Markings

This semester, several of my students have marked themselves with tattoos. A nineteen year old girl got the Hebrew word "mercy" tatooed on the inside of her wrist. The Hebrew root of the word is the same as that for womb, so the tattoo is a reminder of the strength of her own body, as well as of God's mercy. Nice.
Her boyfriend got "love your enemies" in Greek written around his wrist. Two women went to a tattoo shop together and one had "yes." tatooed on the inside of her wrist (a sign of new openness to life, I assume, she was somewhat embarrased to talk about it with me...)the other received a simple brown circle. The circle represents the Native American view of life as circular, encompassing all. Another young women, who looks like she stepped right out of the 1940's, had a vintage rose tattooed on her right shoulder.
Part of me is envious of them, of their ability to decide on something which will be part of their body for the rest of their life. There's a certainty behind their actions, a willingness to mark themselves with something that's meaningful to them today, and may not be tomorrow. Or perhaps they assume these tattoos will always have the same meaning to them that they have today.
I've wanted a tattoo for at least 4 years. I promised myself a tattoo for my 30th birthday, in 2002. But I've never been able to settle on something that I think I can live with for the next 50 years or so. I've thought about a honey bee, which is the meaning of my name in Greek. I've almost committed to a Christian symbol that would mark the one thing I'm the most certain about (whatever that means...). I considered making up a symbol, the meaning of which could change with me. Of course I thought of tattooing my husband's name on my rear, just to be cute and kind of sexy. Or my daughter's name to maybe prove to her when she's an ungrateful, whiny teenager that SEE I LOVE YOU SO MUCH I MARKED MYSELF FOR LIFE WITH YOUR NAME!And I've considered just doing something pretty on one or two of my feet so I'd have something nice to look down at in the summertime.
However, I have yet to make a decision. Am I afraid of what people will think of my choice? Am I afraid that at age 75, if I decide my tattoo wasn't such a hot idea, I'll fall into despair? Is my self-concept that fragile? Am I just not certain about anything enough to put it on my body? I think it's more complicated, or at least more nuanced than any of those questions, but again, I'm wondering why these college students can take a leap of faith that I can't.
And what do I make of the guy who apparently marched into a tattoo parlor and declared his certain, unswerving love of (of all things), New Jersey??? (I originally hail from Jersey, and am pretty certain it IS the best state in the US, maybe he's onto something...)

Be Here Now

Thanksgiving week we offered our college students the opportunity to participate in a contemplative retreat. Twenty-some students chose to become monks for the week, trying out contemplative practices such as centering prayer, lectio divina, the examen. We kept silence every morning, and they also tried out using art, breathing, meditation, and pottery as means of prayer. The week was a gift to me as a teacher, as I watched the students start to become aware of themselves, be present to the moment, even notice God in the everyday. Many of these students have been wounded by the preaching of the "executioner God" at their churches (the idea that God is love, but only if you're good. Otherwise you're fried...), and have a hard time with the Bible and Christian cliches. Even the word "Jesus" stings some of them. By getting at this God stuff through the back door, it seems many found some freedom to meet God on their own terms, in the here and now. They saw the divine presence in the horizon, in piggy back rides from other students, in our infant daughter. Our scripture for the week was the story of the healing of a blind beggar, Bartimaeus, in Mark. In the story, Bartimaeus cries out to Jesus to have mercy on him. Jesus hears him, stands still, and says, "call him here." All week I heard the echo "call her here" (I took the liberty to change the pronoun) as a reminder to be HERE, present, and to see God in each moment. My hope is to carry this mantra with me in the days to come. We'll see how it goes...

Political Illusion?
Well, the Democrats have done it, pulled off a coup. It’s what all the liberals have been waiting for since ‘94. And Rumsfeld fell on his sword. Feels poetic.
But I guess I’ve been reading too much William Stringfellow, Jacques Ellul, and James Allison, to be convinced that there’s going to be a visible change just because the party in power changed. I still don’t think anyone there in Washington actually has anything other than their own political career in mind when they make decisions. Rumsfeld’s resignation feels like scapegoating-- someone had to take the fall and take the heat off of Bush.
Let’s hope that this political victory doesn’t cost the liberals their vigilance. Bush and Rumsfeld are not the problem, it’s so much bigger than that (although they are bighead mean dodos for sure). We (the good guys) haven’t won yet. We have to keep up the momentum that was generated through hating Bush and Rumsfeld, and try to keep these new powerful people honest. We have to keep reminding them about schoolkids and prisoners and immigrants, and people jam-packed into crappy public housing, And the earth—polar bears who will be extinct in 20 years because of our oil habit.
I’m too young to be this cynical, I know. Democrats all over the country are celebrating and I’m whining. I guess I never got over Bill Clinton signing the welfare reform bill….

RevGalBlogPals

Well, don't I feel like the internet fancy pants. I joined the RevGalBlogPals webring (the link is in the sidebar). It's a web ring of women bloggers who are clergy, are considering becoming clergy, or are otherwise interested in such things. I've been spying on this web ring for months, after JWD of the Blanket in a Grove blog (link to the right) introduced me. Maybe my months of hesitant lurking on this web ring is just another manifestation of my self-doubt. Part of the reason I've never pursued a religious career is that I just don't think I measure up. Not asking for pity (or counseling)here, just stating the facts. I still have this picture of pastors as people who are perfect, or near-perfect. They don't mess up, give bad advice, do murky exegesis bordering on heresy, or accidentally say "mother fucker" at the Thanksgiving table in front of all the relatives, as I did a few years back. Now that I've been to seminary with a bunch of shmucks and a few good people, and I have lots of imperfect, normal friends who are pastors, you'd think I'd be over this hangup. But old habits die hard, so I'm working on it, and I feel closer to a sense of calling than I ever have.
So I look forward to learning from this online community of normal people trying to help other people feel God's love in some way.

Books and Baby...

This photo sums up the last few months. Teaching and mothering is all-encompassing, which makes for a boring blog, among other things....
Despite the break-neck pace of this semester, it has been a source of light and life. It's good to be reading again, thinking about big ideas and watching undergraduates' brains melt down with the profound questions of life. It's also good to be in a place that's flexible enough to really co-parent my daughter without her having to be in day care a lot. And she loves the people who care for her, so that's been a true gift.
About the picture: not only is a cutesy metaphor for what's happening to my daughter, and representative of my life now, but it's also a good intro to a book promotion. Becoming Human was one of the first books we read this semester, and remains a source of conversation with students. Jean Vanier believes in the increasingly unpopular notion of loving others unconditionally, including our enemies, as the path to true freedom. Of course I'm oversimplifying, but his view of reconciliation is one which transcends the labels of oppressor and oppressed, right and wrong. Vanier is the founder of L'Arche, an organization which sets up intentional communities which include both people of "normal" intelligence, and those with developmental disabilities. He's lived in these communities for years, doesn't think you have to be out to change the whole world, just to make your loving presence known to those around you. The book's worth a read.

On the fifth anniversary

It's hard to be out of New York today, of all days. Everyone has their way of coming to terms with what happened in our city on 9/11, but it seems like a lot of us have to tell our stories over and over to heal.
On each anniversary, I go to work, and tune in to the reading of names while the work day starts. Inevitably, my co-workers and I end up telling each other stories about that day. Where we were when we heard the news, who we were worried about, when we heard news of our friends and family, how we got home that day. My story involves smoke and bits of charred paper filling the sky above my apartment building within minutes of the first plane hitting, a feeling of fear like I've never felt, worrying about my friend Edgar who is a firefighter, rumors of bio terrorism, responsibility for my staff, walking home with a mask on, not knowing if Mark's office was still standing, sleeping with a sheet over my head for several nights to keep the smoke from filling my nose. I was on edge for months afterward.
In retrospect, I'm grateful to be alive, I'm glad Mark was scheduled to work late that night and therefore wasn't at his office at what is now ground zero, I'm grateful Edgar is ok.
Beyond that, I still don't have many words of explanation or understanding or peace. I just have my story.

Parting Glimpse

Yesterday, we left New York City, after seven years. As we crossed the Hudson on the Verrazano Bridge, I turned for a last glimpse of the Manhattan skyline. I sat in the back seat next to my sleeping seven-month old daughter as we followed the moving truck containing a trio of Mexican/ Russian/ Kazak movers and all our worldly possessions down the New Jersey Turnpike. After a week of packing, goodbyes, and “last-time-we’ll-eat-at-Zaytoons” kind of activities, our life in NYC was over. I’ve only started to process what that means.

amor fati: update

Apologies for the lack of blog entries lately. Here are my excuses:

First, there was the World Cup. Six hours of soccer a day doesn't leave a lot of time for self-reflection. I did think about blogging, "the zen of soccer,"(but, SACRE BLEU, the headbutt kind of killed that theory....) "top ten reasons soccer is the best sport," "how playing soccer is all about being in the moment," etc. But, watching the games won over actually writing the entries. No regrets.

Second, I'm moving. Yes, I'm leaving Brooklyn for a teaching position on the west coast.
(No, I'm not changing the name of the blog to amor fati: oregon, in case you're wondering.)
So I'm trying to start packing my house, reading sixteen books in preparation for teaching, changing my address on my Time Out New York subscription (just can't give it up even though I'm moving to the side of a mountain), etc.

Third, last weekend I broke my foot surfing. You can read the full report on Long Board Long Haul. At least I caught a few good waves, but it's kind of embarrasing to break your foot surfing at age 33 right when you have to pack up your apartment and you have a six-month old who has to be carried everywhere...

The Tour de France is also wrapping up this weekend (GO FLOYD!), so all my sports obsessions are behind me, at least until the Women's World Cup next year.....

Anyway, that's the story. I'm back.

V-Day

On a much more serious note, currently, there is a 2-week V-Day festival going on in NYC, designed to raise awareness about domestic violence, and to push people toward action. Last night, I attended a V-Day event featuring stories of women in prison, including women who I know from my prison work.

Below is some information about the link between violence against women and incarceration, compiled by the V-Day web site. It really blurs the distinction between "victim" and "offender," which is something I have found to be true for the women I've worked with over the years.

Over 90% of women in prison have experienced violence in their lives. (Women in Prison Project, 2005)

One-third of incarcerated women report child sexual abuse and 20% to 34% report abuse by an adult intimate partner; they have multiple abuse histories and are three to four times more likely than male prisoners to have abuse histories. (Gilfus, Mary. “Women’s Experiences of Abuse as a Risk Factor for Incarceration.” VAWnet Applied Research Forum. (December 2002)

An estimated 56% of the abused women in prison said that their abuse had included a rape, and another 13% reported an attempted rape. (Trace L. Snell, Women in Prison, Survey of State Prison Inmates, 1991. Bureau of Statistics: March 1994, p.6.)

The women in prison who reported abuse were more likely to be in prison for a violent offense (42% reported prior abuse) and less likely to be serving a sentence for a drug offense (25%) or a property offense (25%). (Tracy L. Snell, Women in Prison, Survey of State Prison Inmates, 1991 Bureau of Justice Statistics: March 1994, p.6)

As many as 90% of the women in jail today for killing men had been battered by those men. (Allison Bass, “Women far less likely to kill than men; no one sure why,” The Boston Globe, February 24, 1992, p. 2)

Football magic

Here's Brazil's Ronaldinho after he receives the gold boots. Here's why they call it the beautiful game.

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAALL!

It's that time again folks. TheWorld Cup, starts on June 9. Every four years, this thing takes over me and it's just all soccer all the time. In 2002, when games were held in Korea/Japan, being a fan meant visiting bars that broadcast the games at all hours of the night. Luckily, this year the games are in Germany, so the games will all be held during reasonable hours.
This year, the US has a decent chance of at least advancing out of our group, but a US fan can not simply watch the World Cup to cheer on our boys. First of all, the US will not win(sorry, all you die hard patriots, but it's true), and second, there's a reason that worldwide it's called "the beautiful game," each match is to be enjoyed for the strategy and finesse of the two teams and individual players.
I have to watch all the games in Spanish because I don' t have cable. This makes the games extra interesting because I can understand only about every fourth word. Luckily, "goal" is the same word in Spanish and English.

The Learning Center for Women in Prison
shameless self promotion... but it's for a good cause

Several years ago, a few fabulous women and I founded the Learning Center for Women in Prison, an organization which provides a college education to women in a state prison in Manhattan. We started it because some women incarcerated at the prison asked us to, and because we (and several studies) believe that a college education is what will make the difference for women when they are released from prison. We've been running the program as volunteers ever since. This year, our organization reached a few milestones: Bard College agreed to accredit and oversee the program through the Bard Prison Initiative, we received our 501 c(3) status, and we received substantial grants from the New York Women's Foundation, the New York City Council, the New York Junior League, and the State Senate(sorry, I'm too unskilled to do hyperlinks to all those organizations). This month, we hired our first staff person.

Last week, because we recevied a grant, we attended the New York Women's Foundation's "Celebrating Women" breakfast featuring Geraldine Ferraro, Madeline Albright, and Sarah Jones. We sat in a room full of women who are committed to helping women and girls improve their lives, and I was overwhelmed with the dreams, the initiative, the soul present in that space. I was grateful to be among the grantees, because many times over the past few years, the goal of an accredited college program in the prison has seemed impossible. The breakfast was the perfect setting to celebrate our dream becoming reality.

At the breakfast, just about every speaker quoted Margaret Mead ("Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.") I've heard that quote so many times, but this time it rang true.

To learn more about how you can help the Learning Center for Women in Prison, post a comment with your email address and I will happily contact you!

To join the New York Women's Foundation's action for women email alert, click here
http://www.nywf.org/take_action.html

Zeitgeist?

I'm a little behind in the technology of the day. I don't IM, don't listen to an Ipod on the subway, my partner doesn't play X-Box after work, and I can't really figure out how to use my new camera phone. It takes me like 45 minutes to post on this blog. And I actually kind of pride myself on my techno-ignorance.
And blogs. As my friend Amy lamented, why do we have to check our friends blogs to see what's going on in their lives. Why can't we just talk about our deep thoughts, she asked. I agree. It would be true communion to have the deep face to face conversations that exist only in our fantasies. But the blog makes us pay attention to what we're saying. And for me, it erases some of the fears of intimacy, and "what if I say the wrong thing" that creep up in real time.
I also feel a stronger connection to my far-flung friends through their blogs (check out the list of blogs to the right, they're mostly links to friends blogs or websites). I get these little windows into their lives. I think I understand my friend Douglas' art for the first time, even though I've known him for years. I get to relish gems like this post from JWD, a friend studying for her PhD in liturgy. And I feel my fear of intimacy shrinking just a bit with every post on this blog.

I think I just heard Jacques Ellul roll over in his grave.

Virtual Protest

Please join me in the virtual protest which I've been carrying on since the start of the Iraq war. What you do is, once or twice a week, cut out the "Names of the Dead" from the New York Times (if you don't live in NYC, you can print it out here: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/29/us/29list.html ) and tape it up somewhere where people will see it. Subway cars and stations are my favorite place because lots of people will see it. Why the "Names of the Dead?" It's a tally of US service men and women who have died, and it gives some personal details about the young people who have died. My hope is that this will catch the eye of the average person and make them stop and think for a minute. It's especially poignant in NYC, since the number of the dead US service people is fast approaching the number of people who died on 9/11.
Pass it on.

Patron Saint: Simone Weil
In honor of the Simone Weil Colloquy

Over the past few years, the mystical philosopher Simone Weil has captured my soul's imagination. I think she really knew God. In the short 34 years she lived, she struggled to love God fiercely, with all of her being. She saw it as a natural consequence that she would therefore love the poor and marginalized, so much that she tried to experience what it was like to live like a factory worker (the picture is from her Renault factory ID), and like a poorly paid soldier. Her awareness of God started with a number of mystical experiences, and intensified as she experienced God’s love throughout her life, especially in the midst of suffering. She believed, “we cannot take one step towards the heavens. God crosses the universe and comes to us” (from The Love of God and Affliction). Instead, we can only turn our faces toward God. She believed that if we ask God for bread, God will not give us stones.

If we could only live this truth.

For an introduction to her work, I suggest Eric Springsted’s collection of her writings, Simone Weil, published by Orbis. I don’t know how to do links on this blog yet, so you’ll have to google it.

Where's the beef?

Just for fun, all kids of the 80's click here:

Poverty in the USA (first in a series)

Here are the numbers (from povertyusa.org):

Since 2000, the number of poor Americans has grown by more than 6 million. Total Americans below the official poverty thresholds numbered 37 million. (U.S. Census Bureau, Income, Poverty and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2004)

On average, more than one out of every three Americans - 37 percent of all people in the United States - are officially classified as living in poverty at least 2 months out of the year. (U.S. Census Bureau, Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2004)

The number of Americans living in severe poverty - with incomes below half of the poverty line - remained the same at 15.6 million. (U.S. Census Bureau, Income, Poverty and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2004)

In case you were wondering how poverty is defined, here are the federal poverty levels for families in 2005:

One person: $9,645
Two persons: $12,334
Three persons: $15,067
Four persons:$19,307
SOURCE: U.S. Census Bureau, Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2004

Footwashing

At the Mennonite church I attended before moving to NYC, footwashing was a big deal. Right up there with communion and baptism. We saved it for Holy Thursday so we could really reenact the last supper as closely as possible for a bunch of folks in 20th century Pennsylvania. After celebrating communion and sharing a meal of hummus and other Middle Eastern treats, we retreated from the sanctuary into the church nursery (men) and library (women) to wash each other’s feet.

In the women’s room, we made small talk while we took off our shoes and socks and rolled up our pant legs. The older ladies kept their stockings on. And through the ritual of kneeling down in front of one another and gently washing each others feet in a basin of cold water, we kept talking, as if this was something we did every day. The older women initiated the younger women by telling us stories of how things used to be, back when the men and women sat on separate sides of the church, all the women wore head coverings and wouldn’t have dreamed that they could ever become pastors. It was the one time in the year when the newcomers and the old timers shared an intimacy that only a group of women could create. When I knelt down and nervously held the stockinged foot of one of the elders in my hand, I think I caught a glimpse of what Jesus was trying to do that night, when he washed the disciples feet and then told them to go and wash each others feet. Vulnerability and community and grace in a basin of cold water.

Signs of Spring in Brooklyn



The Egg trees are in full glorious bloom.



Magnolias


Ready for Holy Week


So much easier to appreciate snow flakes when they float down on an April afternoon.

Breath, life.

As I laid on the floor in a relaxation pose at the end of a yoga class last week, I felt the floor holding my body up. I felt my breath cause my chest to rise and fall, and noticed that I wasn’t breathing into my stomach. I wondered what I was holding onto, what fear or anxiety, that kept me from breathing deeply.

I never gave a second thought to breath before I started practicing yoga a few years ago. It has been through that practice of breath and movement that I learned what it means to be present, even for a fleeting moment. For someone who teeters on the brink of ADD, it seems to take moving meditation for me to really pay attention.

During my daughter’s birth, it was this breath (maybe combined with extreme pain!) that kept me acutely in the present moment. I was able to drink in every moment, without worrying about what had just happened, or what was to come. In this space, I noticed the presence of God with me as a midwife, breathing with me and my husband, creating a calm entrance for my daughter to enter this world.

Note to self: breathe.

I enjoy being a girl (for now)

When I was in third grade, I told people I wanted to be a professional football player (choice number two was a paper boy). I told people this because I purposely wanted to point out that I wanted to be a player, not a stupid cheerleader, even though I was a girl. I guess it was my little way of feeling powerful despite my new awareness that girls and boys were valued differently. By eighth grade, I was determined to fight for equal opportunity. I had my sights set on the White House, and I planned to be the first female president. Again, my way of feeling personal power in a society that was discussing what would happen if Walter Mondale became president and died in office. If that happened, then a woman, Geraldine Ferraro, would have control of the button that could launch a nuclear bomb on the USSR. And if she had PMS, look out.

Three months ago, I gave birth to a daughter, Cana. Right now, her main concerns are eating and sleeping, she has no idea what kind of world exists for girls outside of our Brooklyn apartment. Here are a few facts that remind us humanity isn't meeting our obligations to women and girls:

In India, there is a rise in selective abortions of girl fetuses. According to the Christian Science Monitor, "The ratio among children up to the age of 6 was 962 girls per 1,000 boys in 1981, but 20 years later the inequity was actually worse: 927 girls per 1,000 boys." (for more info http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0209/p11s01-wosc.html).

In the US, the pay gap between women and men widened in 2003. Women's pay slumped for the first time since 1999, with women earning only 75.5 cents to every dollar men earn. (http://www.msmagazine.com/news/uswirestory.asp?id=8754 )

I lament the day that my girl-child's naivete ends.

Right now the universe seems open to her wildest dreams. But one day she will sadly realize that most people in the world still think girls are inferior to boys. She'll learn that in some places in the world mothers cry when they give birth to a girl. And she will awaken to the reality that even though her parents and her teachers tell her she can be anything she wants when she grows up, even be the president of the US of A, she'll find out there has yet to be a female president in this country. Let's hope she doesn't conclude that there is something a little less about girls.

"I went to the blog because I wished to live deliberately..."
--Henry David Thoreau
I hope to create a place here on this blog which documents my work at paying attention to the world around me, a spiritual work that's hard for me.
Several years ago, I spent several days as a colleague of the poet Julia Kasdorf. As we drove down a winding mountain road in Oregon, as I stared blankly out the window, she was almost startled by beauty of the purple of the wild heather along the road. I had driven that road many times and never really noticed it. From that moment I realized part of me was unconscious, and I wanted to be fully awake.
I'm also an avid reader of Simone Weil, who has been teaching me for years to try to be present and to love what is, even when "what is" is not beautiful at all.
So here goes.

"North Country" by Mary Oliver
In the North Country now it is spring and there
is a certain celebration. The thrush
has come home. He is shy and likes the
evening best, also the hour just before
morning; in that blue and gritty light he
climbs to his own branch, or smoothly
sails there. It is okay to know only
one somy if it is this one. Hear it
rise and fall; the very elements of your soul
shiver nicely. What would spring be
without it? Mostly frogs. But don't worry, he

arrives, year after year, humble and obedient
and gorgeous. You listen and you now
you could live a better life than you do, be
softer, kinder. And maybe this year you will
be able to do it. Hear how his voice
rises and falls. There is no way to be
sufficiently grateful for the gifts we are
given, no way to speak the Lord's name
often enough, though we do try, and

especially now, as that dappled breast
breathes in the pines and heaven's
windows in the north country, now spring has come,
are opened wide.