Category Archives: Religion

Gauges. Buddhism. Holy Friday. Running.

Posted on 22 April 2011 | Leave a comment

As I put on my headphones and feel the little puckered holes in my earlobes, I realize I still haven’t put my plugs back into my ears. In a mirror, the holes look like the mouths of hungry children, opening for food. They are rounded, soft, and raw, but almost quiver at the thought of being refilled, as if they’ll burst at too much food. I touch the little mouths again and send up a quick prayer for those same children who have no food, and I think about the large discrepancy between their hunger for food and my comparing my piercings to their pain. It’s a bad metaphor, but I keep it. Then I contemplate how I will manage to get my 1/2″ gauges back through the tight lobes that have returned, over the past three days, to smaller openings. This struggle is waged every other month or so when I take the plugs out of my ears to give them some breathing room. Inevitably, I forget to put them back in, in a timely fashion. Then, when I put them back in, my lobes are sore for a couple of days. As the pain subsides, I forget about the mouths and their hunger. I turn away from thinking about suffering. I move forward, leaving concern behind.

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Today is Earth Day. Starbucks is giving away free drip coffee if you bring in your own mug. It’s nice.

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During Lent, I have nearly read four books about spirituality. Along with almost daily readings in the Bible, I have completed The Joy of Living (Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche) and An Altar in the World (Barbara Brown Taylor), and I am halfway through Rebel Buddha (Dzogchen Ponlop) and Love Wins (Rob Bell). Reading these four books together, has made me more of a heretic than I already was before Lent. I’m not a dense person, but I just don’t see how Buddhism and Christianity are incompatible teachings, as so many of my more conservative friends seem to need to persuade me to think. I suppose if you adhere in a fundamentalist fashion to either spirituality, you’d not be able to reconcile them. However, if you look past the literal, the overarching message of the two spiritualities is one of love and compassion, in which the believers, celebrants seek to leave a lasting impact of positivity and non-suffering on our world. I have a hard time seeing how these two do not work together. Prayer bleeds into meditation, daily professions faith bleeds into daily practice of compassion, enlightenment bleeds into sanctification, and the eightfold path bleeds into the Sermon on the Mount and the two most important commandments. I think both religions would agree that you should increase love and compassion, while decreasing worldly attachments. I feel no conviction that they are not compatible, as hard as some of my friends try.

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Today is also Holy Friday. I am not going to church. Instead, I am going to watch the youngest pseudo-stepchild perform in the play, King Lear. I am immersed in Shakespeare. First, my students have been reading Romeo and Juliet and Midsummer Night’s Dream. And now King Leer. This is an excellent way for me to celebrate Holy Friday. I need something to take my mind off of the fact that Jesus is dying today. Sometimes I get so bogged down in the holy mysteries, I can’t see outside them into the beauty of the world. And, I suppose that is how it should go. At this point in the Christian calendar, I should be consumed by grief, and I should be contemplative about the fact that in whatever way, I did this to Jesus. It’s good, though, that we will be taking in a show instead of participating in a Good Friday service. I need the distraction. I need make believe.

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May 7 is the Indy-Mini. Am I ready? No. Absolutely not. I think I may just run the first six miles and then leisurely walk the last seven. We’ll see.

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Posted in Buddhism, Children, Christianity, CNF, Coffee, Grace, Poverty, Relationships, Religion, Running, School, Teaching, Writing

Where Does the Time Go?

Posted on 8 April 2011 | Leave a comment

At the risk of sounding like a little old lady, I find myself wondering, sometimes aloud, where the time has gone. And here she crops up again when I say, it seems like just yesterday when I started teaching here at Burris, and now the school year has about two months left. A little less than two months. The time has simply flown past.

In a fashion true to myself, I have already begun planning in my head for next year. I know that grammar is going to be a once a week activity, probably Mondays, and then everything we write that week will incorporate that grammatical lesson. I know that I am going to choose two novels for each grade level, one memoir, which the students will choose from a list I will provide, and one straight up nonfiction book. There will also be a poetry unit and a comic unit. That’s six long units in which we will address different questions, different levels of thinking, and different styles of writing. This should make for a more cohesive school year and more beneficial writing/reading connections.

On a personal level, I feel as if my life right now is the most settled it’s been since maybe early high school. I feel calm and at a strange peace. I have many things I want, but I know this life is fleeting, and there are so many more important things than my personal desires or creature comforts. I think this Lent I’ve had a chance to reflect on not only food, but also my spiritual journey. I need to make it right between God and myself and other creatures. It’s not a personal relationship.

It’s not a waterfall of honey as we sang like a bunch of lemmings in church a couple of Sundays ago. Well, I say we loosely. I couldn’t sing it all because I kept thinking, “Dip me in honey and throw me to the lesbians,” and I probably shouldn’t sing that to Jesus. So, everyone else sang about how Jesus love is like a waterfall of honey, which aside from sounding very sexual also doesn’t sound very appealing. It’d be a bit too sticky for my liking.

But, it’s not about that. It’s about how this whole big world connects. It’s about you and me and how we have that same eternal God part. It’s about us looking into each other and seeing each other and recognizing that divine presence in all creatures. God made all of us, and we need to recognize that intrinsic worth in each other. No matter what that other person has done. No matter who that other person is. No matter. We are all part of that same incredible creation.

I recognize the way I am interconnected with all creatures when I run. The route I run the most travels along the White River, bending and weaving as the river does. Along the path, there are inevitably some ducks and geese milling about quacking and honking. Sometimes the geese hiss and spread their wings, but I talk sweetly to them and explain to them that I love animals so much I don’t eat them or exploit them. Because the geese are relatively tame, though I like to think it has something to do with my reasoning with them, they back away and bob on down to the river. My day is always made better by my interactions with these animals in much the same way that it is also made better by sharing my life with my dogs and my cats. I can get so mad at Celie for being rambunctious,  but she just smiles and licks my hand or leg, as if to say, I know you aren’t really mad, are you?

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Posted in Grace, Religion, Running, School, Teaching

Lent and Jealousy

Posted on 13 March 2011 | 1 comment

Last Wednesday, I went to Ash Wednesday service for the first time in my life. I am not sure why I have never gone before. In fact, my not going makes no sense given the fact that my favorite Christian season is Lent. You would think I had attended every Ash Wednesday service my entire adult life, but until this year, I celebrated my own private death without going to church. That’s what Ash Wednesday is, after all, a celebration of our death to self and our acknowledgment that we are nothing without the power of Christ.

I usually spend Lent contemplative and questioning, but this year I decided to put my questioning on a back burner and to really focus on my relationship with Christ. Not questioning is the hardest part of this, not questioning and merely experiencing. In truth, that last sentence of the first paragraph brings to mind questions, and I had to focus on not entertaining whether people can be something without the power of Christ. Of course they can be, I see people all around me who aren’t Christian who run humanitarian/charitable circles around people I know to be Christian. But, I am trying to put that line of reasoning out of my head, at least for this Lenten season, by focusing on the way Christ is working in my life and the way I see him working in others.

In this way, the way of experience and trying to draw closer to God through the incarnated Christ, I am focusing on a few things for this 40-day period of reflection. So the disciplines I am practicing are focused on the incarnate and not so much on the spirit this time, though I am adding in some reading and meditation.

First, I am fasting in a way that I haven’t fasted since seminary. I am eating a smoothie in the morning, then drinking tea and water for the rest of the day. Before you panic, let me just say that the smoothie contains apple juice, strawberries, blueberries, a banana, aloe, hemp seeds, maple syrup, and wheat germ. In all, it probably contains about 500-700 calories. Certainly, that isn’t enough to live on for an extended period of time, but Lent is only 40 days long. The tea I am drinking is specially formulated to provide well-being while fasting, too. In order to keep up with my running, I may have to add in some more food, but we’ll see how this goes.

Second, I am trying to work on some of my jealousy issues. I have never in my life wanted a baby so badly as I do right now, and it doesn’t seem to help this urge that many people I know are either having or adopting children. I spent spring break in Florida visiting Merideth and her new daughter Tillie. I spent about an hour yesterday with Izzy. I spent a few minutes reading about David and Andrea’s new baby Ezra. I even allowed myself a few moments to look at pictures of the new daughter of one of our students. And I spent quite a bit of time dwelling on my intense jealousy for Abbie’s joy, Merideth’s joy, Andrea’s joy, and even a young mother’s joy. Don’t think for a minute that my jealousy comes at the expense of my recognition of their blessings. Of course, I am thrilled for their blessings, but I also realize that my window for motherhood is quickly dwindling. So, I am focusing on asking for wisdom in navigating both my desire for a child and to find a way to be at peace and to be filled with joy for these friends whose lives are so blessed.

Third, I am praying. Prayer is definitely not a gift of mine. I had friends in seminary who pray a blue streak and every word that came from their mouths was an exquisite utterance of truth and beauty. They could quote scripture while praying, speak hymns while praying, weep and laugh while praying, and weave together poetry with their words while praying. While I am not foolish enough to be envious of their ability to pray, I am foolish enough to believe that I, too, can learn to pray that way. Articulate and artistic.

Fourth, I am reading. I have been working on The Joy of Living and An Altar in the World for spiritual development. Even though they are from two different faith perspectives, the words harmonize so resoundingly with each other that I can feel their timbre resonating within my soul. And it is a beautiful, fulfilling, teaching melody. I have already learned that I need to be less attached to worldly things, but to find the beauty in those things.

Hopefully, the next 40 days will be an exercise in fruitfulness and anticipation for the events of Maundy Thursday, Holy Friday, and Easter Sunday. Come, Lord Jesus, bring your profound and powerful grace.

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Posted in Children, Food, Goals, Grace, Lent, Reading, Religion

On the Way to Sebring

Posted on 13 March 2011 | 1 comment

I left Muncie on Saturday morning at around 9:30 and drove through a torrential downpour until I arrived at around 7 PM in Kennasaw, Georgia. I stopped at a Starbucks and looked online for a hotel. I used Priceline for the first time and was pleasantly surprised to find an $80 hotel room for $40. And it was nice with its little kitchenette and powerful shower. The only bad things about it was being able to hear every car that passed on the water-logged road outside the hotel. There was a constant swishing sound that occasionally was accompanied by the engine breaking of large trucks as they descended the hill.

I slept well, but before I went to bed I ate some of the best Thai food I’ve ever had. Though I will never learn not to order things extra spicy when I eat at an Asian restaurant that doubles as someone’s house, I was able to sleep despite the nice burn that lingered in my acidic gut. I had Spicy Thai Vegetables with Tofu at Bangkok Cabin. They were hotter than hell, if I believed in hell, but so delicious. I tried to enjoy myself on the way down to Florida. I listened to the bible up through Ezra, to which a friend responded, “I don’t know if that makes me love you, or makes you insane.” Both. I also listened to Monster by Walter Dean Myers and tons of music. The last thing I really remember listening to was an excellent sermon by Alistair Begg about the authority of scripture; he encouraged his listeners and his congregants to always question and double-check what they hear from his pulpit. I heard it somewhere in northern Florida, which is appropriate since the stretch from Atlanta to Orlando has probably made some people lose their faith.

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Posted in Food, Religion, Vegetarian or Vegan

How did it get to be the middle of January already?!

Posted on 16 January 2011 | 2 comments

Time keeps flying past, and I wonder constantly where God wants me. Today’s sermon was helpful, because Matt spoke about how we need to be open to be used and involved where we are. I struggle with this sometimes because I don’t really want to be where I am, for the most part. For the most part, I want to be anywhere but here in East Central Indiana. I like teaching and I love my students, but I always have this restless spirit that says to me (possibly it’s some sort of Tempter), whisperingly in my ear, “You could be so much more. Why are you settling for only this?” I have to slough that off, though, because I feel for a change that I am doing the best thing I could be doing right now. Since I’ve already posted my rant about the Methodist Church and their stupidly conservative policy about GLBT pastors, I won’t go on about that. However, short of being a pastor, my calling in life is to teach. And I love — there is no sarcasm in that — middle school students! I feel like I am right where I should be with that aspect of my life.

There are other areas where I feel restless. I feel restless in my inability to stay on top of grades, because this makes me want to stop teaching. I feel restless in my relationship with God, because I feel like I can never know enough, read enough, be enough. I feel restless in desire to be an activist for liberation (people, animals, the poor), because I don’t see a future in which we are all free; though I do have hope. I feel restless because of my debt, which traps me, because I feel as if my debt holds me back from doing so many things I am called to do. I feel restless because I own a house. That’s huge to me, owning a house. If you had asked me ten years ago if I thought I would ever be so grounded, I would have answered a resounding, NO! But if you ask me today if I enjoy my life, I would say, YES, but I do suffer from a heapin’ helpin’ of wanderlust. I can’t help it. I simply have a need to roam. At least having the ability to go on road trips is helpful.

If I wasn’t so grounded, so stable, I wouldn’t be able to experience things like these:

Delicious Homemade Vegan Pizza

Cat Boyfriends Pudge and Kermit

Beautiful Woman and Her Annoying Cat

All of these things are the perks of being settled. I suppose it’s okay to be stuck somewhere with all these beautiful and amazing comforts, or blessings, surrounding me.


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Posted in Family, Food, Grace, Religion, School, Teaching