Power of Propaganda

Before two weeks ago, I would have scoffed at the notion that people in America would believe that Barack Obama is of the Muslim faith no matter how many people told me of this misconception. As we heard in church Sunday morning, I was a doubting Thomas about this. I had to see it myself to believe. Somewhere between Good Friday's Were you there and last night's Victory in Jesus at the fifth Sunday Hymn sing my Holy Hill bubble perception of the perfect world was popped. I have now in the last two weeks heard two people say plainly that Obama is a Muslim and I want to find a new country to live in if he gets elected president...followed by an explosion of equally incorrect information soon to leap to an equal attack on Hillary. I can't even say that both instances happened in small town America, one took place in downtown Berkeley, California. These are people of the world that would give the shirt off their back (as the local preacher would say) but are simultaneously powerfully misinformed. I hope that the informed might speak with as much passion words of truth as I have recently heard folks publicly implore simply incorrect information.

Earth Hour

Join in tonight from 8-9pm your time. Turn off the lights, the computer, may be even unplug all those little things on standby power.

forgive us as we forgive those..?

This was the Easter postcard for my friend's church this year and raised quite some conversation on what I understand to be a gamer's website that I find to be fascinating.

After reading these, I was interested to read the article, Parents pick prayer over docs; girl dies, and the following comments, though I admit to stopping after the first half dozen. Though I believe in a combination of prayer and medicine I would not choose to lash out against these folks, who did after all loose their child. What I really wonder is why fundamental Christianity appears to have a great influence in our country today and yet these online communities are so quick to judge and throw stones. Are we safer to be mean without a real name and face to go with our comments? The church has a lot more reconciliation to do than with our GLBT family members if there is this much anger with the church really floating around. May be the church should kneel down and ask forgiveness before we require it of others.

sit, squat or stand

After an apparently very quick bathroom stop today, my friend said, what'd you do, stand? Which launched us into a comical, yet possibly universal conversation. I have a dilemma (which I now know at least one person to share) about squatting. It seems to me that if we all sat down, then no one would miss and therefore the seats wouldn't be dirty and the need to squat in the first place would be eliminated. So, I feel by squatting (in an apparently very clean public bathroom) I am not acting in truth to my belief that we should all sit. My friend concurred in saying she wondered if some other part of someone else was hitting the seat that she just didn't get. In that, people sit in public places with these little short shorts on all the time and that is okay, we're not worried about getting wild diseases off the park bench (mostly). Is there some other part of your body that is hitting the toilet seat that my friend and I are just not getting? I wondered if this was an AIDS scare hangover or just an 'old wives tale' and suggested that we send it to MythBusters for a verdict.

still a man's world/church?

Every once in a while I get a hankering to look for jobs (I do graduate in two months, so may be that should be more of a priority than a hankering, hmm). Last night, on one of these whims, spawned by research for my synthesis regarding worship design, I stumbled back upon www.churchjobs.net. I would love to design/direct worship, but I do not have the ability to direct a band or choir. I was pleased to actually find two postings in which this was a possibility after weeding through the dozens of Worship Leader postings. First, let me say it is time that the churches and job posting sites separate worship arts minister and music minister. These can be but do not need to be one and the same. Someone who is extremely musically talented does not necessarily have an overall competency in the arts and their full inclusion in the worship experience. I would dare to say the the majority of really talented worship musicians are not at all multi-disciplined in the arts, because their proficiency in one area must consume so much time.
Anyhow, my real gripe with my search was the large number of postings looking for a "man of God" or describing the ideal candidate by saying, "he will..." And if the posting is not quite clear I can hop over to the website where the entire staff team is male or at worst only the administrative assistants are female. I forget on Holy Hill that the world still has so far to go.

Cheers to 2094

The SFGate Reports, "A 114-year-old woman, considered the oldest person in Texas, has died at a Dallas retirement home..."She told me once that the secret to a long life is she spent six months minding her own business and six months leaving other people alone," said Ruby Perkins Williams, a great-grandniece."
The article reports that, Arbella Perkins Ewings lived on her own until she fell at 113 and broke her hip, causing her to move into a retirement home.
After celebrating her 114 birthday on March 13, she peacefully passes 10 days later, just as she was quoted at her party to have been telling everyone she wouldn't be around much longer, it was time to meet her maker.
Does it take 114 years to live a life so full as to be as joyful and celebratory as I imagine this woman to be as death comes close? She lost her only daughter in 70 and husband in 77. 30+ years is a long time to outlive anybody.
A friend and I were talking about funerals upon leaving a Good Friday service and I said just through a big party when I'm gone. And her response was that is what all the folks in good standing with God say. (she gets pastor points for that) Most of the time I stand in solidarity with the platypus, having to believe that God has a good sense of humor. Otherwise, my standing might be questionable. So, on this Easter, I hope to live as I imagine the life of Mrs. Arbella Perkins Ewings, I'll try my best to mind my own business for six months and leave other folks alone for six months, whether I have one more day or 87 years.

Altared Bodies

Friday April 4 • 7-9 pm
Four artists: Reena Burton, Kelly Williams, Abby King Kaiser and Amy Shoemaker, celebrate the beauty of the body as they create altars out of real, live, breathing, dancing bodies as a part of the Oakland Art Murmur. For one night Interplayce will become a temple for worshiping the sacredness of all bodies. Join us as we play with themes of honor and homage, sacred and secular, redefining the purpose of the body and the image of the altar.
Venue: InterPlayce
2273 Telegraph Avenue (at 23rd St.)
Oakland, CA 94612

Head to toe

I don't know all the ethics of blogging, or how to send you to another blog. So, I stole this from my professor's blog because it is simply amazing. If you don't have seven minutes the part not to miss starts at about three and a half minutes in:

From the blog, Searching a Little More Everyday:
The Beauty of the Human Body

The stunning beauty of the human body is seen in this clip of the Chinese Ballet Circus. I've never seen a woman pirouette on a man's shoulder before, and then she pirouettes on his head with mind-boggling balance and grace.

7 becomes 13

Deadly sins that is. The original list of eight (pride, envy, gluttony, lust, anger, greed and sloth) set up by Pope Gregory the Great in the 6th century (says CNN, help me Catholic friends if my information is bad) and punishable by death were 'updated' this week. Looks like we're going to need some new movies..or at least a sequel.
CNN.com says,
"Girotti is second in command at the Apostolic Penitentiary, the Vatican body responsible for confessions and absolutions.
In his L'Osservatore interview, Girotti said pollution and genetic engineering, as well as drug dealing, abortion, pedophilia, social injustice and extreme wealth were now on record as mortal sins, those the Church deems most offensive to God and those that could land you a spot in hell without repentance." http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/wayoflife/03/13/new.sins/index.html?iref=mpstoryview
Is not allowing women to be ordained a social injustice? Obviously not in the eyes of 'the church' or else there's a lot of confession and penitence about to happen in Rome. It seems that these new deadly sins are going to be hard to define, but if greed and gluttony didn't add up to cover extreme wealth or lust didn't include pedophilia, may be the original were already a problematic list. My small knowledge of Catholicism would understand that this "unofficial" list may carry a different weight than that of Pope Gregory, but I feel that this list, whatever its purpose, is quite obviously setting up (or backing up) an agenda rather than being a comprehensive look at modern sin.

time

I learned tonight how off my sense of time in small portions is. This is something that I have been working on in a leadership program I am currently involved in. I thought I was keeping time in my head with the remembered rhythm of this obnoxiously loud clock in my house, the tempo of which is lodged in my head. It seems, however, that I was counting time twice as slow. Thus, my concept of 30 seconds was a minute or more, 2 minutes was four and a half. I am grateful for the appeared patience of my class, for whom I was leading a meditation that turned out to be much longer than they bargained for. This is were my dilemma occurs. I am very sensitive to people's time in a class session. I do not appreciate classes that consistently run long. (tonight, the pivotal difference was we were given the opportunity to say no, I'm not able to stay late) In past courses I have left, repeatedly, when a professor was never able to organize class well enough to end on time. This was awkward, but in class and one on one discussions regarding time were to no avail. However, I recognize less frustration with the length of tonight's class because of my personal biased for the meditation we were experiencing.

Alvin Ailey

I feel bad even complaining after having the opportunity to see such amazing dancing tonight, but I'm left wanting more. I apparently goofed when buying tickets (last October) for this weekend's visit of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre. I have wanted for years to see Alvin Ailey's most reknowned piece, Revelations. Somehow, I didn't realize it was on the the other two of the three programs that were shown in rep this weekend. Ugh, I am sad. The dancing was still beautiful and in the end it just means I'll have an excuse to go the next time the company and I are in the same city again.
My more interesting pondering for this posting is my bodily reaction to dance. I was very aware tonight of the occasion tick or movement of an arm or leg as I sat 'still' watching the program. We've discussed 'mirror nuerons' (sensors in our bodies which pickup and react to the energies of the bodies around us) in my InterPlay encounters many times. Tonight I truly sensed them. The dancers make it look so easy (as is their job) and my body wanted to bend and twirl right along with them. I do wonder if my mirror neurons are more sensitive an active than other folks or if most people just think its a lack of potassium or something.
Here's a bit of Revelations for those not familiar.

Finding God in Seminary

During my discernment process to discover whether to go to seminary, where to go to seminary and what degree program (one leading to ordination or not) I was blessed to have a wonderful mentor walk with me. She once said to me, half the people in seminary will have come looking to find God. I was, and have continued to be, struck by this idea. I continue to be because it is true, but not in the ways I originally imagined. It wasn't that people didn't have God at all and came to find out what this whole religion thing is about. After blogging recently about a lack of theological or seminarian study related dialogue outside of the classroom, the last two days have been filled with such conversation. Conversation I knew I needed and still didn't realize how much. I've also found people really talking about God and Jesus, out loud. Those of you not in seminary reading this might find that to be an odd statement. But, I have been astounded and confounded at how little I here folks talk about either, in or outside of the classroom and I don't think its just because I tend more toward the 'academic' courses than the 'MDiv' (mostly people prepping to church pastors) courses. We (any person who has attended seminary) need to be really comfortable talking about faith, even if (and hopefully we don't) we don't have all the answers flushed out completely. The time is now, to work through our issues of speaking about God's sovereignty, did Jesus have to die, why, what's the deal with the trinity, how do we have interfaith dialogue, theodicy.... Now I feel like I'm wining, when really I'm abundantly grateful for the conversation that I have found and fully recognize that may be I didn't look hard enough before I started complaining.

Reconciling

In High School I was apprehensive of the Reconciling movement. Not because I don't believe that homosexuals should be a part of the church, but exactly the opposite. I did not understand why a church whose essence is to love and cherish all God's people needed to explicitely say, oh and yeah, you to. I still feel this way, though, I am learning that there needs to be repair for the damage done by the church.

the undecided

I'm one of those who will shyly and with embarrassment admit that I am not as political as one should be, especially one who spends significant time working on issues of social justice. That said, voting in a primary election is almost foreign to me. I have exercised my freedom to vote in both presidential elections since entering voting age, but not more. After witnessing the energy around the primary elections in California, I looked up Texas Voting since that is where I continue to be a resident and registered. I downloaded, completely, even called the Travis County Clerk to verify the address and mailed my application for an absentee ballot. It arrived a week or so later and has since sat, opened, on my desk. I've watched more debates, read more issue positions and even looked up Voter's Guides for help on local elections that I know absolutely nothing about. But, as the Texas primaries roll in and out today, the ballot remains on my desk. Turns out the election is really close in Texas and every vote may really matter (not often the case for a Texas who doesn't align with the Republican Party). But, who would I vote for? I still don't know. Do I vote for the one I think has the greatest chance of winning it all? Do I vote for the woman? Do I vote for the one my more politically active friends are voting for? Generally, I would ask how many other people remained undecided on voting day, but the large turn out at Texas polls today makes me think I fall to the minority this time.

Gender Segregation

I sat in Starbucks (I know, why not the local coffee house? Well, Mom keeps sending me gift cards and I have no money, so if I am to consume caffeine on the weekend, then this is my option. And I'm honestly grateful for the gift cards.) So I sat in Starbucks for four hours today doing homework. I was surprising productive as there were no dishes to clean, internet to check, other books to read, people down the hall to talk to, etc. So, why am I writing about this seemingly plain day in capitalist mecca? I was seated at a table near the bathrooms. Two single unit restrooms, one marked women, the other men. I was intrigued to see how many people, regardless of age, were happy to use the 'other' gender's bathroom if theirs was occupied. Some immediately chose this option, others waited and either upon boredom or dire need (I didn't ask) went for the other door. I was pleased to see so much of my community willing to disregard basically pointless signage. I have to assume both stalls were the same (the women's was free when I needed to go and I settled to follow the arbitrary directions) because whoever went in, exited, apparently having taken care of their needs. So, I wonder why are the stalls even gender segregated? Is this just a hold over from the way its always been done? Is it a Berkeley anomaly for people to so freely use either bathroom?

where's the fire gone?

Tonight I ventured with friends to the theatre. Euripides's The Bacchae. I love to go to theatre with theatre people who know theatre and like to critique it as soon as we walk out the door. I love to be around folks who are excited about something and willing to talk about it, even to admit we didn't understand. I was in conversation with a med student this week who couldn't contain himself to not talk about medicine. He was quite interesting, so it didn't bother me, but reminded me how I wish there were more folk here that excited about theology. May be I'm in the wrong groups (or simply not around folks enough) but I find it difficult to find people so willing to talk without end about our studies here. I am also reminded when I speak to folks studying medicine how odd it is that doctors are responsible for our mortal lives on earth and thus go through extended schooling, where they are held accountable for all the information (reading is not optional or skimmed). Pastors are responsible for the eternal life and yet the requisites and accountability after ordination are slim if anything. Is it any wonder that folks are leaving the church, with the general public's level of education on the rise and seminarians seemingly becoming apathetic - and I go to a liberal "heady" sort of school - at least I think I do.