tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-197851252024-03-07T08:59:44.775-05:00quaker oats liveAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07488876505679035140noreply@blogger.comBlogger426125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19785125.post-14724694277681992892016-02-20T09:31:00.001-05:002016-02-20T09:31:16.190-05:00fwcc "living sustainably and sustaining life on earth" minute from 2016 plenary<div class="" style="clear: both;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisysJ9eIk4QirMfYTMZm6o1wu0bHbsZNwejktJSL7eHKYA_7omQBO7Uhz4_yELvILxycPLpcVJTj_3fwiUFhr6YwMW4oGwDhGAqtk-culsonxqz1lT6U-Ya_6OPFUTJOrgaEYf/s1600/peru-2016.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="198" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisysJ9eIk4QirMfYTMZm6o1wu0bHbsZNwejktJSL7eHKYA_7omQBO7Uhz4_yELvILxycPLpcVJTj_3fwiUFhr6YwMW4oGwDhGAqtk-culsonxqz1lT6U-Ya_6OPFUTJOrgaEYf/s200/peru-2016.jpg" width="200" /></a>I am thrilled to see that the plenary meeting of Friends World Committee for Consultation last month put out a minute called "<a href="http://fwcc.world/fwcc-news/living-sustainably-and-sustaining-life-on-earth-the-minute-from-the-plenary" target="_blank">Living Sustainably and Sustaining Life on Earth</a>." They explain why this is important at this point in time, and give a few suggestions of how yearly meetings, meetings, and individual Friends can get involved.</div>
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I wanted to share what our meeting is doing. At <a href="http://northvalleyfriends.org/" target="_blank">North Valley Friends</a> in Oregon, we're starting in on a two-year certification program through <a href="http://greenfaith.org/" target="_blank">GreenFaith</a>, an interfaith organization that helps communities of faith green their buildings, incorporate creation care into their worship practices, host educational opportunities for their congregations and/or their towns and cities to learn about practical actions and changes they can make, and learn about and engage in environmental justice activism. Our meeting has already incorporated creation care themes in our worship and education elements, and we have a trail and a labyrinth, open to the public, that passively allows individuals to enjoy this little slice of creation, but we need some help moving beyond these actions into deeper levels of faithfulness.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07488876505679035140noreply@blogger.com31tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19785125.post-6827324561739098712016-02-10T11:17:00.000-05:002016-03-05T17:17:04.650-05:00new blog for academic workI created a <a href="https://chericebock.com/" target="_blank">new blog</a> the other day, where I can share my thoughts on my academic work in ecotheology. This blog, Quaker Oats Live, with its specific focus on Quakers, will continue to be the place where I post things of interest to Quakers, but didn't seem like the right place to start posting things related to some of the other directions in my academic thinking. Therefore, if you want to hear about my process as I think through ecotheology, and specifically the topic of hope in environmental care, check out my <a href="https://chericebock.com/" target="_blank">new space</a>! I'm working on the concept of developing an ecotheology of critical hope, and I'll have an article coming out within the next couple months on that topic in the journal <i><a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1939-3881" target="_blank">Cross Currents</a></i>. So far on my new blog I've posted an intro on why I'm working on the topic of <a href="https://chericebockblog.wordpress.com/2016/02/06/hope/" target="_blank">hope</a>, a piece about my research in the <a href="https://chericebockblog.wordpress.com/2016/02/08/what-is-hope-a-psychological-perspective/" target="_blank">psychology of hope</a>, and a post about the Korean concept of <a href="https://chericebockblog.wordpress.com/2016/02/09/jeong-in-ecotheology/" target="_blank"><i>jeong</i> and its application to ecotheology</a>. Also, while I'm at it, I'll direct you to a <a href="http://www.eewc.com/BookReviews/embracing-the-other-the-transformative-spirit-of-love/" target="_blank">review</a> posted Monday on <i><a href="http://www.eewc.com/" target="_blank">Christian Feminism Today</a></i> of a book by <a href="https://gracejisunkim.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">Grace Ji-Sun Kim</a> (who works at <a href="http://esr.earlham.edu/" target="_blank">Earlham School of Religion</a>, so we'll claim her as an honorary Quaker even though she's Presbyterian), <i><a href="http://www.eerdmans.com/Products/7299/embracing-the-other.aspx" target="_blank">Embracing the Other: The Transformative Spirit of Love</a>.</i>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07488876505679035140noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19785125.post-61300589507754926422016-01-24T12:39:00.003-05:002016-01-24T12:39:41.389-05:00on powerIn recent years, I've noticed an upswing in what sound like power struggles in Friends communities. These kinds of power struggles are not uncommon among Friends, really, and perhaps are one of the hallmarks of the underside of what it means to be Friends, but the power struggles are breaking out into the open of late, at least in the United States. Yearly meetings are splitting or threatening to split, meetings and individual Friends are threatened with expulsion or actually expelled, and Friends across the Internets are drawing up battle lines to support one or the other side. This has happened before in Friends history, leading to the various branches of Friends exhibited today, and of course this is not limited to Friends: all denominations and all people groups seem susceptible to this kind of factional sensibility (or senselessness; you decide).<br />
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But one would hope that Friends would be different.<br />
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Among Friends, power is supposed to come from inspiration of the Holy Spirit or Light of Christ, experienced inwardly and communally. In an ideal world, Friends would listen to this Spirit and follow its guidance, whether or not they agree with its politics. In an ideal world, Friends would trust the Spirit at work in one another, and listen to the wisdom each one brings. In this ideal world, no power struggles would be necessary: no political positioning of individuals in positions of power within the community, no stacking the deck with one's favored "side" on committees, no fearful accusations that someone's appointment was being used to do so. In this ideal world, the importance is not, "What does this person believe?" Rather, the questions are more like, "Is this person someone who I trust to listen well to the Light of Christ? Is this person someone through whom we have witnessed God speaking? Do we feel called to place responsibility on this person, and to submit our wills together to God through this person?"<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnh8VTAPhBGI916FQF-_8GxOHRONXvl0F_9bCVPTU2QdIk2Lr3TjAqthcpDMwJcGGwW08kdAArIKK_qRgJHbk94K1JhATfCPf_e-4EFeFegtvQBZCTIhekjP4H557MW1yjhew4/s1600/Conflict+vs.+each+other.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnh8VTAPhBGI916FQF-_8GxOHRONXvl0F_9bCVPTU2QdIk2Lr3TjAqthcpDMwJcGGwW08kdAArIKK_qRgJHbk94K1JhATfCPf_e-4EFeFegtvQBZCTIhekjP4H557MW1yjhew4/s320/Conflict+vs.+each+other.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Figure 1</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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This is not what I see when I look at Quakerism today. What I see is not trust; it is fear. This comes from both "sides," and it is something that I admit I have fallen prey to at times. This fear is seductive, because when one "side" fears and draws up battle lines, it causes defensiveness in the other "side," requiring them to also form up their lines and retreat to the safe space of their own like-minded people. Then the power struggle begins, with each side attempting to defeat the other, using secretive tactics that further undermine trust, using rules as weapons for their own advantage and to force losses by the other side, and attempting to cleanse the community of anyone who does not agree. I repeat: this happens on both "sides" of today's struggles.<br />
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In my opinion, the fact that we have "sides" shows that we have all already lost the battles we are trying to win.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDgjy6UNrEnkfHjC2qRf8vtXWj8Z21-1fkaKNaYJaHMLAae4NYLmiQZ4ZO5W7lKQk7dA_hXSXJ8B8R33Rx57jb1HkkCaMPb6Jybmhc4H6hCUCDk2sLwTh1Fv0fzdlpkMtxI70k/s1600/Together+vs.+the+conflict.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDgjy6UNrEnkfHjC2qRf8vtXWj8Z21-1fkaKNaYJaHMLAae4NYLmiQZ4ZO5W7lKQk7dA_hXSXJ8B8R33Rx57jb1HkkCaMPb6Jybmhc4H6hCUCDk2sLwTh1Fv0fzdlpkMtxI70k/s320/Together+vs.+the+conflict.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Figure 2</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Before I got married, our premarital counselor showed us a simple but elegant graphic of conflict between spouses, but this can represent any two parties in a conflict. It looked something like Figs. 1 and 2. People see one another as the problem (Fig. 1), and they shoot volleys toward the problem, which also means they aim at the other person in the conflict. Instead, our counselor suggested, what if we imagine ourselves on the same side of the problem, working together to tear down or in some other way work through the problem? (See Fig. 2.) Instead of seeing one another as enemies within a conflict, we see one another as fellow problem-solvers, with whom we want to get through the conflict, relationship intact.<br />
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This sounds easy, right? So why is it so hard to do? Well, I've been married for over 14 years now, and I will tell you that it is not easy. We have had our fair share of seeing each other as the problem. I'm usually the worst on this, because I think I know everything. (Pray for my husband!) But when we're at our best in the midst of a conflict, we remember these charts, and we attempt to reframe the conflict toward Fig. 2. How are we going to move through this together? How are we going to work together to solve this problem? What skills and perspective does the other person have on this conflict that hold the key to resolving it successfully? What am I holding onto that is not necessary, or even, when seen from the other person's perspective, is completely wrong-headed or requires more nuance?<br />
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If we add God to the picture (though I didn't make graphics for this one), we can see that if we think of ourselves in the Fig. 1 conflict, we each imagine that God is on our side, and one of us has to be wrong. But in Fig. 2, we can recognize that God is on our side, and we are both right—it's just a matter of listening to God and allowing God to speak to us, helping us solve this problem.<br />
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Furthermore, Colossians 3:14 comes to mind, which suggests that when we are in conflict with those who are part of our spiritual community, in addition to all the other good suggestions, we are to "put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity" (NIV). I see that binding as a glue that draws us together, that keeps us together on one side of the conflict, so that nothing can wedge itself between us. In some views of the Trinity, the Spirit is seen as the binding agent between God and Jesus, and also the one that draws us into that interconnected economy, such as Jonathan Edwards, who says that "the Spirit is the consent of love that creates the relation of beauty between two persons" (according to Kyle C. Strobel, <i>The Ecumenical Edwards</i>, Ashgate, 2015). (While, perhaps, this view of the Trinity is insufficient if held singularly, that can be said of any view of the Trinity, since all our metaphors fall short of full explanation, but it is yet a helpful way of looking at this mystery, in my opinion.) Here, Edwards through Strobel is talking about the persons of the Trinity, but I think if we bring this into Quaker theology, we can see that it is this bond of unity through the loving presence of the Spirit that we hope will guide us as human persons together in our meetings for worship for business.<br />
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Why is this so difficult?<br />
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Well, because when we see the problem from the Fig. 2 point of view, we lose control of the outcome. I cannot coerce or defeat my enemy into submitting to my viewpoint or running away; I must ask the other to willingly submit him or herself to working on solving the problem together...and this means I must submit myself to the same.<br />
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This means that I can't control the outcome. It means that the way we solve the problem may not be the way I would have liked, or the way I would have done it. In our heads, we know this opens up the process to the potential of the "third way" we like to talk about as Friends, but this act of submission is scary. It makes us feel vulnerable.<br />
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What if the other person/side only pretends to submit themselves, and really is holding onto their preconceived agenda?<br />
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What if we hear the Spirit, and the Spirit says the opposite of what I believe, and the other side ends up "winning"?<br />
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What if we end up listening to human "wisdom" rather than God?<br />
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What if it takes FOREVER and we never reach a conclusion?<br />
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These are real fears. We have fears of whether or not we can trust one another, we have fears of identity (who will I be if I have to change my belief?), we have fears of getting it wrong, we have fears regarding time and efficiency, which are really fears of worthiness in our culture that values efficiency above all.<br />
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These are legitimate fears. Who in your meeting, let alone your yearly meeting, do you know well enough to trust utterly to listen to the Spirit? How often do we practice actually listening to one another, and how often do practice listening to the Spirit speak through one another, discerning together what is God and what is our own contribution? How often do we practice mutual submission and healthy conflict resolution in our own communities? These are counter-cultural practices, and they are difficult. We may tout them as ideals, but do we practice them in our marriages, our meetings, our yearly meetings? At what point do our communities become too large and unwieldy for us to know one another well enough to do this kind of work effectively? I mean, it can be argued that two people—even one person—is too many people in order to fully trust one another. Plenty of marriages end in divorce, and many individuals find it difficult to resolve conflict within themselves without tearing themselves apart or resorting to our culture's many numbing self-medications. Resolving conflicts well is hard, painful work.<br />
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Another important piece of Quaker tradition becomes a problem here, too. When do I hold onto my piece of truth and refuse to let it go, bringing the prophetic voice to my people relentlessly, and when do I submit my piece of truth to the discernment of the community, waiting and trusting that God can speak through the gathered body as to the truth of my piece? When we value the individual conscience, the individual's ability to hear and understand the voice of God inwardly, each of us can think ourselves a prophet, holding tenaciously to our sense of Divine guidance, each assuming we are squarely within the stream of Quaker tradition and the other is not. When we experience this type of conviction, we feel the Spirit coursing through our bodies and souls. We <i>know</i>, inwardly, and no one can take this truth from us.<br />
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And yet, what of those on the other "side" who feel the same way, and have come to a different conclusion?<br />
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It is this tension within the Quaker tradition, between the recognition of both individual and communal discernment, that I believe is our greatest strength as a community, but it also has the potential to be our greatest weakness. It can either bind us to one another in an attempt to listen to God speak to us, be it through a prophetic individual or as a collective body, or it can tear us apart into individual, prideful know-it-alls who think they have the corner on the market of truth, the lone voice speaking truth in the midst of a sea of nonsense.<br />
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For those of you still reading this long post, kudos! I will reward you with sharing something more personal.<br />
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In my yearly meeting, Northwest Yearly Meeting, I have been in the recording process for eight years, and I recently received notice that my application for recording has been rejected on grounds of theology. This means that all these ideals that I'm talking about at the yearly meeting level have now become personal, to some degree—or at least, they have impacted my life on a personal level. I see this as a microcosm of what is going on in our yearly meeting, and I have a difficult choice. I can submit myself to the discernment of my community, and assume that they are listening to God, and that my theology is outside the bounds of who "we" are. I can choose to stay and submit to the Faith & Practice (or stay as long as I'm allowed and not submit), or I can choose to leave. Or, I can choose to reject the decision of this committee, continuing to speak the truth as I see it, supposing that those who made this decision (and other recent decisions in our yearly meeting) are off base and are not actually listening to God, and that I am. None of these options seems great, and I will share about it, not so you'll feel sorry for me that I didn't get recorded (what's the point of recording, anyway?), but to show in this example what is going on when we make larger decisions that impact whole yearly meetings.<br />
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In the first choice I outlined above, I would have to submit to the community in direct opposition to the sense of leading I feel. This is not shared discernment; it is a hierarchy, where we place people in authority over us and we respect their decisions. Perhaps this is not all bad. In Quaker circles, sometimes we struggle with the idea of leadership, because if we have no hierarchy, how do we recognize leaders? But if we recognize leaders and then no one is willing to follow them because we all think we're right, what is the point of recognizing leaders? So in an ideal world, I would accept the decision of the committee tasked with such decisions, because we do need leaders.<br />
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In the parenthetical option I outlined above, I could stay, but not feel welcome or at home. I could stay and feel abused and mistreated: they'll take my ministry but they won't officially recognize the Spirit at work in me. I would be living with the knowledge that at any point, I could be rejected by my people. This is not a healthy space in which to provide leadership, but it is a choice many of us are making.<br />
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I can choose to leave. This has its benefits: no more agonizing over politics, no more worrying about how in the world to resolve this conflict, no more dealing with people with whom I disagree. Many people choose this option. It's easier. Why work through this conflict with these people? Why not go find people I'm more like? Why not just give up? Since I can listen to God on my own, why do I need these people, or any people, for that matter? Yes, it's easier, but it's also painful, for someone who grew up in this community. This is my spiritual home, and I want to see it flourish in the Light of Christ. When people hear I come from this community, I want to be proud of my people. I want our name to be respected because we are following Christ together in the most loving way we know how, and that shows like a beacon of light out to the world. I don't want to just leave and give up on this people I love. I don't want to wander out into the world, family-less and jaded.<br />
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Rejecting the decision of this committee smacks of pridefulness, however. Though I have others on my "side" who agree with me and who do see the Spirit at work in my ministry, listening to what I want to hear instead of the discernment of those on the committee makes me sound (and feel) egotistical. What grounds do I have for suggesting that my truth is any more valid than theirs? Yes, I feel it inwardly, but do I not believe that they feel similar inward leadings?<br />
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I named this post "on power" because all of this has to do with issues of power, with controlling the narrative of who "we" are, of who's in and who's out. The difficult thing about Quakers and power is that power comes from the Spirit, and we are all woefully <i>incapable</i> of discerning that Spirit by ourselves, but we are also woefully <i>capable</i> of misidentifying the Spirit together. Discerning which is which is a slow and laborious process in which we must all give up our own power in order to paradoxically receive the Spirit's power. This requires massive amounts of trust, personal humility, and willingness to be countercultural. It requires a move into mystery, into the unknown, seeking for God in every direction, and trusting that we can, in fact, resolve humanly-intractable conflicts if we wait and trust and love and let go.<br />
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At this point in our yearly meeting's history, we are not doing this well. I do not trust the recording committee; I do not trust many in yearly meeting leadership. I do not even trust my friends, because "we" are just as prone to bring an agenda as "they" are. I do not trust either "side" to let down its guard and stop politicking long enough to actually listen. I trust myself, and the inward Light of Christ I sense, but I do not assume I have the whole truth.<br />
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I long for a community I can trust, a community that will really live into the Fig. 2 perspective on our conflicts. I long for a community that doesn't have to decide "Evangelical" or "Quaker," that doesn't have to choose "biblical" or "personal revelation," that doesn't have to question "liberal" or "conservative." I long for a community that holds, "We're in this together because we are bound together by the Spirit's love, and we are going to work through this together, because we can only 'win' if we all win."<br />
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I want Northwest Yearly Meeting to be that community, a place where I <i>can</i> fully submit to the decisions of any committee because I know they are seeking God first rather than trying to draw a line of who's in and who's out. I hope that we can learn to trust one another in this way, and speak to and of one another in ways that lead toward this kind of relationship.<br />
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I am afraid, because vulnerability leaves me open to attack. I feel myself desiring to draw back, to not engage, to stop placing myself in a situation where I am vulnerable, to close up and leave. I am afraid because I feel like that is exactly what some in this community want of me, and others like me. I am afraid because if one "side" opens itself up and the other does not, one side is defeated in a bloody, one-sided slaughter where the aggressors retain all the assets.<br />
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But I offer my loving, vulnerable engagement in this conflict, and I choose to see others as Friends of Jesus, fellow travelers on the Way, fumbling step by fumbling step, moving forward, stronger together. I choose to trust the power of the Spirit of Christ in our midst, who binds us together in perfect unity.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07488876505679035140noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19785125.post-53699388107210538382016-01-03T15:03:00.003-05:002016-01-03T15:03:25.657-05:00peace month 2016: sabbath as peacemaking<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhBOYdYcAlPIrjnrLqHvm4Kvgul-d5Q56-Hk9mVW7qby61OrNJKwmjQSVlVWTuwVSKv2ct9MBYW3Bg1SjmhnhKUKztj67TEOQzXxoSybhhKIJTqSpBTGqFkn_-ujhWJftCb7I4/s1600/PeaceMonth2016-Poster.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhBOYdYcAlPIrjnrLqHvm4Kvgul-d5Q56-Hk9mVW7qby61OrNJKwmjQSVlVWTuwVSKv2ct9MBYW3Bg1SjmhnhKUKztj67TEOQzXxoSybhhKIJTqSpBTGqFkn_-ujhWJftCb7I4/s320/PeaceMonth2016-Poster.jpg" width="207" /></a>Believe it or not, this is our seventh annual <a href="http://www.nwfriends.org/peacemonth" target="_blank">Peace Month</a> in <a href="http://www.nwfriends.org/" target="_blank">Northwest Yearly Meeting of Friends</a>, so we're focusing on Sabbath as Peacemaking. I serve as the general editor for the Peace Month materials each year, and we produce a booklet for leaders to use in planning worship and education, as well as a Daily Reader, with reflections on this year's theme for each day of the month of January. The Leader's Handbook contains contributions from <a href="http://howardmacy.com/" target="_blank">Howard Macy</a>, who wrote the sermon suggestions, <a href="http://drewelizardemiller.com/" target="_blank">Drew Miller</a>, who wrote the suggestions for youth workers. Will Cammack, this year's <a href="http://www.georgefox.edu/friends-leadership/" target="_blank">Friends Leadership Program</a> intern, solicited Daily Reader entries and edited the reader. <a href="http://brandonbuerkle.com/" target="_blank">Brandon Buerkle</a> designed our cover art. Many other NWYM Friends contributed to the Daily Reader. Thanks to all of you who contributed! It's always great reading your stories and reflecting on them each day in January.<br />
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Anyone is welcome to use these materials, though they are specifically designed for Friends in NWYM. They can be easily modified for other contexts, I'm sure.<br />
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Today is the first First-day of Peace Month, and in Western Oregon it's snowy out, which means no one leaves their homes because there is half an inch of white stuff all over the place. Therefore, my meeting and several other meetings are practicing a peaceful Sabbath of resting and enjoying time at home with our families. In many ways, this is a perfect way to start out a month focused on Sabbath rest! In other ways, I'm a little bit disappointed that the messages planned for today and the time spent listening to God about the place of Sabbath in our lives won't be heard. I trust that the message gets through, anyway.<br />
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If you're interested in learning more and/or downloading the materials for this month, go to the <a href="http://www.nwfriends.org/peacemonth" target="_blank">Peace Month website</a>. The downloads are at the bottom of the page.<br />
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Here is a photo from our snow day:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpdruaOOHWO9hYCoLTDuOasGQYk60ilkGRs8cK7xxHQ9QArBFm1JpXJBT-u9OA61RPpcAPjYg1z5KTU3kl627d81iB_ILb_qm8ag60pnB9lYmKQxXs_cdVND3xJiSmVTPTDwPJ/s1600/Snow+day+2016.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpdruaOOHWO9hYCoLTDuOasGQYk60ilkGRs8cK7xxHQ9QArBFm1JpXJBT-u9OA61RPpcAPjYg1z5KTU3kl627d81iB_ILb_qm8ag60pnB9lYmKQxXs_cdVND3xJiSmVTPTDwPJ/s320/Snow+day+2016.jpg" width="320" /></a>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07488876505679035140noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19785125.post-71156272457327988182015-12-11T11:49:00.000-05:002015-12-13T20:06:15.933-05:00mom fail: christmas editionThis may be the first in my blogged "mom fail" series, but it is definitely not the first in actual experiences of feeling like a failure as a mom. Don't worry—a lot of the time I feel like I'm doing fine. But there are just those moments when I look at myself from the outside and I think, "Who in the world is doing this crazy thing???" I assume we all have moments like that, and I always appreciate when others share their moments of failure and missed ideals (especially my friend <a href="http://bethwoolsey.com/" target="_blank">Beth</a>). So here you go: a mom fail around the theme of Christmas.<br />
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Yesterday, as I was patting myself on the back for doing something Advent related with my kiddos, and thinking, "Isn't this so nice? Creating memories, introducing my kids to the practice of waiting, and giving them memories that will connect them to their spiritual community and story," I encountered two experiences where I also felt like a failure as a mom.<br />
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First, my newly-minted five-year-old and I were sitting down to work on the packet of Advent stuff sent to us by our amazing pastor to children and families, Kim. Let me take a moment to tell you how awesome Kim is. This is the first year we've had Advent activities come home for the kids, but this is not the first time I have felt amazingly grateful for Kim and her ministry with my and our community's kids. She makes them look her in the eye before leaving the classroom each week, and she speaks a speaks to them individually about her gratitude for them showing up, and other personalized welcome and farewell. She journeys with them each and is aware of their strengths and weaknesses. She encourages their strengths and challenges them to grow in their spiritual lives and in their relationships with others in the classroom. She often writes special cards and notes to them so they get pieces of mail and other things addressed to them directly. OK, I didn't know this post was going to be about Kim, but there you go.<br />
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Anyway, so she sent home these Advent packets with a calendar with scratch-off circles for each day, so we did that part. Then we were coloring the nativity scene from the packet. I invited my other son, who is 8, to come join us. He didn't want to. I tried to convince him. "Advent doesn't really work if we don't do it every day, because that's kind of the point. C'mon, it will be fun! Don't you want to find out what's under today's circle?" No, he didn't. So...I forced him to come join in with the old "1...2...3..." method. Now, I can justify this because sometimes it's good to have someone hold us accountable for developing positive habits. But even as I was counting, I was cringing inside about the fact that I was forcing him to participate in a spiritual practice, as if that's going to be effective and teach "positive habits"! He did end up having fun, but of course my ideal is for him to want to participate, or for myself to be OK with offering the opportunity and letting him have the freedom of choice to do so or not.<br />
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The second "mom fail" is that as I was coloring with the 5-year-old, I asked him what he thinks Advent is about. He said, "Waiting," so I thought, "Awesome, he gets it!"<br />
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Then I asked, "What do you think we're waiting for?"<br />
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"Christmas."<br />
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"Yes, and what are we waiting for about Christmas?" I prompted.<br />
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"Presents!"<br />
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Oh dear. "Hmm...what else do you think we might be waiting for about Christmas?"<br />
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He shrugged and moved into silent-child mode.<br />
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Ack! I had, of course, fallen into the trap of asking questions with right or wrong answers, and made him feel like he had answered wrong. Eventually we got to the point where he pointed at the baby Jesus that was on one of the coloring sheets, reinforcing the idea that the Sunday school answer, "Jesus," is always the one adults are looking for. Ugh! Good thing I have a theological education.<br />
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What strikes me about this is that a) I see this as a failure as a mom, mainly because he didn't know the "right" answer, and 2) I made him feel ashamed for not giving the "right" answer. Yay for holiday traditions!<br />
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I can really see why Quakers got rid of all the holidays. What are all our holidays for anyway, and what do we communicate through them? My kids see it as the opportunity to eat lots of sugar and get more toys. Even though my 8-year-old definitely knows all the Sunday school answers about what this holiday is about, it's not really about those things for him.<br />
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In some ways I want to just get rid of all the presents and just enjoy the holiday. Thanksgiving is great (well, besides the history part), just a weekend to hang out with family and be grateful. Why does Christmas have to come with so much pressure to be able to purchase and give? This goes against everything I say I believe in about our value not being in economic terms, but I still feel incredible pressure to give Christmas gifts. I would feel ashamed if my son went to school and reported that he had not received any Christmas presents. I feel like people would judge me for not being able to afford it, or for being one of those ultra-Puritanical families who doesn't know how to celebrate and enjoy life. I feel stingy or like I'm not being generous if I don't give gifts. I enjoy receiving gifts and the special feeling of being loved and remembered that comes from someone taking the time to give me a gift, and I enjoy doing this for others. I don't want to send the message that giving gifts is somehow not spiritual or not connected to our faith tradition. So is it possible to participate in authentic giving and receiving without the focus being on materialism? Is there a way to get rid of the problematic rhythm we've created in our family system and in our culture as a whole without throwing out the whole thing?<br />
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I think early Friends went too far in getting rid of all holidays and the church calendar, because having those rhythms in life can be helpful and meaningful. But I do think we could do better at making these activities meaningful rather than falling into the traps of shame, classism, materialism, obligation, and attempting to fill ourselves up with "stuff" rather than meaning.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07488876505679035140noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19785125.post-51375901587108998872015-11-30T00:25:00.002-05:002015-11-30T00:25:41.335-05:00mini book review: the world is flat<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I must admit that I only got to chapter 5 out of 17 of <i>The World is Flat </i>by Thomas L. Friedman. This one has been on my bookshelf for about 8 years since my husband read it for a college course, and so when I saw it as an audiobook from my library, I thought I might as well listen to it. I understood the premise already: due to globalization, there isn't the same kind of siloing of information or economic possibilities as there used to be. Since we have the Internets and easily accessible phone service, etc., many people around the world have access to similar jobs, products, services, and opportunities. What used to have to be done in-house can now be parceled out and outsourced.<br />
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While I think the premise is true, I was not interested enough in the book to continue listening to it through to the end. Maybe it got better; I probably will never know. I have two main problems with the book: first, it was kind of boring because this version (I think it's the 3rd edition) was written in 2007, and most of it is very outdated. His predictions about technology have already happened and are now old hat. It's kind of interesting reflecting on how much has changed in the last 8 years and how quickly this has become "normal," but other than that, I didn't find it interesting.<br />
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Second, Friedman seems to give this a fairly unqualified positive spin. Globalization is a good thing to him; this flattening of the economy, though scary in some ways because of the loss in the USA of certain types of jobs, is overall positive because it frees "us" up to do more interesting jobs that are higher up the ladder of creativity so we don't have to deal with menial labor, data entry, and the like.<br />
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In my opinion, this doesn't seem to be true, and even if it was, it's still troubling. Basically what he's saying is not so much that the world is flat, but that the hierarchy has expanded. Now the hierarchy has a broader base from which to pull, so it feels like it's flatter to those of us in the middle classes because there are more of us in a similar range (see pyramid at right). But what the book fails to realize is the extreme pointy-ness of the world, in actuality, a fact that the Occupy movement attempted to help us recognize. There are more people competing for middle class jobs. We've sent many of them overseas, but rather than allowing Americans to have better jobs, it actually seems to mean there are often fewer jobs that provide a living wage. We are either highly skilled and can find a good paying job, or we work in the service industry or retail or some other area of the workforce that is fairly difficult work and also receives little pay.<br />
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Also, the problem with this is that it assumes a sense of superiority of Americans over people in other countries. It assumes that we deserve or are entitled to the more fun, creative jobs, and that people in other countries should be happy to take the boring jobs we don't want to do, receiving substantially less pay for it. The problem with this way of thinking is that it is still a hierarchy. In order for people around the world to move up the ladder, there has to be someone else that is so desperate for work that they will take the boring jobs after them. It's also problematic for the environment, because usually it means that the people in those places have no other alternative but to move to a city and take a job in a factory or call center because their way of life is no longer possible because their resources have been destroyed, taken over, or made toxic through pollution.<br />
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So while Friedman is correct that the Internets do make the global middle class feel flatter, I think he failed to take into account several important factors of the extreme hierarchy we are still dealing with, and the impacts this entitlement has on the world's people and land.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07488876505679035140noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19785125.post-65975039567732741342015-11-23T08:49:00.003-05:002015-11-23T08:53:43.056-05:00mini book reviews: a few by orson scott card<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I've read several books by Orson Scott Card in the last few months, and I've found him to be kind of hit or miss. He's probably best known for <i>Ender's Game</i>, since it became a movie. A prolific author, it is fascinating to me that he can think of so many different worlds and variations on worlds.<br />
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The books I've read recently include a short novella, <i>Space Boy</i>, a novel called <i>Songmaster</i>, and the first two books in his Mither Mages Series, <i>The Lost Gate</i> and <i>The Gate Thief</i>. Of these, I would definitely recommend the Mither Mages books! The third one just came out, but it's not on audiobook at my library yet, so I unfortunately have yet to read it.<br />
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<i>Space Boy</i> is an interesting thought experiment that takes about three hours to listen to. What would happen if a sci-fi wormhole was actually an invisible worm that could suck someone from one world to another? What if it was in a young child's bedroom, and that's why he was afraid of monsters in his closet? Although the novella itself was not that great, the idea was intriguing.<br />
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<i>Songmaster</i> was somewhat better. It imagines a future where some human beings had developed the ability to sing much more powerful emotions into their music, and follows a boy named Ansett who is particularly gifted. The book explores themes of power, control, emotion, love, hate, and the maturity process. I appreciated the exploration of later life toward the end of the book, because I think many coming-of-age stories focus on the teenage and young adult years, as if that is all the coming-of-age that human beings experience, but the transitions to other life stages do not seem to be as well developed in much of literature. But I found the book overall to be lacking a solid thread of meaning and purpose.<br />
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The Mither Mages series is great! I can hardly wait to listen to the third one. This series imagines that the gods of the ancient world were actually a separate group of human-like beings, and the intermarriages we hear about in the stories of those gods ended up diluting their stock so that, though the ancient families still exist, they are not as powerful. It explains a lot of otherwise-strange phenomena in history, such as certain people who have particular connections to plants or rocks, why some people in ancient times could do miracles, and of course the reasons for all the mythology from different cultures about their gods, who apparently don't have the powers they seem to have had in the past. This series is an imaginative take on that concept. I learned quite a bit about ancient mythology, and the story was fun.<br />
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The first one takes place on Earth in a rural Virginia commune, and tells the story of a mage who is one of the first gate mages in recent history. Gates magically take people from one place to another like stepping through a gate. In the ancient world of the Mither Mages, there used to be gates all over the place, from place to place on Earth, and from Earth to other planets, but the Gate Thief stole them all. I suppose what I like most about these books, besides the imaginative ideas, is that the author shows the character moving through a variety of stages of understanding himself and his world, coming to empathize with the enemy and grapple with his own role. Is he the hero, or the villain?Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07488876505679035140noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19785125.post-31860197893773582862015-11-04T10:00:00.000-05:002015-11-04T10:00:02.627-05:00mini book review: augustine for armchair theologians<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I listened to the audiobook of <i><a href="http://www.powells.com/book/augustine-for-armchair-theologians-9780664223724/61-0" target="_blank">Augustine for Armchair Theologians</a></i> (Stephen A. Cooper, 2002) mainly out of curiosity for what the author would say to "armchair theologians," although as someone who has a master of divinity degree and teaches in a seminary, I probably don't exactly count as an armchair theologian. What I appreciated about this book is that it went through the entire book of his <i><a href="http://www.powells.com/book/the-confessions-of-st-augustine-9781602060104/61-2" target="_blank">Confessions</a></i> and pulled out important moments and key points, and placed them within their cultural milieu in a way that likely would make sense for the average college-educated reader. This is a very accessible text and gives a good overview of Augustine's life and struggles, and the reasons behind those struggles, which may not be entirely clear if one was reading through the <i>Confessions</i> unaided. It also includes a brief overview of <i><a href="http://www.powells.com/book/city-of-god-9780140448948/2-5" target="_blank">City of God</a></i>.<br />
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I realized that previously, though I read the <i>Confessions</i> and <i>City of God</i> years ago, I was mainly reading them for his theology, and to learn about church history in his lifetime, and not so much for learning about his life and personal experience. Yes, I assign chapters from his Confessions when I teach church history to undergrads, so I was very aware of his conversion experiences and other highlights, but I hadn't spent a lot of time learning more than the basics of his biography. I enjoyed hearing Coopers explanation of why Augustine thought and emphasized certain things, and I appreciated his emphasis on the strangeness of Augustine's coming to God through "pagan" books.<br />
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I didn't like some of the presumptions Cooper made about Augustine's correctness or incorrectness of theological insight. In many places in the book he presented information and left it up for the reader to decide what was right and true, but especially toward the end of the text, after Augustine's conversion, Cooper makes more values-based statements about the correctness of Augustine's theology. It would have been better had he said something like, "This disagrees with the later version of orthodoxy according to [some council or pope]," but instead he made blanket statements about whether it was right or wrong without a lot of context for what branch of Christianity his judgments flow from.<br />
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In the past, I admit, when I've read Augustine it has often been to disagree with him, since much of the Just War Theory is based on his writings. I enjoyed the chance to get to know the man behind the theology. It gives me a better basis for empathy for his belief system.<br />
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I recommend this book to those interested in learning more about Augustine, but if you haven't read the <i>Confessions</i> or <i>City of God</i> yourself, I encourage you to read those afterwards, too.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07488876505679035140noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19785125.post-50438504042275889632015-11-03T01:15:00.000-05:002015-11-03T18:06:31.379-05:00mini book review: blue like jazz: nonreligious thoughts on christian spirituality<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I finally got around to reading (or at least listening to) <a href="http://www.powells.com/book/blue-like-jazz-nonreligious-thoughts-on-christian-spirituality-9780785263708/1-33" style="font-style: italic;" target="_blank">Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious thoughts on Christian spirituality</a> (2003), a book that was fairly popular in my social circles over the last several years since the author, Donald Miller, is from Portland, OR and is an Evangelical Christian who writes about social activism. I hadn't read the book before, partially because it was so popular and trendy, so I thought it was ironic that he makes fun of Trendy Author (or, really, himself because he was judging Trendy Author), a Northwest author who writes about fishing and gave a reading at Powell's (one can surmise it's David James Duncan, except that he said the author is an Oregonian, and Duncan is a Montanan). At any rate, I think I kind of wrote off <i>Blue Like Jazz</i> in a similar way to the criticism Miller has of Trendy Author: that from what I heard, he was spouting a version of Christianity with just the right amount of edginess to get Evangelical Christians to think they're getting out of their comfort zones into something exciting.<br />
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Well, the book was not terrible. There were things I liked about it. I had already heard the confession booth story, where he and his friends set up a reverse confession booth at Reed College, and I would probably assign that for students to read. It was pretty powerful. That was probably my favorite chapter. There was also a pretty good chapter about tithing, although leaving one with the impression that if you just start tithing, money will start flowing to you. Maybe, but that leaves the problem of those for whom that doesn't happen. The last several chapters were the most interesting, and although I wasn't as interested in the early chapters, I'm not sure if the last several would have made sense without following him through the whole story. At the same time, his story is not told linearly, so it may not matter. The end of the book is more thematic rather than story-driven, so probably others might like the other chapters more and I'm just weird!<br />
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I was a little confused about who his audience is meant to be. I think probably he's aiming at those who are Evangelical Christians, or who were raised so, but who are frustrated with the church. I think he's trying to show that there's another way to be an Evangelical Christian than the close-minded, judgmental, fundamentalist, biblical literalists that he grew up with. He may be thinking that he's going to reach people who aren't Christians, but I think the Christianese would probably not be accessible for many people who didn't grow up in the church.<br />
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I would tentatively recommend this book to people who want to be Christians and come from an Evangelical or Fundamentalist background, but who are disenchanted with the church, and who aren't comfortable with a completely radical reorientation of their faith but who just need a bit healthier of a spin on things. I would not recommend this book to people who are already thinking deeply about their faith (or even their not-faith), or to most Friends. I found the book a little bit sexist, although I appreciate that he recognizes that he's not that great at relationships with women, so I think he just didn't really know how to approach the topic well. I also didn't like that he seemed to be bringing up some things just to shock people and make them think they were reading something edgy. Those sections came across as just for show and to sell books.<br />
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I do think Miller is genuine, though, and that he wants to sell books because he wants people to realize that God isn't a slot machine or a punitive judge, and that people are really changed through encountering Jesus in community. Miller shares some fairly personal experiences of failure or of missing the mark, and I appreciated his humility and willingness to learn from these experiences.<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07488876505679035140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19785125.post-87981547874226560652015-10-30T09:58:00.000-04:002015-10-30T10:05:42.572-04:00mini book review: black elk speaks<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I listened to the audiobook, <i>Black Elk Speaks: Being the Life Story of a Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux </i>(ed. by John G. Neihardt), for the last couple of days. This is a really powerful text, a transcript of Black Elk's story as he told it to Neihardt around 1930. Apparently, Neihardt went to listen to Black Elk, who said he wanted to tell him his story, and wanted Neihardt to write it down and share it. Black Elk lived from 1863-1950, so he witnessed pretty much the whole scope of transition from his Lakota people's traditional way of life to their consignment to reservations.<br />
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The story is a sad one, of course, since we all know the trajectory forced on his people in that century. Some of the sadness for me personally comes from white guilt, I suppose — what were my ancestors thinking?! What were the Quakers doing and why weren't they helping? Oh yeah, some of them were working on abolition and women's rights. And some of them were thinking about moving west and establishing a Quaker community out in Oregon Territory. About the time of Black Elk's first vision, William Hobson visited the Chehalem Valley and decided it was a perfect place for his "garden of the Lord." In other words, Quakers were expanding into lands accessible because of the native people being forced onto reservations.<br />
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Some of my sadness comes from the loss of knowledge of the land, how to live on it, and how to connect with God here in this place. I don't hear anything in Black Elk's visions that seems different from how I can imagine the God of the Bible speaking. Many people in the Bible have visions, with symbols, animals, weather phenomena, knowledge of the future, and intuitive understanding being received or experienced through their visions for the community. We have these recorded throughout the Bible, especially by Ezekiel, Daniel, and John. Our own Quaker John, John Woolman, went to spend time with Native Americans and realized they already knew the same God. I want to use this as a badge of honor, that my people were not completely to blame for what happened to the Native Americans, but I think sometimes I use the highlights of Quaker heritage as a defensive shield so I don't have to feel all the weight of a history of oppression and violence.<br />
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My intense sadness comes from loss of the kind of connection to God in this place that Black Elk knew. I mean, he wasn't here in the Pacific Northwest, but he knew his own land in that way, and his spirituality was tied intensely to his place. Probably there were people here on my land who knew this place and how to recognize when God speaks here. This is not to say that Black Elk didn't understand a universal God, because it sounds like he did. It sounds like he knew a universal Creator God who spoke to him through his particular place: the creatures and the land that formed his world. God spoke to him in visions, but they were for the people. They weren't for some far off land of heaven or for personal edification, or mystical oneness for the ecstatic feeling of the mystic. They were for the people's happiness, the people's right relationship with God and the land.<br />
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I don't want to overly romanticize this time, because it sounds like it wasn't exactly egalitarian for women, and I'm sure life wasn't easy for his people. Looking back on his childhood after 60 years, he probably remembered it with a bit of nostalgia, and mainly thought of the good times, comparing an idyllic childhood with the complete brokenness his people experienced during the course of his adult years. But the visions he shares and the way he shares them speak from the same wellspring of Truth that I recognize in other spiritual writers. He knew God. God spoke to him in unusual ways, even for his people, but his people had a context and a language for that way of knowing. It was a mystical way of knowing, but it was intimately connected and tied to the physical reality of the land, the very herbs, the health of individuals and the community.<br />
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As Quakers, I so appreciate our mystical bent, our ability to listen well and to try to discern together what God is saying. But we are a very disembodied religion. We don't have anything tying us to a certain place, and sometimes we are criticized for being too intellectual. I think this criticism is probably pretty accurate. We are too much in our heads and we don't know (as a community, though I'm sure there are individuals who do) how to connect this to our place. What would it look like to be Friends of our watershed, Friends of our land, in ways that were wholly and specifically idiosyncratic to our bioregion and our even more particular places?Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07488876505679035140noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19785125.post-53424399037235674262015-10-29T09:25:00.003-04:002015-10-29T09:25:46.813-04:00mini book review: the sense of wonder<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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By Rachel L. Carson, author of <i>Silent Spring</i>, this little book, T<i>he Sense of Wonder</i> (1965), takes only a little over half an hour to listen to as an audiobook. It's a beautiful little piece that encourages us to inculcate a sense of wonder in our children. She talks about how this is more important than knowledge, because we can learn more information as we get older, but developing a sense of wonder if we haven't developed it as a child is much more difficult. She talks about how each of us can take children outside, or even sit and look out a window, watching the birds or small creatures we see, stooping to pick up a small leaf or shell to examine carefully. We can take kids outside at night to look at the wonder of the stars and moon, or we can walk on the beach and notice and experience awe.<br />
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What I liked most about this book is that she really attempts to make these suggestions accessible. One doesn't have to be a scientist or a naturalist in order to spend time exploring and experiencing wonder with kids. She made it clear that an adult need not know the names for everything — or for anything! But just noticing and being present to the experience is what's important. Carson talks about spending time with her small nephew, and how she would take him out on the beach at night to experience a storm, or walk through the woods in different seasons. When it was too cold or wet to go out, they looked out her window, but she also recognized that for children, it's fun and exciting to go outside on a wet day and experience the world that comes out in the rain. She talked about noticing birds, even if one can't identify them, paying attention to when they appear and wondering about migratory patterns. For those with the privilege of a microscope or a telescope, more in-depth explorations can happen, such as looking at the moon with a telescope and waiting for migrating birds to pass between us and the moon.<br />
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I loved this playful and insightful book, and I hope to put some of her ideas into practice with my kids. Her insight about the greater importance of wonder over knowledge was something I have known but had never put into words, and it provides a new freedom for me, since I don't know the names of all the birds or information about all the plants. But my sons and I do have fun collecting bugs or watching birds, noticing seasonal changes, listening to the sounds we can hear from our yard, and attending to tiny patterns and vast cloud formations. This gives me a renewed sense of excitement to do this more often.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07488876505679035140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19785125.post-84555281848860244922015-10-28T09:42:00.000-04:002015-10-28T09:42:15.435-04:00mini book review: the religion of small societies<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I recently listened to <i><a href="http://smile.amazon.com/The-Religion-of-Small-Societies/dp/B000I0HDMU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1446037991&sr=8-1&keywords=the+religion+of+small+societies" target="_blank">The Religion of Small Societies</a></i>, by Ninian Smart, part of the Audio Classics Series on Religion, Scriptures & Spirituality (and narrated by Ben Kingsley, no less than Gandhi himself, right?). I think it's made for audio (as opposed to other books that are written for reading and only later are made into audiobooks). It was interesting and fairly well done.<br />
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I was most interested in the parts that had to do with numinous experiences that people had, where they encountered God/dess or a god/dess. These were really interesting and beautiful to hear about. The author talked about the difference between spirituality and other parts of life in that numinous experience, that experience of the direct presence of the holy. Shamans may have been the ones who most frequently had these numinous experiences, but it sounds like they sometimes happened to ordinary members of the tribe or group, too.<br />
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One reason that I wanted to listen to this book was that I have this growing sense that it's the vastness of our society that is one of the reasons we're seeing so many problems in our world. In a small society, there is accountability. Everyone pretty much knows what everyone is up to. There is no hiding in anonymity, and not as much ability to get lost in the shuffle and grow so lonely and depressed that you lash out through a school shooting, for example, or trafficking young children, or where you can take and take more resources than you need in a futile attempt to keep yourself from feeling vulnerable and alone. But in our society, there is no accountability like that, there is no way to make sure that everyone is doing OK, there is no effective mechanism that reminds us that others are hungry and that we must share.<br />
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Small societies often have religions that are place-based, that see God/dess in a particular place or that see the divine in the other animate and inanimate entities that make up their world. While perhaps this kind of animism is "primitive," a precursor to a more universal understanding of the divine, a God/dess who is present in all places and not bound to a particular plant, animal, or rock, sometimes I feel like our transcendent understanding of God gets in the way of our ability to connect with God on an immanent plane. When we as Christians became place-less and universal, we became so susceptible to the eventual wedding with empire that occurred with Rome, to the monoculture of convert or die, which wiped out so many of these small religions in the last 2000 years. A victory for Jesus, or just a victory for empire? It's so hard to tell sometimes.<br />
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Now as a people we're realizing that our disconnection from the land is harming not only ourselves, but also all the other creatures and non-living entities on the land. (Or at least, it's harming their ability to survive in the way that we have for thousands of years. We will all have to adapt.) Some of us are realizing that what these small societies did, creating accountability with one another, setting up guidelines for how to live in a way that did not overly-deplete the resources of our beloved place, were actually really smart. Perhaps as Americans we grew up learning that Native Americans didn't manage the land, so Europeans had to come in and do so for them, but now we're learning that Native peoples were managing the land, just in such a sustainable way that it looked natural. The size of their groups and the particular rules in place in their communities almost all contributed to maintaining the land for the benefit of all — not just the people but the entire ecosystem.<br />
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We obviously can't go back to that kind of society, but I've wondered for a long time what it would look like to live in this kind of tribal way, at least to form our meetings/congregations in such a way that we split in healthy ways when we get too big, and where we actually know one another and supply one another's needs. What if we not only did this for the people, but for the whole ecosystems to which we're connected? Some people are calling this watershed discipleship or place-based theology. What if we paid attention to the numinous experiences we had here, in this place, of the God/dess who is particular to here, and transcends space and time? What might we learn if we paid attention to being followers of Jesus here, rather than in some disembodied future?Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07488876505679035140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19785125.post-89532227891207065932015-10-27T09:24:00.001-04:002015-10-27T09:24:35.318-04:00mini book review: the game of thrones<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Lest you think I only read high-brow literature and popular nonfiction in my spare time, I did also spend a good portion of my summer listening to the audiobooks of <i><a href="http://smile.amazon.com/George-Martins-Thrones-5-Book-Boxed/dp/B00OHXAY5W/ref=sr_1_9?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1445951207&sr=1-9&keywords=game+of+thrones+box+set" target="_blank">A Game of Thrones</a></i> series by George R. R. Martin (technically, the series is called "The Song of Ice and Fire"). I started into this series by watching a couple episodes of the TV series, but those were too racy for me. The books are not as graphic. They were addicting, however! I found myself making up excuses to do dishes or laundry so I could listen to my audiobook. Luckily, a bunch of people at my library are also interested in this series, so I had to wait on a waitlist for weeks between each book, so I couldn't just binge my way through them (though I suppose it would have had a positive effect on my housework). The book is set in a different world where each season lasts many of our years. It's a medieval society with knights and horses and dragons, battles, love, intrigue, jealousy, a bit of magic and religion, and much familial drama.<br />
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I'm not sure what it is about this series that is likable. Just because a character is likable doesn't mean they'll survive (if you know anything about <i>Game of Thrones</i> I'm sure this isn't news to you — I heard about the end of the first book on NPR one day!). Usually I like sci-fi and fantasy because it lets the author and reader explore moral and ethical questions that aren't really possible to explore in normal life. But I can't say that these books have any shining moral truths to present, except, perhaps, that we don't always get what we deserve. It's an intriguing look at the "game of thrones," as in, the intrigue one has to participate in if one happens to be born into a noble family, or wants to participate in the life of lords and ladies. This is not a situation most of us find ourselves in nowadays, but I suppose the politics and attempts to get ahead are just as real, though far less bloody, at least here in the US.<br />
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I was excited to read the fifth book because I thought that would be the end of the series and there would be some kind of closure, but by the time I got half way through the book and realized none of these story lines were drawing to a close, and in fact new storylines were opening all the time, I looked it up and realized that the author is still working on the next book. Agh! I think book companies should do what Netflix and other video streaming places have been doing lately, and release a whole series at once so we can binge on it all at one time. None of this delayed gratification thing!<br />
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Seriously, though, I probably will keep reading it, as it's a good story. It definitely keeps my interest and entertains. The characters are unique. They're not exactly realistic or well-rounded, they're kind of like mythical foils without a lot of character depth, but they're interesting and you never quite know what they're going to do.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07488876505679035140noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19785125.post-86449524851791685592015-10-26T09:53:00.004-04:002015-10-26T09:53:48.834-04:00mini book review: in defense of food<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I recently (finally) listened to <i><a href="http://www.powells.com/biblio/17-9781594201455-38" target="_blank">In Defense of Food</a></i> by Michael Pollan on audiobook. He tells us his main point right up front: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." Then he spends the rest of the book unpacking what this means: "eating," as in, not gorging, and eating as a social occasion rather than something we do by ourselves in front of the TV or just for the sake of ingesting nutrients. "Food," as in, actual food rather than some processed pseudo-food, and cooking it ourselves so we know what goes into it and so we're participants in the process and therefore value each bite more than we otherwise would. "Not too much," of course, refers to the American propensity to eat huge portions with high calories. "Plants" doesn't require much definition, except that with statistics like the fact that it takes 3-4 of today's apples to equal the nutritional value of one 1950s apple due to soil nutrient depletion as well as human selection for visual appeal and high yield, we have selected against nutrient content in many of our staple foods. He also suggests in the final pages that we participate in the food production process, if only by way of a small herb garden on a window sill, or more if we have space.<br />
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Another main point in this book is about "nutritionism." Pollan talks about the science of nutrition as almost a religion, and the irony that Americans are so fanatical about "health" and are one of the most unhealthy populations in the "developed" world.<br />
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He also gives a lot of information regarding "the Western diet," by which he means the processed food (or what passes for food) that many Americans eat. He says, interestingly, that pretty much any traditional diet produces fairly healthy people with low risk for "Western diseases" such as cancer, heart disease, and type 2 diabetes. People who eat any traditional diet are, on the whole, much healthier than the population eating a Western diet. Pollan cited a fascinating study of Australian aborigines who had adopted a Western diet and had developed diabetes. A researcher had them go out into the bush and hunt and gather for their sustenance again. The study lasted for 7 weeks, during which time they lost an average of 17 pounds and their diabetes was much more controlled.<br />
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Pollan connects the dots that a Western diet, although supposedly superior because it's based on science, is actually making us sicker. He gives a number of helpful and practical suggestions about how to eat more healthily, not just by falling into the trap of a shiny new diet to try (a nutritionist perspective), but by shifting our perspective from food as a means to the end of survival, to real food as an enjoyable experience in which we participate as a community.<br />
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Since this is a mini-review, I'll leave it there, saying I agree with Pollan's conclusions, and this is basically how I've been eating for several years now. But there are some criticisms of Pollan's approach, not surprisingly, from the <a href="http://sharepoint.mvla.net/teachers/GalenR/English%20CompLit%20AP/Documents/Pollan/In%20Defense%20of%20Food%20Science.pdf" target="_blank">field of nutrition</a> and <a href="http://berkeleysciencereview.com/good-science-isnt-bad-for-our-diet-a-critique-of-michael-pollans-food-politics/" target="_blank">science</a>. Since Pollan's point is basically that science's approach to food is to reductionist, these critiques are not surprising, but it is difficult for those of us having been brought up in a culture that relies so heavily on scientific evidence to just stop listening to science. I don't think Pollan would have us do that, but to pay attention to the ways that science is being used and the assumptions upon which it is based, striving for scientific processes that actually serve us rather than leading us down the path toward tinier and tinier meaningless reductionist minutiae.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07488876505679035140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19785125.post-12738609751594848202015-05-11T09:44:00.002-04:002015-05-11T09:44:08.771-04:00why I was late to worship yesterday, a.k.a. reasons I love North ValleyYesterday, my family and I arrived at the meetinghouse right on time for worship, and my husband ran in to help lead music. I, however, did not arrive until at least five minutes in, and it hit me as I took my seat how grateful I am to be part of the community at <a href="http://www.northvalleyfriends.org/" target="_blank">North Valley Friends</a> because of all the reasons that made me late.<br />
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First, I was getting something out of the trunk when a Friend drove up and stopped to chat. She offered to loan us a 3/4 size guitar for my boys to learn on, a loaner we can keep as long as we like. Just that morning, my 8-year-old had been saying he wants to be able to do something to help in worship, and asking to take his full-size guitar to worship practice with his dad. He's been working hard to learn chords, but it's pretty challenging on a full-size guitar with hands his size, so this was a perfect and timely gift.<br />
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I pulled a bag of clothes out of the trunk to take to the ReThreads shed, a drop-off site for used clothes. ReThreads is open to North Valley folk as well as the rest of the community. A group of people from North Valley sort all the donations left in their storage shed, put them on hangers, and take them to a two-room "store" next to our meetinghouse. Last summer, they spent time fixing up the "store," painting it inside and out, adding decorations, and making the place inviting. My sons had long since run in to the meetinghouse for worship.<br />
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Before I could make it to the ReThreads drop-off, I saw someone in the parking lot to whom I was going to give a flat of onions. This summer, our community garden has expanded to not just the garden space on the meetinghouse property, but also to a coordinated effort with all the gardens of North Vally people who want to be involved. Each person is in charge of a particular crop, and we'll bring our produce to share with one another throughout the summer. Since I don't have room in my yard to grow a bunch of different crops, this is so exciting! I'm waiting in anticipation of what delightful produce will be shared, and I'm excited to share my own small offering.<br />
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To get to the flat of onions I had to move aside a bike rack we're loaning to some Friends for the week. We have an e-group at North Valley, and probably at least once a week there are emails requesting to borrow things and offering to give things away or sell them, in addition to emails about births, deaths, weddings, community news, and notifications about North Valley events. We've benefited from this e-group many times, and it's great when we can also help supply someone else's need.<br />
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I finally got to drop off my used clothes at ReThreads and went inside, where I found one son munching baked goods in the foyer. We get day-olds sometimes from a local bakery, and I picked up a loaf of bread to take home to nourish our family for the week. Meanwhile, I chatted with two wonderful ladies whose lives intersect with mine not often, but deeply.<br />
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By this point I had thoroughly lost my children. I went into the meeting space and looked around, confusedly, before a Friend pointed toward the children's wing. I went to check on them, and they were already in their "places of worship," engrossed in that work and at home in their place.<br />
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I returned to the adult meeting space and joined the song.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07488876505679035140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19785125.post-86529955772686807432015-04-28T11:22:00.001-04:002015-04-28T11:22:27.070-04:00mini book reviews: the river whyI decided to start a series I'm calling "mini book reviews," because I read tons of books right now, and I don't have time to write full-fledged reviews, but I want to share them with you all anyway. I'm going to write whatever I can write in 15 minutes. Ready, go!<br />
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I'm starting with David James Duncan's <i>The River Why</i>, which I just "read" as an audiobook. Audiobooks are the best, by the way! I love listening to them while I'm cooking, doing dishes, gardening, folding laundry, etc. I get them from my public library.<br />
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This was my third time reading <i>The River Why</i>, and each time has been a very different experience. I read it in college for a class, and I hated it. I was so bored with the details about fly fishing and bait fishing that I didn't really see the humor or the philosophical poignancy of it. I think I pretty much skipped most of the last third and just read the end, so I missed the best parts. (Sorry, if you're reading this, Professor Higgins!)<br />
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The second time I read it, I loved it! My husband is a fly fisherman, so I had a bit of a vested interest in understanding the sport. Since I didn't have a time limit to finish reading it, I read it slowly and realized how funny it is. I was in a similar life stage to the main character, Gus, just growing up and leaving home, trying to figure out what life is all about, gathering folks who seem to know something about such things, and building a sense of who my people, my community, were going to be. I loved Gus's internal quests that required natural spaces as well as times sitting around reading books and/or talking to people. I loved the questions and the mystery, the hinted answers, the resolution, the humor threading through it all and the sense of the transcendent-immanent Ultimate.<br />
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Having been to seminary since reading the book last, this time I found myself analyzing Duncan's theology and philosophy with a more nuanced understanding. I agreed with some of his characters' philosophies, but there is also a subtle hierarchy, where he suggests through the philosopher in the story that the ultimate created being is humanity, the pinnacle toward which all other creatures want to climb. I struggle with this concept now, since it has caused so much harm to the rest of the created order.<br />
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Much of the philosophy I appreciated, however. I loved how he weaves together overtly Christian metaphors and stories with ideas of vision quests and finding God in the natural world. He doesn't force people to be Christian, but he leaves the door open. He expects them to find God in their own way, completely in their own bodies, when they're most in contact with the world around them.<br />
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I loved hearing Gus's story, but I also enjoyed overhearing (through his experience) the relationship between his parents. Reading it this time, I realized I see it from the perspective of the parents more than the coming-of-age young man. This made me feel old, but also just in the place I'm supposed to be right now, and I was encouraged by the joy and meaning that the two very different parents made with one another as they learned to truly be themselves without fear of the other.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07488876505679035140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19785125.post-77580380875324868492015-04-23T11:12:00.002-04:002015-04-23T11:12:27.794-04:00writing elsewhereAlthough I haven't managed to keep up well with this blog lately, I've been writing a lot elsewhere! If you'd like to read it, feel free to follow the links.<br />
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Of particular interest to those of you who follow this blog because of our Quaker connection, I had a couple pieces published in the last edition of <i>Quaker Life Magazine</i>. <a href="http://fum.org/kindred-courage/" target="_blank">Kindred Courage</a> connects my own life and ministry with the inspiring example of Elizabeth Fry, and the beautiful book of poetry about Fry by Friend Julie C. Robinson, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Jail-Fire-Life-Work-Elizabeth/dp/1894543785/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1429799926&sr=8-1&keywords=jail+fire+elizabeth+fry" target="_blank"><i>Jail Fire</i></a>.<br />
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<i>Quaker Life</i> also re-published pieces of the Peace Month 2011 curriculum, <a href="http://fum.org/spice-the-quaker-testimonies/" target="_blank">SPICE: the Quaker Testimonies</a>, and SPICE: a Quaker Youth Curriculum.<br />
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I've also been writing regularly on the blog for the journal I edit, <a href="http://wipfandstock.com/a-convergent-model-of-renewal.html" target="_blank"><i>Whole Terrain</i></a>. I've been enjoying talking with documentary makers and authors to review their work, and learning about all the excellent environmental thought and activism going on out there. As a "journal of reflective environmental practice," I feel like <i>Whole Terrain's</i> ethos lines up well with my own Quaker desire for the coupling of reflection and activism.<br />
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Here are some of my favorite pieces I've written lately:<br />
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<ul>
<li><a href="http://wholeterrain.com/2015/03/damnation-documentary/" target="_blank">DamNation: Whole Terrain interviews documentary filmmaker Travis Rummel</a></li>
<li><a href="http://wholeterrain.com/2015/03/early-spring-whole-terrain-interviews-amy-seidl/" target="_blank">Early Spring: Whole Terrain interviews Amy Seidl</a></li>
<li><a href="http://wholeterrain.com/2015/02/hottest-year-building-trust-in-climate-science/" target="_blank">"Hottest Year": building trust in climate science</a></li>
<li><a href="http://wholeterrain.com/2015/02/plastic-paradise-q-a-with-documentary-filmmaker-angela-sun/" target="_blank">Plastic Paradise: Whole Terrain interviews documentary filmmaker Angela Sun</a></li>
<li><a href="http://wholeterrain.com/2015/01/natures-trust-a-conversation-with-author-law-professor-mary-wood/" target="_blank">Nature's Trust: a conversation with author and law professor Mary Wood</a></li>
</ul>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07488876505679035140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19785125.post-64254822617245726542014-09-25T00:00:00.000-04:002014-09-25T00:00:02.373-04:00my environmental history<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.georgefox.edu/journalonline/fall11/images/generation-heading.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://www.georgefox.edu/journalonline/fall11/images/generation-heading.jpg" height="170" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo of my grandpa, Ralph Beebe, and me<br />
a few years ago when we got to teach a class together<br />
(Photo credit: Joel Bock)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<a href="http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~idfs/OObits/Glen-FannyBeebeGF.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><br /></a>For my Environmental History class this semester, I got to conduct an interview with a family member regarding my own environmental history. I enjoyed meeting with my grandpa, Ralph Beebe, and talking with him about his recollections of his own life and lives of his parents as they established homesteads in Idaho. It was fun talking with him about issues we'd never thought to talk about before, like how his family got food when he was a kid. I learned I have a lot in common with his mother, canning and growing a lot of our food, and I'm a composite of him, his mother, and my own parents: connected to the land, focused on faith and social justice, and interested in organic, healthy food options. These come down to me through different generations so that I do not share the same concerns and worldviews as do my ancestors, but I can see how each of these values came to me through my family history. And do, without further ado, my story.<br />
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I spent some time with my maternal grandparents recently. My grandpa, Ralph Beebe, has a PhD in history, and at age 82 he's currently working on a memoir of his life. This assignment gave me the excuse to talk with him about memories I hadn't discussed with him before. I greatly enjoyed meeting with him and learning more about his life and perspective. (My grandma, unfortunately, has Alzheimer's, and so I learned about her family through my grandpa, as well as through stories my great-grandma Hazel wrote down, but I don't have the space to discuss that part of my history here.)<br />
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He and I both live in a small town in western Oregon's Willamette Valley. To me, this feels like my family's home. This is where I grew up and where my dad grew up; it's where my parents went to college and met. But just a few generations back, my ancestors lived in the midwest and then in Idaho and eastern Oregon. I'll mainly focus here on my grandpa's recollections, due to the brevity of this paper. I'll add a few thoughts about my dad's side of the family toward the end.<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~idfs/OObits/Glen-FannyBeebeGF.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~idfs/OObits/Glen-FannyBeebeGF.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My great-grandparents' grave stone</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
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Ralph's father, <a href="http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~idfs/OObits/GSBeebe.htm" target="_blank">Glen</a>, was born on a farm in Cheyenne, Wyoming in 1894, and his family moved to Rupert, Idaho around 1914 for now-unknown reasons. Similarly, Ralph's mother, <a href="http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~idfs/OObits/FNBeebe.htm" target="_blank">Fanny</a>, was born in 1900 and grew up on a farm in Missouri. She moved to Rupert, Idaho with her father and two brothers (out of a total of 10 siblings) in 1914. She conducted all the chores that go along with running the house as her father and brothers homesteaded their new land. This included cooking, growing vegetables, butchering and preparing meat, and going out with a rifle to shoot rabbits. There is no current family memory of where these families came from before the midwest, although we are presumably mainly of European descent.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.postregister.com/sites/default/files/styles/article_image_full_node/public/field/image/326186_web1_Aug5INLHistory4.jpg?itok=0dG7XsBb" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://www.postregister.com/sites/default/files/styles/article_image_full_node/public/field/image/326186_web1_Aug5INLHistory4.jpg?itok=0dG7XsBb" height="207" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cattle ranch in Idaho,<br />
similar to my great-grandparents' homestead</td></tr>
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After World War I, Glen and Fanny married, and moved to another town in Idaho called Wilder. They rented farms, living on 21 farms in 20 years, and they had to give the landowner half their profit each year. Finally, along with the New Deal and the subsequent damming of the Owyhee River, new areas were opened up for homesteading along the Oregon-Idaho border. Glen and Fanny moved their family just across the Oregon border from Adrian, ID in 1939, homesteading a 240-acre farm, 160 acres of which was "under water." Ralph was almost 7 years old.<br />
<br />
Ralph remembers their cash crops as dairy cows, alfalfa, wheat, sugar beets, and corn (though the alfalfa mainly fed the cows). He remembers his mother gardening and raising chickens and pigs, along with the farm's many dairy cows. He helped weed the garden and gather eggs. He also remembers harvesting beets. They lived mainly on the food his mother canned, as well as the eggs, milk, and meat from their animals. He remembers getting a refrigerator after World War II.<br />
<br />
He had the opportunity to go to college, which he considers very lucky, because he says he's not smart enough to be a farmer. He's book smart, of course, but not as mechanically minded as one needs to be in order to fix tractors, fences, and everything else that can go wrong on a farm. He moved off the land, but his brother stayed, and his nephew now runs the same farm. I've been there a number of times, floating the irrigation ditches on inner tubes as a kid.<br />
<br />
I asked my grandpa his thoughts on the changes that have occurred in his lifetime. He recognizes that some people are really connected to the land that they work, the land that raises food for them and their families, but he never had that sense of the land. He likes the farm, and he appreciates the people who work it, and the hard work they do, but for him, a connection to the land seems like more of a personality characteristic or personal interest someone might have, rather than something everyone will experience.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEFsLb58oQ4K3WM36UiDqqDbXeMAMmdXT4pAtfSdx29SWOtVZnJeBQDHGTgh0IODVVC5CRY5ywrf_2r31K58jD6aXO4NEdwZ7DMD8GZXxpgZg2kILuL0RmZOnlpjRKplAuskpN/s1600/Dad's%2B12th%2Bbday.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEFsLb58oQ4K3WM36UiDqqDbXeMAMmdXT4pAtfSdx29SWOtVZnJeBQDHGTgh0IODVVC5CRY5ywrf_2r31K58jD6aXO4NEdwZ7DMD8GZXxpgZg2kILuL0RmZOnlpjRKplAuskpN/s1600/Dad's%2B12th%2Bbday.jpg" height="200" width="165" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My dad's 12th birthday</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
He went to college in western Oregon and stayed in this area for his married life, quite happy with the life of an academic, loving his students and providing excellent classroom experiences for them, living into his own talents.<br />
<br />
One final note regarding my dad's side of the family is that my dad moved to Oregon, from Iowa in 1963, and the house he grew up in is now part of the property of the university where I coordinate a community garden. There are fruit trees in the backyard of his old house and the neighboring houses--apples, pears, and plums--and I've been preserving the apples from those trees this week.<br />
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In the scope of human history, my family does not have a long history on this land. But in the scope of present-day American experience, I'm incredibly connected to this town, this little corner of the Willamette Valley called Chehalem Valley. I'm putting down my own roots here, benefiting from the forethought of my grandparents and their friends when they planted the fruit trees that will sustain my family this winter.
<br />
<br />
As an aside, I've attached a photo I took of my grandma's ration card booklet from World War II!</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07488876505679035140noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19785125.post-51835963716591489772014-09-23T13:10:00.001-04:002014-10-27T09:13:11.071-04:00whole terrain<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://fbcdn-sphotos-a-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xpa1/v/t1.0-9/10176166_10151951976831213_3049004176728811612_n.jpg?oh=08d11716b424ca17d0a598a4aa0728e1&oe=54C6569D&__gda__=1418862731_f8d672510a2611eacbd39dee332ebf43" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://fbcdn-sphotos-a-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xpa1/v/t1.0-9/10176166_10151951976831213_3049004176728811612_n.jpg?oh=08d11716b424ca17d0a598a4aa0728e1&oe=54C6569D&__gda__=1418862731_f8d672510a2611eacbd39dee332ebf43" width="200" /></a></div>
In case you all are interested, I'm now serving as the editor for <a href="http://wholeterrain.com/" target="_blank">Whole Terrain</a>, Antioch University of New England's environmental studies journal. I'll be looking for submissions to the journal, this year on the theme of trust and nature or the environment. I'm blogging for them each week, and/or soliciting blog posts from guest writers. I posted one yesterday called <a href="http://wholeterrain.com/2014/09/on-trust-electric-cars/" target="_blank">On Trust & Electric Cars</a>, if you want to check it out. We're <a href="http://wholeterrain.com/call/" target="_blank">calling for submissions</a> on the theme of trust and the environment, so if you have something you'd like to write, let me know! Submissions for the journal are due February 15, or if you want to write for the blog, that will be an ongoing theme throughout at least part of next year.<br />
<br />
You can also join <a href="https://www.facebook.com/WholeTerrainJournal?ref=stream&fref=nf" target="_blank">Whole Terrain on Facebook</a> or <a href="https://twitter.com/wholeterrain" target="_blank">Twitter</a> to see when there are new posts, and to learn about other opportunities and events.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07488876505679035140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19785125.post-70210026396556186412014-09-20T10:20:00.003-04:002014-09-20T10:20:33.215-04:00people's climate march<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://rht7i1f3vjk8j0cx49s7yavh.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/alt-with-dates-01.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://rht7i1f3vjk8j0cx49s7yavh.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/alt-with-dates-01.png" height="320" width="320" /></a></div>
Are you going? I'm getting so excited! The news and photos are rolling in from marches around the world, and tomorrow I'll be going to the one in <a href="http://www.350pdx.org/" target="_blank">Portland</a>. The main march will be in New York City tomorrow. You can get all the info <a href="http://peoplesclimate.org/march/" target="_blank">here</a>. The main reason for having these climate marches now is that the UN is convening a climate summit in New York City, starting this coming Tuesday, and we want them to go into the meeting with a clear signal that the world is watching and that there is strong support for them to make laws that will benefit the environment and, therefore, all of us.<br />
<br />
I always wanted to be part of the "Million Man March" for civil rights, but I wasn't alive yet so that kind of put a damper on that opportunity! But I believe climate change is the most pressing social justice issue of our time, and I'm excited to go to this march and show my solidarity with people around the world and in my own home state who care about the continued health of our planet and the people on it.<br />
<br />
My son and I watched 350.org's video about the march, Disruption, together, and he wanted to make a video to tell world leaders, especially our president, that he wants them to make stronger laws to limit pollution and make the world a better place.<br />
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<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/dy_U_dAyFG0" width="560"></iframe>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07488876505679035140noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19785125.post-55008701725333754392014-09-18T15:22:00.000-04:002014-09-18T15:22:34.931-04:00life updateBack in June, I shared the exciting news that I'm starting a PhD in Environmental Studies at Antioch University of New England, and that I'd be moving with my family to New Hampshire.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqPONYDxlwDP4gMEzfuPLr91-3cnQtQa81tao8WkrVx96KZGAvHyNqE9biTb0mg0ehzxxGKZKYYHUHARVbK8GHxEpQRQmkI50HKm8mmVxPkhgzO5OxmuBWoMXsc9oX2AgxzBSz/s1600/EV+station+at+AUNE.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqPONYDxlwDP4gMEzfuPLr91-3cnQtQa81tao8WkrVx96KZGAvHyNqE9biTb0mg0ehzxxGKZKYYHUHARVbK8GHxEpQRQmkI50HKm8mmVxPkhgzO5OxmuBWoMXsc9oX2AgxzBSz/s1600/EV+station+at+AUNE.jpg" height="320" width="180" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Electric Vehicle charging station<br />at Antioch University of New England</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Well, the first part of that sentence is still correct, but we decided to stay in Oregon. I'm commuting back and forth for school, which is a low-residency program, so I only have to be there one weekend a month for the first year, then a couple times a semester next year, and once a semester or so for the years after that. I love the program and I'm so happy with my choice! Commuting back and forth has the difficulty of causing lots of greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere, which is problematic, especially for a degree in environmental studies. Some airlines are now providing the option to buy carbon offsets in programs they're working with, so basically what this amounts to is a voluntary carbon tax. I wish it were incorporated into the airline fees, but this is better than nothing! Here is <a href="http://co2offsets.sustainabletravelinternational.org/ua/offsets" target="_blank">United's carbon offset program</a>.<br />
<br />
We decided to stay in Oregon for a number of reasons, including our family and community here, our desire to be in the Northwest after I'm done with school, and a sense of stability for our kids. We also found it really difficult to find a place to live that was affordable, walk/bike friendly, and where we could plug in our electric car. There are now two electric vehicle charging stations in Keene, NH, one at the Nissan dealership and one at Antioch University of New England. It's great that there are two, but they're both trickle charge stations, meaning it would take upwards of 12 hours for a full charge. If we didn't live close enough to leave it there all the time, we would have a hard time using our car! Here in the Northwest, we have what's been dubbed the "<a href="http://www.westcoastgreenhighway.com/electrichighway.htm" target="_blank">West Coast Green Highway</a>," with charging stations all along the I-5 corridor, and even reaching to central Oregon and the Oregon coast.<br />
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Another reason for staying in Oregon was housing. First, our house was having a hard time selling, and we really like our house (mainly the yard). Also, affordable housing in Keene is run by the Keene Housing Authority, which in theory is a great idea: they help people find housing, and they are able to subsidize the costs for those who can't afford the full price. But many places in the Keene area would ONLY work with the Keene Housing Authority, and I called them and there's a 1-2 year waiting list for finding a place to live, even if you can pay the full price. Therefore, we couldn't live in most of the apartment buildings in Keene for the next year or two (the length of time we need to live there, ironically). This seemed like a very strange arrangement.<br />
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Finally, the very best reason to stay in Oregon (besides the lack of ticks carrying <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/06/lyme-disease-map-pinpoints-areas_n_1256859.html" target="_blank">Lyme disease</a>) is being rooted in our bioregion and our community. If I'm going to school to learn about how to more deeply care for the environment and how to create connected communities, why would I go anywhere other than the Pacific Northwest to practice this kind of environmental, justice-oriented, community-based, holistic care for the Earth? Unfortunately, there aren't any PhD programs of a similar thrust here in the Northwest, so I have to go to New England for the actual program, but at least I can stay rooted in my community, and put what I'm learning into practice in the place where my heart resides.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07488876505679035140noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19785125.post-5740618095677908912014-07-18T13:41:00.001-04:002014-07-18T13:41:55.238-04:00GFU & transgender<br />
<br />
This week, a fairly public news item emerged, regarding <a href="http://www.georgefox.edu/" target="_blank">George Fox University</a>'s win in a case with the Department of Education, allowing Title IX religious exemption for the university's housing policy and a transgender student, Jayce, who wanted to live in a male dorm. Here's a <i>Register Guard</i> <a href="http://registerguard.com/rg/news/local/31867776-75/jayce-education-exemption-fox-george.html.csp" target="_blank">article</a> about the court decision, and here's an Oregon Public Broadcasting news spot on the issue, featuring <a href="http://gatheringinlight.com/" target="_blank">Wess Daniels</a> and my grandpa, Ralph Beebe. Both are supportive of Jayce and desire to make him feel welcome and like he can be himself at Fox. Here is <a href="http://www.georgefox.edu/transgender/" target="_blank">GFU's statement</a> about the case. I want to just write a brief post on this issue, what's going on, and my thoughts.<br />
<br />
First, I wanted to note that there has been some misrepresentation of GFU's policy. Some news reports are stating that the transgender student was "denied housing," which isn't true: he was offered housing on campus housing in a single apartment. One issue is that he hasn't yet undergone sex reassignment surgery, it sounds like, making it a little bit difficult for the university to give him housing in one of the single-sex housing options. Fox cites similar difficulties deciding what to do at Smith College, an all women's college. Do they admit male-to-female transitioning transgender students? Such questions of sex and gender are far from resolved in society at large, let alone in a Christian context such as Fox.<br />
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Second, luckily it sounds like Jayce has been fairly happy with the way he's been treated by other students, staff, and faculty, besides this issue of housing, so that's good.<br />
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Third, GFU cited Northwest Yearly Meeting's policy to shore up its claim that this was a religious belief. As far as I can tell, NWYM doesn't have a real policy about transgender identity.<br />
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This coming week, Northwest Yearly Meeting will be discussing a revision to the <a href="http://nwfriends.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/faith-and-practice-2011-2012-08-20.pdf" target="_blank">Faith & Practice</a> statement on human sexuality (p. 80 of that document). The major question really pertains to what sexual acts are consider "sinful," especially including homosexuality. There is quite a range of opinions about what should happen with the current statement, although the fact that we're discussing it this week probably means that a majority of NWYM Friends believe that it should be changed and does not represent current belief. I don't know if we'll even have time to talk about transgender issues this week in the limited time we'll have in meetings for worship for business.<br />
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Fourth, a few queries: Why is it so troubling to us when people don't want to remain within traditionally-defined gender boundaries?<br />
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Every culture has different opinions, practices, and beliefs about what it means to be "feminine" or "masculine," what roles and behaviors go along with each, and which attributes are considered "good" or "bad." There are different traditions and beliefs about what men and women wear, how they behave toward one another and toward their own gender, and what occupations or tasks belong to each. We can't really define, once for all, what it looks like to be "female" or "male." We can't even describe this physically, for many people, since many are born with secondary sex characteristics for both sexes, chromosomal differences from their "normal" sex, or other differences that make sex more of a spectrum rather than a duality. Moreover, due to both "nature" and "nurture," I'd expect, each individual displays traits that are more or less "feminine" or "masculine" in different areas. Very few individuals fall in furthest end of each category on all of the things we use to measure our own culture's understanding of what it means to be "feminine" or "masculine."<br />
<br />
What does it mean to YOU to feel "male" or "female"?<br />
<br />
Why is it more culturally acceptable, on the whole, for women to be relatively "masculine" (wearing clothes designed for men, or at least similar to those designed for men, portraying "masculine" traits like assertiveness, etc.), and less culturally acceptable for men to act "feminine"? What does it say about us as a culture and what we value?<br />
<br />
What would it look like for us to not really care about who's male and who's female, and just to love one another for who we are, regardless of how we dress and which body parts we have? Would this not be more congruent with our understanding of who we are as part of the Body of Christ, in whom there is no male or female, because we are all one as children of God?<br />
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Hold us in the Light this week as we have our annual sessions. Pray for unity and that we will listen to the Spirit, that we will be slow to anger, and that the love of Christ will abound in our midst.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07488876505679035140noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19785125.post-78487246007052340892014-07-08T00:53:00.000-04:002014-07-08T00:56:27.611-04:00mason the frog & other stories<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
As you may have read in my last post, I just started a new PhD program in Environmental Studies. For one of the first two classes, Ecological Thought, I was supposed to create a visual essay that shared something about my sense of place. One of the other assignments for the course was to work on a sense of place journal, where I observed the same outdoor location every day for three weeks. I observed my back yard, and generally my two sons accompanied me. I took quite a few pictures. What came out of me for my visual sense of place essay was a children's story, starring my kids and a tadpole we caught. Most of the photos were taken during the three weeks I observed my yard. I thought I'd share the story with you. (My boys loved it, by the way!)</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07488876505679035140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19785125.post-45409194399654326502014-07-04T07:00:00.000-04:002014-07-04T07:00:04.595-04:00back to school<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I wanted to let you all know about the newest development in my life, and the life of my family!<br />
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For quite a while I've felt drawn toward seeking a PhD in order to a) gain more knowledge and b) be able to pursue full time teaching or other job opportunities. This last year I applied to programs in theological ethics, and I got in to a few of them, but I still felt a check in my spirit about the whole thing. As a Quaker, I didn't want to get a degree that was based solely on theory. I want my scholarly work to have practical application, and to flow out of lived experience. Also, religion and theology programs are extremely competitive, based mainly on the theories and systems that you know with head knowledge and can rationally explain. While I find all of this incredibly intriguing and interesting, I also find it absolutely useless if it can't be put into action for the good of the world. I recognized that doing this sort of degree, even if I was studying ecological theology, would be 5 years of intellectualizing and head-work that I would be slogging through with no time for any practical action.<br />
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At the last minute, I decided to look into PhD programs in environmental studies and sustainability education, and got accepted into them as well. I felt peace and joy about the program at <a href="http://www.antiochne.edu/environmental-studies/phd/#phd" target="_blank">Antioch University of New England</a>, and decided to go there! It's a PhD in Environmental Studies. Last week I had my first intensive session, where I had the classroom time for two courses, Introduction to Research Design and Ecological Thought. Both classes were excellent, and I enjoyed the creative and practical information and pedagogy employed by each professor.<br />
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Added to the fact that I get to do a degree that combines the practical and theoretical, I also have a Quaker advisor! That's something I wouldn't have had in any of the PhD programs I applied to in theological ethics. My advisor will be Steve Chase, Friend from New England Yearly Meeting, who has written several books and articles on Quaker topics, including <i><a href="http://www.quakerbooks.org/SteveChase" target="_blank">Letters to a Fellow Seeker: A Short Introduction to the Quaker Way</a></i>, and a recent chapter in the Friends Association for Higher Education's 2014 book, <i><a href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/quaker-perspectives-in-higher-education-donn-weinholtz/1119839570?ean=9780996003322" target="_blank">Quakers Perspectives in Higher Education</a></i>, entitled "Educating for Beloved Community." I'm excited to work with him on issues pertaining to Quakerism and care for the Earth.<br />
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I also have an excellent cohort of about a dozen students, all from different types of backgrounds, including the sciences, social sciences, literature, and various government agencies dealing with environmental issues. It's exciting to look at this issue from so many different angles, with experts from different fields as my colleagues.<br />
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In about a month, we'll be moving to New Hampshire! Here we come, <a href="http://neym.org/" target="_blank">New England Yearly Meeting</a>...Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07488876505679035140noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19785125.post-34202606512269267202014-07-03T11:18:00.002-04:002014-07-03T11:18:21.102-04:00published: christ & cascadia<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglMrezgbaGC5ZUcUQo3Jb2-I0JgqGiNugvAYX2sEl1KxAm9pAB7UliFBfQVNxDs_n19h2H9zuLLuib3dIJkSngiXjqRyoKaGL3JFByR7GZKSqtdVaaiUlL-GfE9dCeoXw8xgOk/s1600/JBock+Willamette.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglMrezgbaGC5ZUcUQo3Jb2-I0JgqGiNugvAYX2sEl1KxAm9pAB7UliFBfQVNxDs_n19h2H9zuLLuib3dIJkSngiXjqRyoKaGL3JFByR7GZKSqtdVaaiUlL-GfE9dCeoXw8xgOk/s1600/JBock+Willamette.jpg" height="320" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo by Joel Bock</td></tr>
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I have a lot of updating to do on this blog and I will soon be posting a bunch of thoughts and an update on life, but first I wanted to share that I've recently published a piece on the online journal <a href="http://christandcascadia.com/" target="_blank">Christ & Cascadia</a>. The piece is called "<a href="http://christandcascadia.com/sister-willamette-co-lamenting-with-my-river/" target="_blank">Sister Willamette: Co-Lamenting with My River</a>." I wrote it after participating in a sort of stations of the cross meets ecotheology experience called "River's Lament," created by the group <a href="http://www.ecofaithrecovery.org/" target="_blank">EcoFaith Recovery</a>. I participated in this for a seminary class I'm co-teaching called Poverty & Restorative Earthkeeping.<br />
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I'd encourage you to read Christ & Cascadia, especially if you're a Northwesterner! They're doing good work embedding theology in our particular time and location by asking what faith looks like in the context of a person from our bioregion, Cascadia.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07488876505679035140noreply@blogger.com0