Category Archives: Religion

Dinner Concoctions and Coffee With Friends

Posted on 21 December 2009 | Leave a comment

After I rode my bicycle across town from the 505 to the Mission and back to the 505 (a twenty minute jaunt each direction because of the lovely snowice), I spent the better part of my day meeting with young people. I had coffee with both Natalie and Elizabeth, which was fantastic on both counts. We talked about things practical and theological, zany and secular. In short, I learned a lot, like I always do when I spend time with teenagers, though Elizabeth no longer qualifies as a teenager. In fact, she is soon going to be an old, married woman. Well, I guess a year from now is hardly soon, but I feel old none the less.

When I got home, I had to go run a few errands, which left Bec to make dinner. She concocted a noodle, alfredo, broccoli, mushroom mess. She said it only tasted good with pepper because it was bland otherwise, but I found it to be just fine. (I think by bland she meant not overly salty. She does like her salt.) At any rate it filled me up, but now I think I need some ice cream. I may have to make a trip to the store to fetch some Klondike bars.

Oh, and I found my Oscar the Grouch hat under the stack of sweatshirts on the floor of the closet. I would say it has been a good day.

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I am thankful for stacks of books and writing.

Food: tea, chocolate covered grahams, decaf Americano, Vanilla Bean frappuccino, left over Dominoe’s pizza, orange juice, alfredo mess, maybe a Klondike bar

Exercise: bike riding and dog walking

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Posted in Food, Relationships, Religion

Two Days and No Post. What?

Posted on 10 December 2009 | Leave a comment

Well, I’ve been lazy.

Bec’s mom asked me to define grace. Here is what I wrote back to her:

I think there is the theological concept of grace, which is sort of wrapped up with mercy, being the divine act of not giving someone what they deserve in payment for a sin they have committed, but I don’t really like to think of grace that way too much because it seems, then, like something you Lord over someone. It seems to cheapen it because you could then say, “Remember that time when I let whatever transgression you committed go?” I think real grace, Biblical or otherwise is so much more than that. Possibly the best way for me to describe the way I think of grace is that it is the anitthesis of shame. Too many of us live in shame all the time for whatever reason.

I was talking with one of my favorite professors the other day and we were talking about this idea in regards to people who had been abused (mentally, physically, sexually, etc.), women who have had abortions, etc. and the way people carry their shame—shame we bring on ourselves, shame we dole out to each other, shame that is part of societal structure, shame that is preached from pulpits, delivered from political lecterns, and spoon fed to school children by their teachers. It seems that shame helps keep people in their hierarchical places. Those of us who can usurp shame with grace break free from those cultural bindings. Grace turns shame upside down. I don’t want this to seem like I don’t think there are consequences for actions. There are. But consequences are one thing and life-long shame is another.

An act of grace could include the simplest thing like taking in your neighbor’s garbage can, talking kindly to a sales clerk, looking people in the eye and saying hello, not throwing a fit at the barista who screws up your coffee AGAIN!, caring about someone who is difficult to care about, or offering your expertise or time to someone else for no good reason. I do think the theological idea figures in to all of this because when we are doing these acts, which are also kindnesses, we are in effect heaping love and mercy onto another person.

Our world would be much better off if we practices “charis” or “hesed” every day as much as possible. “Charis,” the Greek that is usually translated as grace really means goodness, kindness, beauty, or even human creativity, and “hesed,” the Hebrew equivalent, is usually translated as compassion or loving-kindness. Both Biblical terms are used in situations where God empowers the act of grace in the person who is enacting it, or it is an act that God performs toward humans.

I would by no means limit grace to a Christian concept, though; the ideas of grace and compassion abound in almost all religious writings I have read. I think if there is one theological idea that is nearly universal, even among those with no theological ascription, the idea of grace is it. I mean, it seems to be an idea even my atheist friends can get behind.

Also, the great interest in grace is upsurging because I have been trying to write a creative nonfiction piece for about three years that has grace as its main theme. I’m collecting stories of grace form people and I have some pretty good ones to work in.

And, a large portion of my dissertation deals with grace and shame and the way Black women writers use preaching/healing figures with various forms of authority (juridical, ancestral, Biblical, and hybrid) in order to bring grace instead of shame to the Black female body.

Also, I try really hard to live this way, and I am trying to become more conscientious of it as I work with more and more students. If I believe something, I think I should behave in that manner. Obviously, it doesn’t work every day, but I think I am getting better at it.

So, there you have it: my thoughts on grace. I need to work on this essay over break, but I also HAVE to get my dissertation proposal finished.

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This is for two days, the best I can remember:

I am thankful for people who challenge me to think about things in new ways.

Exercise: walked the dogs, ran 3 miles, walked from Burris to RB, etc.

Food: bananas, juices, cheese sandwich, too much pizza, salad, apples, clementines, cheese, pretzels, milk

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Posted in Dissertation, Food, Grace, Politics, Relationships, Religion, Teaching, Writing

Wow. Strange Days.

Posted on 29 November 2009 | 3 comments

I love The Doors’ song “Strange Days,” and I think applies to this weeks reflections from my Burris students: “Strange days have found us. Strange days have tracked us down. They’re going to destroy us, our casual joys. We shall go on playing or find a new town.” I don’t expect my students to love everything I love, but I find it hard to believe the fact that the Beat poets aren’t at least liked by some of them. Maybe it is because I wanted to spend an entire week on them, but since we missed two days, which we still have to make up, for the swine flu, we only got to talk about them for two days. I despise teaching all of American Literature in one semester. I think it short changes the students. However, I am still amazed that the Beat poets aren’t some of their favorites. To each his or her own, though. I still love my Burris kids. They rock.

When I was in high school, I absolutely loved the Beat poets. I remember thinking they were my saving grace because they talked so much about how corrupt our culture was/is and how we needed to majorly overhaul it if we were going to survive. I loved the apocalyptic nature of their writings and how they sought to confuse the boundaries between the sacred and the secular. I mean, how genius is it to resurrect a dead poet, Walt Whitman, and then talk about how the speaker follows him through grocery store while he is eying the grocery boys, stealing food, and avoiding the store security? It’s fucking brilliant.

Maybe this is a sign of a generational shift. Or maybe I am simply abnormal, which is probably more likely. I can remember Jaymes and I being (or fantasizing about being) so counter-cultural. We read Kerouac and ate him up with a spoon. We started an underground newspaper to rage against the machine before the band was even popular. I just think I should have been born in the late 40s so I could be a hippie. My blood runs pinko and sentiments do too. Either way, at least my students have been exposed to a group of writers whose influence is still felt in many ways.

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I am thankful for the ability to agree to disagree with people. And, I am thankful there are multiple churches that reach multiple audiences.

Exercise: none, absolutely none, I read all day

Food: banana, juice, strawberry Belgian waffle, nachos at La Palma, black bean burger and veggies at Chili’s, chips and salsa

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Posted in Food, Literature, Politics, Queer, Reading, Religion, School, Teaching

A Rough Couple of Days, But Back in Business

Posted on 29 October 2009 | 10 comments

The past few days have been some of those dark nights of the soul that St. John of the Cross talks about. I have sensed despair, loneliness, and intense pain. To spare the emotions of some of my readers, I won’t go into details here, but I will say that the past two days have been spent hanging on for dear life. There wasn’t one event, or even a series of events that caused this dark night, but it merely showed up at my door and let itself in. Usually, this happens in the fall and in the spring for me. I begin to realize that my life is not the life I want to live.

wStJohnCrossThe thing about these dark nights of the soul is that I spend several days in anguish, trying to figure out which mental illness I have by looking through every psychological website I can find, reading the DSM, and restraining myself from going to Counseling and Psych Services. I do all this worldly cure-searching to no avail, because I don’t consider that my spiritual life may just be in upheaval. I forget that I try to do things on my own. I forget that I wrestle with demons that cause me great suffering. I forget that sometimes God simply reminds me that I cannot live my life on my own. I have to return to [Them] for sustenance, guidance, fulfillment. I forget that I must rely on God in all things, not just for the few instances that I deem unsolvable by own power.

I know that like other people, I must go through these bouts of depression and inability to hear God’s voice or see God’s plan for my life in order to get through and understand. I know that I push through in order to attain the great things God has in store for me. Like St. John of the Cross, I know it is because of the darkness that I can appreciate the light: “O night that can unite/A lover and loved one,/A lover and loved one moved in unison.” The light doesn’t seem as bright without the spates of dark. The night unites me with my love: Jesus. I seek through the darkness for the one, true light.

Each time I return to Jesus: “Beyond myself, I eased/My forehead on my love where he reclined./All stopped. I lay released,/Leaving my care behind/Among the lilies, out of night and mind.” I find that I, too, can leave my cares behind, but only after I have wrestled through yet another dark night in which I feel separated and alone. But the beauty is that each time, I recognize my own depravity, selfishness, and inability to cope with life as it proceeds. I recognize my deeper spiritual desires and recognize that I cannot attain the spiritual perfection I desire in this life.

A translation of The Dark Night of the Soul by St. John of the Cross

Songs of the soul rejoicing at having achieved the high state of perfection, the Union with God, by way of spiritual negation.

Once in the dark of night,
Demented by hot yearning, I arose
(O gamble of delight!)
And went though no one knows,
Leaving behind a house in cold repose.

In darkness all went right,
By secret ladders, in clandestine clothes,
(O gamble of delight!)
In darkness I arose,
Leaving behind a house in cold repose.

And in the luck of night
In secret places where no other spied
I went without my sight
Without a light to guide
Except the heart that lit me from inside.

It guided me and shone
Surer than sunlight in the noonday blue
And lead me to the one,
The one I truly knew
Who waited with nobody else in view.

O guiding dark of night!
O dark of night more darling than the dawn!
O night that can unite
A lover and loved one,
A lover and loved one moved in unison.

And on my flowering breast
Which I had kept for him and him alone
He slept as I caressed
And loved him for my own,
Breathing an air from redolent cedars blown.

And from the castle wall
The wind came down to winnow through his hair
Bidding his fingers fall,
Searing my throat with air
And all my senses were suspended there.

Beyond myself, I eased
My forehead on my love where he reclined.
All stopped. I lay released,
Leaving my care behind
Among the lilies, out of night and mind.

You can read St. John of the Cross’s own explanation the Dark Night of the Soul by clicking here. I think many biblical figures went through these same dark nights: David, Paul, Jesus, Jeremiah, and Isaiah to name a few. When reading their writings, you see periods of intense love and longing for God, periods of intense isolation and loneliness, and then periods of restoration because the feeling of spiritual inadequacy is not uncommon.

 

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Posted in Grace, Religion

Well, I’m up. What more do you want?

Posted on 9 October 2009 | 2 comments

As nights of no sleep go, this night takes the cake. I went to sleep at 10 PM and woke up sometime around 1:30 AM. I drifted in and out sleep until 2:30, then laid their until I finally got out of bed at 3 AM. Of course, I did what I always do when I can’t sleep. I went downstairs and watched Roseanne.

The two I watched this morning were episodes I had never seen before, so I consider this little bout of insomnia worthwhile. I didn’t realize that Tim Curry was in an episode, playing a con-artist business man, Roger. He plays the skeeze like a master. The best part of the episode was that Sandra Bernhard was in it as Nancy. She wanted to have Roger’s baby, but she hadn’t told him her plan. When he skipped town with $5000 of Nancy’s money and an equal amount of Dan and Roseanne’s, Nancy was only upset because she hadn’t yet ovulated during their relationship.

The second episode was the one in which Darlene and David have sex for the first time, which ends up not really factoring into the episode at all. Instead, the focus is on the fact that Darlene gets accepted into a writing program in Chicago while David does not get accepted into an art program at he same school. Of course, Roseanne flies off the handle because she told Darlene she couldn’t leave Lanford. I guess this was a good way to spend my morning.

I just discovered the most wonderful thing: Roseanne is on for an hour on FOX, then half and hour later, it is on for an hour on Nickelodeon.

It’s almost five now, and I am no less sleepy than I was when I went to bed last night; however, I am wide awake.

I had to stress over my Burris students and the logistics of getting them to read the second MAUS book. Foolishly, I didn’t order the two in one books, which would have been the easier solution. Maybe Rachel’s students will let them borrow their books.

I also had to stress over the way the assignment they are going to do for this unit will unfold. Should I have them work in pairs? By themselves? In groups of three? Should we spend an entire week of class doing the assignment? Will they turn out as well as I visualize them? Will they have deep enough concerns to facilitate a deep-consideration of their topic in comic form?

I had to stress over the race on Saturday, spending the better part of an hour visualizing myself coming in dead-last and trying to maintain a well-adjusted countenance about it. I pictured myself just running to my house and calling Bec, Ed, and Abbie to tell them I chickened out. I could never do that, but being a poor sport has its appeals, like saving face.

I had to stress out over getting a whole new set of papers on Tuesday when I just finished grading this one. I also have all the group presentations for my high school student to grade.

I had to stress out over my dissertation proposal. I kept telling myself that I have no idea what I am doing, so I should just give up. And then I told myself that I will be fine, that no one knows how to write a dissertation or its proposal until it is written, and that I should be able to get it done in three months if I can simply buckle down and do it.

I had to stress over my remaining conferences, because I have two of the most difficult ones today. And I had to sit here thinking about writing the assignment sheet for the next assignment and how the research/position paper is everyone’s least favorite assignment. I thought about how dry, but essential, it is to teach citations, source validity, and researching, in general.

Essentially, my morning has been spent psyching myself up and down about various things in my life and walking up and down the stairs to go to the bathroom. Fantastic.

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Posted in Dissertation, Religion, Running, School, Teaching