even bigger."
Clare: "so God is the biggest thing there is?"
me: "sure. God is everything, so nothing is bigger than God."
Clare: "and if you hate someone you make God smaller."
me: "yes, you could think of it like that. and when you love, it makes God bigger, and brings God right where you are, where the love is."
"so he's everywhere? even right here in the bed?"
"sure."
"I want to call God a girl." [this just as I was about to ask why lately she's been exclusively using the masculine pronoun in her Godtalk.]
"That's totally okay. God is a big girl too. God is everything, so you can call God a he or a she."
"I want to call God 'Universe.'" then, flinging her arms out and embracing the air, "I love you Universe!"
Clare: "I love you bigger than...bigger than God!"
me: "but baby, God is love. So when you love, you just make God even bigger."
Clare: "so God is the biggest thing there is?"
me: "sure. God is everything, so nothing is bigger than God."
Clare: "and if you hate someone you make God smaller."
me: "yes, you could think of it like that. and when you love, it makes God bigger, and brings God right where you are, where the love is."
"so he's everywhere? even right here in the bed?"
"sure."
"I want to call God a girl." [this just as I was about to ask why lately she's been exclusively using the masculine pronoun in her Godtalk.]
"That's totally okay. God is a big girl too. God is everything, so you can call God a he or a she."
"I want to call God 'Universe.'" then, flinging her arms out and embracing the air, "I love you Universe!"
Thursday, April 21, 2011
the New York Times, an open letter, and my two cents
I think just about every ACU alum in my 500+ Facebook friends has picked this up and posted it, or hit the "like" button on someone else's link: "Even on religious campuses, students fight for gay identity" by Erik Eckholm in the NYT.
If you've read the piece, you know that it references Harding University and Abilene Christian University, as well as Baylor University, Belmont University, and North Central University (a Pentecostal university in central MN).
You may also know that in response to the occasion created by the NYT article, my husband wrote an open letter to the administrations of both Harding and ACU, speaking as an alum of both universities and as Rector of Grace Church in Newark. (Brent has followed up with a brief clarification, here.)
I have no wish to write an open letter (not sure that it would matter much to anyone what an unemployed theologian and mom of two who works unpaid from her home office has to say?), but both the article itself, Brent's letter, and the dialogue and personal responses from our ACU mentors and colleagues have prompted a lot of thoughts--exactly the kind of thing this blog serves as my dumping ground for. And so, since Baby Z seems content so far to ignore Google calendar's kind reminder that today is "DUE DATE" (lest we forget?!), I will do some cognitive dumping. (Yes, I expect that this scatty metaphor is entirely appropriate for the level of organization and polish this post will exhibit.)
No one knows better than two alums of both schools, Harding and ACU, how different these two institutions within our Church of Christ tradition truly are. (Y'all, we lived it.) The response that HUQP received, censorship and public condemnation from the chapel pulpit, was as unsurprising as it was disappointing. The point of The State of the Gay, according to HUQP, was to start dialogue about the presence and experiences of gay students at Harding--and while HUQP succeeded in starting a dialogue much bigger than they had originally anticipated, they did so despite Harding University's efforts to end the conversation before it even got started. This is starkly different from ACU's recent track record of actively, respectfully and officially engaging this issue on campus (read, for instance, this 2006 account from Robin Reed of SoulForce, entitled "Grateful for Abilene.")
Further, even at Harding, as the authors of The State of the Gay attest, there are individuals within both the student body and the faculty who are welcoming not just of dialogue but of actual gay people, even in all their gayness. I certainly know this to be true at ACU. But the NYT article, focused as it is on institutional policy and working with a broad and generic category of "religious campuses" that stretches to include everything from the largest and best-known Baptist university in the country to a small Bible college in MN, does not drill down to this level of (highly relevant) detail. Official spokespersons' statements of official policy are the end of that story; and this, as the HUQP's voices remind us, is just the beginning of the real story, and the reason for having a conversation.
For all that, I have to say that spokesperson reiterations of official institutional policy are significant. For one thing, they're what make it into print in the New York Times, and they're the articulation of the stance of the institution in the public square. Things may be much more complicated--they always are--on the ground of these "religious campuses" (and praise God for that!). But the official policy is not complicated. It is simple and straightforward, and it tells gay students that they are welcome...but their gayness is not:
This makes sense to a lot of people. And as far as I can tell, all those people are straight.
This is the problem: "hate the sin, love the sinner," and its official policy counterpart of insisting on reparative therapy and the characterization of all gayness as "struggle with same-sex attraction" only works as long as you refuse to listen to what actual gay people around you will tell you about being gay.
Are there people with ex-gay narratives? Yes. Are these people flourishing, at peace, spiritually blessed and transformed as ex-gay? I'll take their word for it. By the same token, if these narratives matter as testimonies and witness to the possibility of transformation, I must by my own reasoning take the word of the many, many more gay Christians I know for whom the demand to be ex-gay was soul-crushing and literally life-threatening, and for whom coming out was a salvific act. We can't pick and choose among the narratives our gay Christian brothers and sisters give us; they are as complicated a set of life stories and faith journeys as any other. We don't get to privilege the ones that tell us what we already believe to be true, while shutting out the ones that contradict our presuppositions. We have to face the necessity of reconstructing, over and over again, what we think the Bible teaches us and what God demands of us in our attempts to lead holy lives. Because that is what the Christian life is.
Is this sort of dialogue and attentive listening and faithful Christian living in community happening at ACU? Yes. But is it reflected in the official policy as articulated to the New York Times? No.
And this is, as I see it, the point of the open letter. We know the kind of community and ethic that exists at ACU, and we know that the full realities of ACU's actions and attitudes towards its gay students is not reflected in a one-size-fits-all official policy of reparative therapy for the "struggle with same-sex attraction." And that is both encouraging and problematic, in that it indicates a disconnect between on-the-ground practice and policy. The point of the letter, as I see it, is to publicly urge the university to fix this disconnect. The point of the letter is that this is not a vain hope.
This may indeed get lost in the media's bottomless ability for amplifying conflict and ignoring the possibilities of reconciliation which are the heart of the Christian gospel. But we know better. The work of reconciliation is already evident, if not complete, and in this work everyone must discern and play their part. This is difficult, and sometimes we get it wrong--and yet, even so, my faith is unshaken that this, indeed, is not a vain hope.
If you've read the piece, you know that it references Harding University and Abilene Christian University, as well as Baylor University, Belmont University, and North Central University (a Pentecostal university in central MN).
You may also know that in response to the occasion created by the NYT article, my husband wrote an open letter to the administrations of both Harding and ACU, speaking as an alum of both universities and as Rector of Grace Church in Newark. (Brent has followed up with a brief clarification, here.)
I have no wish to write an open letter (not sure that it would matter much to anyone what an unemployed theologian and mom of two who works unpaid from her home office has to say?), but both the article itself, Brent's letter, and the dialogue and personal responses from our ACU mentors and colleagues have prompted a lot of thoughts--exactly the kind of thing this blog serves as my dumping ground for. And so, since Baby Z seems content so far to ignore Google calendar's kind reminder that today is "DUE DATE" (lest we forget?!), I will do some cognitive dumping. (Yes, I expect that this scatty metaphor is entirely appropriate for the level of organization and polish this post will exhibit.)
No one knows better than two alums of both schools, Harding and ACU, how different these two institutions within our Church of Christ tradition truly are. (Y'all, we lived it.) The response that HUQP received, censorship and public condemnation from the chapel pulpit, was as unsurprising as it was disappointing. The point of The State of the Gay, according to HUQP, was to start dialogue about the presence and experiences of gay students at Harding--and while HUQP succeeded in starting a dialogue much bigger than they had originally anticipated, they did so despite Harding University's efforts to end the conversation before it even got started. This is starkly different from ACU's recent track record of actively, respectfully and officially engaging this issue on campus (read, for instance, this 2006 account from Robin Reed of SoulForce, entitled "Grateful for Abilene.")
Further, even at Harding, as the authors of The State of the Gay attest, there are individuals within both the student body and the faculty who are welcoming not just of dialogue but of actual gay people, even in all their gayness. I certainly know this to be true at ACU. But the NYT article, focused as it is on institutional policy and working with a broad and generic category of "religious campuses" that stretches to include everything from the largest and best-known Baptist university in the country to a small Bible college in MN, does not drill down to this level of (highly relevant) detail. Official spokespersons' statements of official policy are the end of that story; and this, as the HUQP's voices remind us, is just the beginning of the real story, and the reason for having a conversation.
For all that, I have to say that spokesperson reiterations of official institutional policy are significant. For one thing, they're what make it into print in the New York Times, and they're the articulation of the stance of the institution in the public square. Things may be much more complicated--they always are--on the ground of these "religious campuses" (and praise God for that!). But the official policy is not complicated. It is simple and straightforward, and it tells gay students that they are welcome...but their gayness is not:
“We want to engage these complex issues, and to give help and guidance to students who are struggling with same-sex attraction,” said Jean-Noel Thompson, [ACU]’s vice president for student life. “But we are not going to embrace any advocacy for gay identity.”Many people, of course, find themselves stuck between an understanding of the Christian imperative to love and welcome all people, as Jesus did, and their understanding that the Bible clearly condemns same-sex relationships as sin. The uneasy, and unstable, result, is a compromise in the form of the mantra "hate the sin, love the sinner," a phrase which neatly sums up the reasoning behind the statement of official policy above, which walks the same fine line. You are welcome here, but your gayness is not.
This makes sense to a lot of people. And as far as I can tell, all those people are straight.
This is the problem: "hate the sin, love the sinner," and its official policy counterpart of insisting on reparative therapy and the characterization of all gayness as "struggle with same-sex attraction" only works as long as you refuse to listen to what actual gay people around you will tell you about being gay.
Are there people with ex-gay narratives? Yes. Are these people flourishing, at peace, spiritually blessed and transformed as ex-gay? I'll take their word for it. By the same token, if these narratives matter as testimonies and witness to the possibility of transformation, I must by my own reasoning take the word of the many, many more gay Christians I know for whom the demand to be ex-gay was soul-crushing and literally life-threatening, and for whom coming out was a salvific act. We can't pick and choose among the narratives our gay Christian brothers and sisters give us; they are as complicated a set of life stories and faith journeys as any other. We don't get to privilege the ones that tell us what we already believe to be true, while shutting out the ones that contradict our presuppositions. We have to face the necessity of reconstructing, over and over again, what we think the Bible teaches us and what God demands of us in our attempts to lead holy lives. Because that is what the Christian life is.
Is this sort of dialogue and attentive listening and faithful Christian living in community happening at ACU? Yes. But is it reflected in the official policy as articulated to the New York Times? No.
And this is, as I see it, the point of the open letter. We know the kind of community and ethic that exists at ACU, and we know that the full realities of ACU's actions and attitudes towards its gay students is not reflected in a one-size-fits-all official policy of reparative therapy for the "struggle with same-sex attraction." And that is both encouraging and problematic, in that it indicates a disconnect between on-the-ground practice and policy. The point of the letter, as I see it, is to publicly urge the university to fix this disconnect. The point of the letter is that this is not a vain hope.
This may indeed get lost in the media's bottomless ability for amplifying conflict and ignoring the possibilities of reconciliation which are the heart of the Christian gospel. But we know better. The work of reconciliation is already evident, if not complete, and in this work everyone must discern and play their part. This is difficult, and sometimes we get it wrong--and yet, even so, my faith is unshaken that this, indeed, is not a vain hope.
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Calling a Time-Out: on Gender, Evolution, and Neon, or "Pink Polished Primate Piggies"
A 5,000 year old burial site with male remains buried in a typical female manner suggests, to researcher Kamila Remisova Vesinova, that this burial site contained a man who was gay/transsexual. This was no Jimmy Castor Bunch troglodyte virilely grunting to himself in the mirror "gottafindawoman, gottafindawoman, gottafindawoman, gottafindawoman." What could possibly explain ancient evidence of such gender deviant behavior?
Well obviously, Mr/s. Troglodyte's misguided mama stumbled upon a small time capsule sent back in time by the diabolical mad scientist that the pink-polished J. Crew ad boy is clearly destined to become, thanks to the warped notions of his own mother, in a desperate effort to undermine the social fabric and family values of America and thereby validate his deviant gender-bending neon-pink polish preferences, before America even comes into existence.
Obviously.
Like Melissa Wardy of pigtailpals.com, my first reaction to Toemageddon was to roll my eyes at Faux-News and continue thinking about relevant things (like finishing my book before these Braxton-Hicks thingies turn into The Real Thing.) But--as Melissa points out--the story in this non-story, the Thing That Should Be Talked About, is:
Well obviously, Mr/s. Troglodyte's misguided mama stumbled upon a small time capsule sent back in time by the diabolical mad scientist that the pink-polished J. Crew ad boy is clearly destined to become, thanks to the warped notions of his own mother, in a desperate effort to undermine the social fabric and family values of America and thereby validate his deviant gender-bending neon-pink polish preferences, before America even comes into existence.
Obviously.
Like Melissa Wardy of pigtailpals.com, my first reaction to Toemageddon was to roll my eyes at Faux-News and continue thinking about relevant things (like finishing my book before these Braxton-Hicks thingies turn into The Real Thing.) But--as Melissa points out--the story in this non-story, the Thing That Should Be Talked About, is:
...the gender constraint and gender policing going on in this hullabaloo. From the moment go nearly two years ago, Pigtail Pals has put a direct challenge to the marketing and products that I know to be objectifiying, limiting, stereotyping and sexualizing our girls. What we must know as parents and people who care about children – we must afford this same right to our sons.So this troglodyte-turned-cyborg mama is calling a TIME-OUT. Fox Friends, you need to go sit in a quiet place, get calm, and think about the stupid things you've said that were wrong, and mean, and when you've figured out what it is you did that was wrong, you need to apologize. Nicely, like you really mean it. First, to Jenna and her adorable kid with the awesome toenails, and then to the rest of America for making us take the time out of our busy adult lives to address this ridiculous gender-bending behavior, and by that I mean, yours.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
why don't they just leave (once again, sigh)
It must really suck to have this aimed at you from both sides of the Great Divide: those firmly within the CofC, and those who have left and don't understand why everyone else just won't grow a pair and do the same.
Those of us who, like Paul Tillich describes, are "aliens" within our own churches (his summation of the existential predicament of theologians) are pretty used to hearing this occasionally from CofC people who are tired of putting up with us and our tiresome oddity and annoying vocality. Certainly I've heard it enough, as this blog's archive testifies. If you decide to dwell within the CofC as alien anyhow, you learn how to screen this out--or at least, armor yourself against the hurtfulness of it. I imagine that the HU students & alumni who comprise the HU Queer Press anticipated this kind of reaction from the pious faithful. In fact--the overall message of The State of the Gay seems to be a response to this question, an answer to that reactionary attitude: Why don't we just leave? Because we're part of you--and we always have been. And because we're invested in making this community that we're all a part of a better one, for everybody.
In case there were any doubt about this, the latest statement from HUQP ought to clear it up. Demanding that hate mail to the HU administration cease, HUQP writes:
Those of us who, like Paul Tillich describes, are "aliens" within our own churches (his summation of the existential predicament of theologians) are pretty used to hearing this occasionally from CofC people who are tired of putting up with us and our tiresome oddity and annoying vocality. Certainly I've heard it enough, as this blog's archive testifies. If you decide to dwell within the CofC as alien anyhow, you learn how to screen this out--or at least, armor yourself against the hurtfulness of it. I imagine that the HU students & alumni who comprise the HU Queer Press anticipated this kind of reaction from the pious faithful. In fact--the overall message of The State of the Gay seems to be a response to this question, an answer to that reactionary attitude: Why don't we just leave? Because we're part of you--and we always have been. And because we're invested in making this community that we're all a part of a better one, for everybody.
In case there were any doubt about this, the latest statement from HUQP ought to clear it up. Demanding that hate mail to the HU administration cease, HUQP writes:
We are frustrated that others would pervert our message of compassion and open dialogue by speaking with hate and violence. We wish to create a better campus for all, queer and straight. This cannot be achieved by alienating or attacking those with whom we disagree. Anyone who uses or advocates violence, in word or in action, has completely misunderstood our zine's message.And they end the statement with this:
"The violence we preach is not the violence of the sword, the violence of hatred. It is the violence of love, of unity, the violence that wills to beat weapons into sickles for work"It is the same message I tried to express after a couple years of wrestling with the emotional aftermath of a truly awful experience in a CofC, in which I felt personally targeted and deliberately ambushed--despite having said and done nothing to express any of my heretical theological views within that church community. You can read the full blog post here. But here's an excerpt:
- Archbishop Oscar Romero
I've wondered if I really should just give up, and go away. I can't count how many people over these intervening years have asked why I don't--students, friends, family, colleagues. My answer used to be that this church is my home; how do you leave your home? But that Sunday I wondered for the first time if maybe my home might leave me, instead. Later, in defiance, my answer was, why should I? This is my home, too. Then I wondered if it was true that my presence was divisive and harmful to the church, an act of self-gratification and arrogance. I began to be afraid that I really was the kind of person described in your sermon.
For a long time, that was my fear: that my sincere wish to remain a part of the body of Christ into which I was baptized and raised in the faith would be divisive and contentious no matter what I did or didn't do, because of what I do (or don't) believe on this (or that, or that other thing).
But now, I know what I will do next time I'm in the neighborhood. I will be walking through those church doors. I will take a seat in a pew and I will sing, and pray, and listen, and contemplate scripture. I will praise God with you. Because I am certain now that it is not divisive for me to remain. It is a conscious act of unity.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
the turnaround
So, I have to be "dangerously maternal" for a bit and relate this marvelous conversation with Clare from a few days ago.
Clare's request for her new room was that it have rainbows on the walls. She asked for this months ago, so I called my interior-designer sis and got her advice, which was: wall decals. I found these online at a ridiculous discount--spent about $15 total for 2 packages of rainbows, clouds & stars. And so, last week, at the top of the unpacking priority list and second only to "find the damn dinner plates already" was, get the rainbows up in Clare's room.
I also consulted her about where she wanted the rainbows and how she wanted them to look. She was very specific: she wanted 2 full rainbows on opposite walls. And I said okay.
And then I didn't do it like she said.
Instead, the wall opposite the one pictured above has 2 half-arches, one beginning in the corner and coming down, and the other coming out of the window. It looks great.
But it's not what she wanted. And she let me know. Like I knew she would.
She was super excited about coming home after school to see her rainbow room. And she walked in and saw the first wall: rapture. Then she turned and saw the second. And turned to me, mad face on, and said, "I don't like it." Pause. "It's not what I said." Flopped down in the chair, very prissy-pissed-off-princess. Longer pause. Then: "It's not all about you."
Oh, I knew it was coming. I was tired, I had put off other things to get this done, my arms ached, my back ached, I had spent all day putting together this beautiful room just for her...but she was right. I had asked what she wanted; she had told me exactly what she wanted. and I hadn't done it like she said.
So I said to her, "You're right. It's not all about me. What is it all about?" She looked at me and said. "Me. I get to give the instructions." Then, "You didn't do it like I said." And I said, "You're right. I didn't do it like you said. I did it this other way. Can I tell you why?" She looked at me darkly, but didn't object, so I went on. "I tried it your way, and the wall with the window is smaller than the other wall. It just didn't look the same and I thought it would be prettier this other way. I know it's not what you said, but I wanted to make your room the prettiest it could be. So I did it this way instead." There was silence. And then, after about a minute:
"Okay, mom. I see you had a good reason." Then: "I think I could like it." Then: "Those can be the baby rainbows hugging the window, and this is the mama rainbow smiling at them from over here."
I mean, damn. "You had a good reason"?! She's not even 5, and it took her about 5 minutes to process personal disappointment and outrage, listen and understand another point of view, and come up with some forgiveness and acceptance. I know so-called adults who can't seem to do that.
Clare's request for her new room was that it have rainbows on the walls. She asked for this months ago, so I called my interior-designer sis and got her advice, which was: wall decals. I found these online at a ridiculous discount--spent about $15 total for 2 packages of rainbows, clouds & stars. And so, last week, at the top of the unpacking priority list and second only to "find the damn dinner plates already" was, get the rainbows up in Clare's room.
I also consulted her about where she wanted the rainbows and how she wanted them to look. She was very specific: she wanted 2 full rainbows on opposite walls. And I said okay.
And then I didn't do it like she said.
Instead, the wall opposite the one pictured above has 2 half-arches, one beginning in the corner and coming down, and the other coming out of the window. It looks great.
But it's not what she wanted. And she let me know. Like I knew she would.
She was super excited about coming home after school to see her rainbow room. And she walked in and saw the first wall: rapture. Then she turned and saw the second. And turned to me, mad face on, and said, "I don't like it." Pause. "It's not what I said." Flopped down in the chair, very prissy-pissed-off-princess. Longer pause. Then: "It's not all about you."
Oh, I knew it was coming. I was tired, I had put off other things to get this done, my arms ached, my back ached, I had spent all day putting together this beautiful room just for her...but she was right. I had asked what she wanted; she had told me exactly what she wanted. and I hadn't done it like she said.
So I said to her, "You're right. It's not all about me. What is it all about?" She looked at me and said. "Me. I get to give the instructions." Then, "You didn't do it like I said." And I said, "You're right. I didn't do it like you said. I did it this other way. Can I tell you why?" She looked at me darkly, but didn't object, so I went on. "I tried it your way, and the wall with the window is smaller than the other wall. It just didn't look the same and I thought it would be prettier this other way. I know it's not what you said, but I wanted to make your room the prettiest it could be. So I did it this way instead." There was silence. And then, after about a minute:
"Okay, mom. I see you had a good reason." Then: "I think I could like it." Then: "Those can be the baby rainbows hugging the window, and this is the mama rainbow smiling at them from over here."
I mean, damn. "You had a good reason"?! She's not even 5, and it took her about 5 minutes to process personal disappointment and outrage, listen and understand another point of view, and come up with some forgiveness and acceptance. I know so-called adults who can't seem to do that.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
link: covering up is a feminist issue
Annie @ PhDinParenting has produced a video version of her blog post, "covering up is a feminist issue." In some ways, it reminds me of the Vagina Monologues bit entitled "My short skirt"--applied to breastfeeding. And in some sense, that's right: it seems that part of the motivation for the video includes recent comments about women avoiding rape by not dressing like sluts. But it's the more direct public square commentary, often from other women, about how "inappropriate" it is to "NIP" (that's nurse-in-public, for the uninitiated) or to do so without hiding yourself and baby under some kind of massive tent-like cover, that's the real issue. What the video does is connect these, as well as throw in a visual cue that there are other cultural and religious standards at play as well (early in the video, you see a burka), and draw the conclusion that the more general problem is that standards of dress are imposed externally on women, in all sorts of contexts and for all sorts of reasons. Breastfeeding in public is just one of those.
One of the more subtle points in the video happens right up front, in the pairing of conflicting cultural messages to Western women--"cover up"/"strip down." While the video doesn't spell this out, this highlights the way in which women's breasts, in our culture, have become public objects in sexual contexts--but stick a baby on there, and suddenly it's gross. So we're left with a situation where cleavage is fine, but God forbid you let a curve show if you're a mom with a hungry babe.
Personally, one of the many gains I experienced as a woman finally loving and appreciating my body through experiencing pregnancy, childbirth and motherhood was learning to see my body as functional and vital--and part of that happened through redefining my breasts, not as sort of pointless objects on the front of my chest that other people seem to enjoy for some unfathomable reason, but as a necessary, important and life-giving functional part of my amazing body. This meant thinking of them as special and awesome--while at the same time, thinking of them as something akin to my elbow--just there for a reason, because I needed them to do their milk-making thing. Not just hang there and look, I guess, pretty.
I loved nursing Clare, at home, in church, on trains, wherever. She hated being under a cover and so I didn't use one--and nursing tops make them, IMO, unnecessary. Clare's big ol' beautiful baby head completely blocked whatever wasn't covered by the nursing top. And I'm looking forward to nursing Baby Z...and reinforcing with Clare that breasts are awesome milk-making things and she's right to look forward to the day when hers get great big--so she can feed her babies.
One of the more subtle points in the video happens right up front, in the pairing of conflicting cultural messages to Western women--"cover up"/"strip down." While the video doesn't spell this out, this highlights the way in which women's breasts, in our culture, have become public objects in sexual contexts--but stick a baby on there, and suddenly it's gross. So we're left with a situation where cleavage is fine, but God forbid you let a curve show if you're a mom with a hungry babe.
Personally, one of the many gains I experienced as a woman finally loving and appreciating my body through experiencing pregnancy, childbirth and motherhood was learning to see my body as functional and vital--and part of that happened through redefining my breasts, not as sort of pointless objects on the front of my chest that other people seem to enjoy for some unfathomable reason, but as a necessary, important and life-giving functional part of my amazing body. This meant thinking of them as special and awesome--while at the same time, thinking of them as something akin to my elbow--just there for a reason, because I needed them to do their milk-making thing. Not just hang there and look, I guess, pretty.
I loved nursing Clare, at home, in church, on trains, wherever. She hated being under a cover and so I didn't use one--and nursing tops make them, IMO, unnecessary. Clare's big ol' beautiful baby head completely blocked whatever wasn't covered by the nursing top. And I'm looking forward to nursing Baby Z...and reinforcing with Clare that breasts are awesome milk-making things and she's right to look forward to the day when hers get great big--so she can feed her babies.
Friday, February 25, 2011
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
in defense of Planned Parenthood, because every child should be a choice
"It's not a choice, it's a child."
Every roadtrip I've taken in that last decade and a half, I've seen that bumper sticker on the Covenant Transport trucks while I pass on the left. And over that decade and a half I've gone from a single college kid, far from marriage and motherhood, nodding in knee-jerk agreement, to a mom of two who grimaces in philosophical pain at the simple-minded misdirection of this ubiquitous bumper sticker slogan. (But hey, at least all the words are spelled correctly, and there's no Hitler mustache--which is more than you can expect from most slogan-toting peeps these days.)
I would like to see some bumper stickers that say, "Every child should be a choice." That's the goal, right? That every child conceived is a child whose conception is desired, whose growth in the womb is deliberately nurtured by both mother and community, whose birth is welcomed with the kind of joy that only comes after a ridiculous long period of anticipation? Isn't that what we want? Isn't it a measure of the brokenness of the world that this isn't, in fact, how it often happens?
So why is it that we separate these things, as if they were an either/or? Why don't we, instead, acknowledge the basic biological reality that a child is in fact a choice? And then get busy with making sure that people can in fact choose their children?
I don't mean the "you chose to have sex, so you chose the consequence" line, either. I mean, bringing a child into the world is not just a single choice, much less is it simply the statistically-more-or-less-likely sperm-meets-egg consequence of a single sex act. Bringing a child into the world is a series of choices: a series of choices which begin as soon as you realize that you're not just coming down with the flu because the flu doesn't make your boobs sore, and go to the store to get yourself a package of pee sticks. I don't just mean abortion here--although that is the starkest and most obvious form that this existential choosing can take. Choosing to nurture a life in your womb is a series of choices, one that has a definite starting point but no foreseeable ending point. It starts with prenatal vitamins and yoga and cloth diapers and escalates into something so large and complicated it encompasses the entirety of your life. It's on you: the health and well-being of a completely helpless human being. It's on you: the health and well-being of an increasingly independent little person. Everything from the food they eat to the answers they get to the impossible questions they ask, it's on you. Choosing to nurture life does not have an end. It just keeps going.
We forget--or do we just willfully ignore the obvious?--that women who face down that stark, inevitable, existential choice, do I nurture this life?, aren't answering a question about pregnancy. Pregnancy is the easy part. They're facing down the question about the cascading, unending, exponentially multiplying, choice of nurturing that life, for the rest of their lives.
If you're a fortunate and blessed woman, like I am, then your choice has already been made prior to the pee sticks, because you know that you want this to happen and when it does, your answer is ready: yes. Maybe you've already stocked the cupboard with prenatals and bought a copy of What to Expect (though, for my money, Smart Woman's Guide to Better Birth is a better purchase), you're so ready to say yes to this tiny life. Because you've already chosen this child.
In a different life, I might not be one of the fortunate, blessed ones whose children are predetermined choices. Brent and I were married six years before Clare. (Those, we refer to as "BC.") Not to get too personal about it, but believe me, there was plenty of opportunity for sperm-meets-egg in those years. (FTR, we're doing fine now too, no worries.) For those years--really, for the first full decade of our married lives--we were students, living off of loans and scholarships and part-time jobs of all sorts (between us, we've waited tables, sold orthopedic shoes, sold books, babysat, substituted in public schools and bank-tellered)--that is to say, we were permanently officially broke. And busy. And not interested in or able to even seriously ponder parenthood, except to watch the parents we knew with incomprehension and wide eyes at the amount of sheer energy and time that went into it, and think--no. Not yet. We cannot possibly do that.
So thank God for Planned Parenthood. I re-upped my pills through them the whole time we lived in Abilene, and stocked up there for the year we were overseas in Changsha. And since it turns out that I'm 'Fertile Myrtle' and Brent's 'Virile Cyril' (both times we've gotten pregnant within two months of tossing contraceptives), it's a helluva good thing we weren't left on our own. (Can't say that I see six years of married abstinence in the name of pursuit of theological scholarship as a real option. The world of academia still seems to largely operate on the assumption that scholars are celibate medieval monks--but in the real world, we've all got bodies and sexual drives attached to these putatively floating heads.)
Clare knows that she is chosen; it is another way of saying that she is and has always been loved. Baby Z will know that she is chosen, too. They'll know this because we'll tell them, and because we'll keep choosing them for the rest of their lives, in all those uncountable ways that you choose to nurture and love a kid every single day.
Every kid should know this. It should be the basic expectation with which kids grow up and experience their world. Every child should know that they were chosen--know it in a way that makes asking the question impossible. It should be the tacit foundation for life, that unspoken assurance that you are chosen, wanted, desired, loved.
Supporting Planned Parenthood ought to be a no-brainer. Instead we've let things get to a point where the health of women and children are potentially at risk because no one can think past the word "abortion." This is not about abortions. This is about doing the concrete, practical things that will get us closer to a world where every child born will be a child who is wanted: about enabling women and men, no matter who they are, to make childbearing and childrearing something they can choose to undertake gladly and readily. Every child should be a choice.
Every roadtrip I've taken in that last decade and a half, I've seen that bumper sticker on the Covenant Transport trucks while I pass on the left. And over that decade and a half I've gone from a single college kid, far from marriage and motherhood, nodding in knee-jerk agreement, to a mom of two who grimaces in philosophical pain at the simple-minded misdirection of this ubiquitous bumper sticker slogan. (But hey, at least all the words are spelled correctly, and there's no Hitler mustache--which is more than you can expect from most slogan-toting peeps these days.)
I would like to see some bumper stickers that say, "Every child should be a choice." That's the goal, right? That every child conceived is a child whose conception is desired, whose growth in the womb is deliberately nurtured by both mother and community, whose birth is welcomed with the kind of joy that only comes after a ridiculous long period of anticipation? Isn't that what we want? Isn't it a measure of the brokenness of the world that this isn't, in fact, how it often happens?
So why is it that we separate these things, as if they were an either/or? Why don't we, instead, acknowledge the basic biological reality that a child is in fact a choice? And then get busy with making sure that people can in fact choose their children?
I don't mean the "you chose to have sex, so you chose the consequence" line, either. I mean, bringing a child into the world is not just a single choice, much less is it simply the statistically-more-or-less-likely sperm-meets-egg consequence of a single sex act. Bringing a child into the world is a series of choices: a series of choices which begin as soon as you realize that you're not just coming down with the flu because the flu doesn't make your boobs sore, and go to the store to get yourself a package of pee sticks. I don't just mean abortion here--although that is the starkest and most obvious form that this existential choosing can take. Choosing to nurture a life in your womb is a series of choices, one that has a definite starting point but no foreseeable ending point. It starts with prenatal vitamins and yoga and cloth diapers and escalates into something so large and complicated it encompasses the entirety of your life. It's on you: the health and well-being of a completely helpless human being. It's on you: the health and well-being of an increasingly independent little person. Everything from the food they eat to the answers they get to the impossible questions they ask, it's on you. Choosing to nurture life does not have an end. It just keeps going.
We forget--or do we just willfully ignore the obvious?--that women who face down that stark, inevitable, existential choice, do I nurture this life?, aren't answering a question about pregnancy. Pregnancy is the easy part. They're facing down the question about the cascading, unending, exponentially multiplying, choice of nurturing that life, for the rest of their lives.
If you're a fortunate and blessed woman, like I am, then your choice has already been made prior to the pee sticks, because you know that you want this to happen and when it does, your answer is ready: yes. Maybe you've already stocked the cupboard with prenatals and bought a copy of What to Expect (though, for my money, Smart Woman's Guide to Better Birth is a better purchase), you're so ready to say yes to this tiny life. Because you've already chosen this child.
In a different life, I might not be one of the fortunate, blessed ones whose children are predetermined choices. Brent and I were married six years before Clare. (Those, we refer to as "BC.") Not to get too personal about it, but believe me, there was plenty of opportunity for sperm-meets-egg in those years. (FTR, we're doing fine now too, no worries.) For those years--really, for the first full decade of our married lives--we were students, living off of loans and scholarships and part-time jobs of all sorts (between us, we've waited tables, sold orthopedic shoes, sold books, babysat, substituted in public schools and bank-tellered)--that is to say, we were permanently officially broke. And busy. And not interested in or able to even seriously ponder parenthood, except to watch the parents we knew with incomprehension and wide eyes at the amount of sheer energy and time that went into it, and think--no. Not yet. We cannot possibly do that.
So thank God for Planned Parenthood. I re-upped my pills through them the whole time we lived in Abilene, and stocked up there for the year we were overseas in Changsha. And since it turns out that I'm 'Fertile Myrtle' and Brent's 'Virile Cyril' (both times we've gotten pregnant within two months of tossing contraceptives), it's a helluva good thing we weren't left on our own. (Can't say that I see six years of married abstinence in the name of pursuit of theological scholarship as a real option. The world of academia still seems to largely operate on the assumption that scholars are celibate medieval monks--but in the real world, we've all got bodies and sexual drives attached to these putatively floating heads.)
Clare knows that she is chosen; it is another way of saying that she is and has always been loved. Baby Z will know that she is chosen, too. They'll know this because we'll tell them, and because we'll keep choosing them for the rest of their lives, in all those uncountable ways that you choose to nurture and love a kid every single day.
Every kid should know this. It should be the basic expectation with which kids grow up and experience their world. Every child should know that they were chosen--know it in a way that makes asking the question impossible. It should be the tacit foundation for life, that unspoken assurance that you are chosen, wanted, desired, loved.
Supporting Planned Parenthood ought to be a no-brainer. Instead we've let things get to a point where the health of women and children are potentially at risk because no one can think past the word "abortion." This is not about abortions. This is about doing the concrete, practical things that will get us closer to a world where every child born will be a child who is wanted: about enabling women and men, no matter who they are, to make childbearing and childrearing something they can choose to undertake gladly and readily. Every child should be a choice.
Thursday, February 17, 2011
aaaarrrrrrrrrrrrggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhh
There are so many more things I'd rather be blogging about than Sarah Palin. Like, what does it mean that a computer named Watson just beat a couple of human Jeopardy champs, and is this really a harbinger of the "shape of things to come"--good or bad, and all that. And I've refrained from blogging at all about anything of late simply because I am too busy: with the move less than two weeks away, I desperately need to get a reworked draft of chapter 4 complete prior to sealing up the last box of my already mostly-packed-up office.
But Sarah Palin. I'll feud over this tidbit from HuffPo till I get it out of my system, so--commence the bloggy exorcism.
First: I was right. I was so, totally, right ON. Back in 2008, I called it. My ire with SP began with her calculated, manipulative use of that great big lie, the SuperMom. She worked it back then, and she's still working it. All she's done is move on from lipsticked bulldogs to mama grizzlies as her go-to SuperMom animal mascot. But now she's come right out and said it:
So, fine. I'm still pissed about the SuperMom act, which I am still convinced is a damaging cultural image for women in our culture, and to have her flat-out say that being a mom qualifies you to be President makes me want to grow Mama Grizzly claws, put on some lipstick, and do something violent.
And then. When you and I both thought it wasn't possible to feel any more contempt for this egomaniacal caricature of a politician, she goes and does this:
But Sarah Palin. I'll feud over this tidbit from HuffPo till I get it out of my system, so--commence the bloggy exorcism.
First: I was right. I was so, totally, right ON. Back in 2008, I called it. My ire with SP began with her calculated, manipulative use of that great big lie, the SuperMom. She worked it back then, and she's still working it. All she's done is move on from lipsticked bulldogs to mama grizzlies as her go-to SuperMom animal mascot. But now she's come right out and said it:
The former Alaska governor suggested there's "no one" more qualified to handle the demands of the presidency than "a woman, a mom," according to Politico.Don't get me wrong. Being the primary caregiver of a child really is, absolutely, the most time-consuming, emotionally wracking, philosophically challenging and physically exhausting thing I've ever attempted. And I wouldn't hesitate to agree with the somewhat cliched insistence that it's the most important thing I'll ever do--hell, look at the sidebar, I'm doing it again in +/- 63 days!. Being responsible for the holistic formation of another human being? Does it get any scarier or more important than that? But what does any of this have to do with, say, grasping global geopolitical realities? The only potential crossover I see, frankly, between momming and presidenting is diplomatic negotiation with hostile, unwilling and not necessarily fully rational partners.
So, fine. I'm still pissed about the SuperMom act, which I am still convinced is a damaging cultural image for women in our culture, and to have her flat-out say that being a mom qualifies you to be President makes me want to grow Mama Grizzly claws, put on some lipstick, and do something violent.
And then. When you and I both thought it wasn't possible to feel any more contempt for this egomaniacal caricature of a politician, she goes and does this:
...mocked Michelle Obama to make her point. The first lady is encouraging mothers to breast feed their infants as part of her campaign to reduce childhood obesity - an effort that has drawn scorn from some conservatives. "No wonder Michelle Obama is telling everybody you better breast feed your babies," Palin said. "I'm looking and say, 'Yeah, you better because the price of milk is so high right now.'"You know, if you're going to construct your pres campaign platform around the SuperMom image, the least you could f-ing do is actually support real moms.
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