Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Reading Week

My absentee ballot arrived today. It serves as a reminder that I am a transient resident here in Berkeley and my allegiance and civic responsibilities rest in the Upper Delaware. My life in the valley remains my love and my reason for being away.

I spent Reading Week in the canyons outside of San Diego. Friends, who used to live in Equinunk, PA who had moved back to their family ranch some 15 years ago, were attending the international “Bioneers” conference in nearby Marin County. As we were making arrangements to see each other over the October 20-22 weekend, I realized that they would be driving home and as there were no classes the following week, I was able to jump into their mini van and head south. I bought an inexpensive one-way airline ticket back, asked my staff to send my editing work early and packed my books to go.

As we drove through the Central Valley on Monday last week, past miles of citrus, cotton and almond fields, my friends told me they had learned that produce travels on an average of 1,100 miles, that water will be the issue of the future, and that it’s not really global warming anymore, it’s global heating.

In between my readings, I muse how so much of importance seems out of our control and decisions being made on our behalf mock our sense of integrity and ethics. My theology that people are essentially good is shaken by the national and world news.

At the same time, my reading about Dorothy Day and her Catholic Worker houses of hospitality, which have fed and housed the poor since 1930, a thesis about racism and the stories of black Unitarian ministers in my almost exclusive middle-class, white denomination, and the emerging concept of an Islamic Reformation between the Traditionalists (Sunnis) who think that the Qur’an is the word of God and should have no context of history, and the Rationalists (Shi’ites), who believe that the Qur’an is a living document and should reflect a changing culture, seem to point to the human desire to improve and strengthen our sense of justice in the world, even as it is misguided at this particular point in time.

It is said that you can drive from California to New York at night and although you cannot see beyond your headlights, you will get there. Perhaps, for now, that understanding will keep up moving forward on our path to a deeper connection with our fragile earth and ourselves.

Saturday, October 21, 2006

A blessed week

There is never a shortage of worship experiences here on “Holy Hill” and I try to participate in as many as is possible. This week was an all-time high.

The first service I attended, after finishing my copyediting work for The River Reporter on Tuesday morning, was at the Pacific School of Religion (PSR), a non-denomination Christian seminary. It was put together by Seminarians for Worker Justice and featured a fiery sermon by a Quaker student that demanded that schools at the Graduate Theological Union provide a living wage for their kitchen and maintenance staff. The sermon, which used at its core the biblical story of The Good Samaritan, challenged the school administrators and student bodies to take on the mantle of religious leadership and work to dismantle the system that perpetuates the existence of second-class citizens.

Next up, quite literally with a quick lunch in-between, was a service put on by the Religion and Mental Health students at Starr King, which featured quotes and music that were born out of mental illness. In a prophetic witness at the service’s end, congregational members were asked to stand if they or anyone they love suffers from mental illness. No one was left sitting. The service illuminated the fragile nature of human existence and the imperative need for community and compassion.

A small women’s spiritually circle, facilitated by a young Catholic theologian on Wednesday evening, offered the opportunity to reflect on our individual uniqueness and to create a Mandela exploring a physical representation of the past, present, our growing edges and the potential of the future. I wondered if our experiences would be more affirming if we examined life’s details as colors rather than specifics.

Worship with the Franciscans on Thursday morning is a weekly opportunity to sing praises to the divine spirit in a variety of languages, accompanied by brilliant piano playing and a roomful of devout people intent on communing with the divine. Tai Chi immediately afterwards, graciously given by an Episcopalian seminarian in St. Margaret’s Courtyard, is an opportunity to get in touch with one’s bubbling spring of inspiration and life force.

The experience of the Islamic evening prayers and a dikar circle, the communal recitation of the name of Allah 999 times on Thursday evening always seems to move my spirit to joy. A visit to the masjid on Friday afternoon to pray with a community of Muslims is a reminder that the spirit runs across all races, religions and beliefs. A first-time Sufi dance experience on Friday evening, where circular communal dance movements are blended with repetitive and simple songs or prayers, brought great feelings of connection and body centeredness to the week’s end.

The weather turned chilly this week and when I removed the fan from my second-story window, it fell to the cement courtyard below. As I went downstairs to retrieve it, I questioned why I thought I could press in the tough buttons on each side, lift the heavy floor to ceiling window and make sure that the plastic fan would fall into the room and not out. Sure that it would be shattered, I found it serenely nestled in a round planter, located to the left of my window above.

If the many worship opportunities don’t lead me to feel that our life journeys are blessed, certainly the memory of the fan, unharmed in the geraniums, will.

Monday, October 16, 2006

Stuck in the middle

I hang in my room all weekend, occasionally making my way to the third-floor kitchen for lunch and the preparation of potluck offerings. The common room has a gathering of students because the dorm prefects have set out snacks for the midterm-studying seminarians.

I feel as if my brain has gone mute and I am thankful that I have no tests to give proof to my perception. I read and remember nothing, except that I don’t understand why justice is so fleeting.

I yearn for peace.

I study Romans VIII, which acknowledges that humans have despoiled creation but must hang on to hope and believe in the resurrection of the body.

And I wonder if we have lost our direction and whether our days are simply overwhelming. Perhaps the best we can muster is to be in the present moment, giving it our best intention and effort.

I pilfer roses from the green-roof garden, carefully cutting those that are crowded so that my indiscretion will not be noticed. The two white roses, tinged in pink, fill the glass that serves as a vase; the blossoms measure nearly six inches across. They are deeply layered petals of sweet-smelling goodness.

They remind me that there is great beauty in our world and that it is our personal choice to believe in it.

Sunday, October 15, 2006

A class assignment

[The following is a piece of writing which I will hand in as part of my Educating to Counter Oppression/Theshhold class. Each week we are given an Accountability , Solidarity and Evaluation Form. We are asked to identify “one challenge or burning question that has come up for us." We are then asked to identify an action that we will take during the week to address the challenge or burning question. My question this week was “How is making one person comfortable and another one uncomfortable justice for all?”

The following is my written reflection.]

Educating to Counter Oppression – Part I

I struggle with the Educating to Counter Oppression (ECO) work. The reason I struggle could be that I simply “don’t get it” and it could be I genuinely feel that I am being asked to give preference to anything that appears “queer” over what has historically been the status quo.

In this ECO world, what is good for the goose is not good for the gander. What is unacceptable behavior for a heterosexual person is not unacceptable for a lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgendered person. A “queer” dance is okay, while a “normal” one is not.

Let me say on the onset for the specific purpose of setting my comments in context, as a married heterosexual woman, some 3,000 miles from husband and home, I would, undoubtedly, be more comfortable at the "queer" dance. In fact, I could even get into the lark of competing for the suggested "Biggest Dyke on Campus." But that is not the point.

I am troubled. I am troubled by the double standard, specifically because I believe in countering oppressions. And I simply cannot accept that educating to counter oppression, the subsequent future of our world, and the evolution and continuance of our denomination is based on setting one set of limited behaviors over another.

I understand that people have been ostracized because of the fundamental nature of their individual beings. I recently heard a black schoolmate describe an uncomfortable elementary school memory that I thought mirrored my own. She explained that she thought it was because she was black. I wanted to say that it wasn’t because she was black because I had had a similar experience. But I did not feel outside the circle because of my skin color; I simply felt outside the circle. It might have been the same story but we had different interpretations, which is exactly the point. We live in a racist society.

Therefore, I understand that it is necessary to make room, apply resources and honor those voices, which have historically not had an opportunity to be a part of the conversation. But what is difficult to accept about this “work” is that the preferential treatment that is now being afforded to the “oppressed” is taken for granted and contains no sense of grace or gratitude. “It’s about time,” we justifiable say.

In a conversation about whether welcoming congregations (A Unitarian-Universalist program of specifically inviting gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people into the congregation) could be welcoming to all and be a comfortable place for all people to be together in a reverent and sacred space, I was informed by my classmates that welcoming congregations were not about the comfort level of the long-time member. Flamboyant behavior of the “queer” was to be expected and celebrated, and if it made someone uncomfortable, it was the responsibility of those who are uncomfortable to simply “get over it.”

Is this not the message that the “queer” community has been receiving? Is this not the mechanism that has prompted the mission to counter oppression in the first place? How does inverting the power structure facilitate healing and the creation of just and sustainable communities?

But the point so far hasn’t been to create just and sustainable communities. The point so far has been to make sure that we understand that racism, sexism, classism and homophobia exist in the world and need to be made right. And, in order for those to be made right, the historic dominant culture must realize their privilege and take a less than equal place in the new world order.

Even that position could be justified. Why shouldn’t the person in the front be asked to move to the back? But I struggle with a solution that seems to hold woundedness, narcissistic behavior and judgment at its core.

And so I ask, and I continue to ask, is there not another way to do this work? Or is justice and equality simply unachievable.

So far that is my conclusion and it breaks my heart.

Thursday, October 12, 2006

Beyond the horizon

With the semester about halfway through, the workload is getting a bit dicey. Even if I religiously try to keep up with my weekly assignments, what is to be done is building up undone. With due dates on these extra projects being the final class before winter break, the pressure is not really on, yet. But there is a looming end, just as I am seemingly settling in.

“There’s no time to process the things that are being thrown at us,” one student remarked this evening. A dozen or so Starr King students and spouses had gathered in the third floor kitchen and common space in my dorm to celebrate September and October birthdays. We shared pizza from Zachary’s, a Berkeley icon, green salad and birthday cake.

I was pleased that I, the one member of the class who lives in a single dorm room, could provide the room to gather. Such is the benefit of living in community. What any of us could not provide individually, the collective could provide for all.

In our threshold class today, we learned about the role of minister as pastor and were encouraged to develop an unwavering relationship with spiritual practice. The visiting professor told us of a minister who maintains a practice of memorizing and actively engaging in dialog with poetry for one hour a day.

“What do you do when you know that your day is going to be overwhelmingly busy?” one of his parishioners asked.

“Ah,” he said, “On those days, I spend two hours.”

Stephen’s email today closed with the Zen saying: “There is no cold spot in a boiling cauldron,” which is, of course, true.

The adventure continues. Be well.

Thursday, October 05, 2006

Prophet wanted

As part of the first-year required class at Starr King, we are learning about the various roles that make up the ministerial vocation. In the last two weeks, we have explored the minister as teacher and as preacher. Today, we heard about the minister as prophet.

When the Dr. Rev. Dorsey Blake described the ministry of the prophet, he said it was a lonely existence. To be prophetic, he said, means you will potentially put your own livelihood into jeopardy. It’s one thing to create effective social justice programs within a church community, but it’s another to question the society that creates the need for them.

He suggested that simply being a good person, a productive member of the community, or a successful minister was not enough; one had to interfere with the machinations of society that stand in opposition to divine intention.

If you want to be prophetic.

At first when he began speaking, I wondered why anyone would object to someone interfering with the machinations of an unjust and unconscionable society, such as the one we are witnessing here in the United States. Are we not all waiting for someone in government to act as a moral conscience and hold our country to its lofty foundation and aspirations? In the absence of that prophet, are we not all hoping and praying that the very leaders who take our country down this dark and dangerous path will somehow wake up and see the error in their ways?

Why is there this void? Why is there this silence?

I quickly realized that we all have made some sort of compromise, sacrifice or great effort to get to the place where we are comfortable. There is reservation and resistance, from within or from without, when we look to shake the foundation that keeps us steady.

But I ask myself, in this time of extreme unrest, what have we really to lose?

Which leads, inevitably, to the next question. Are we willing to be the prophet? Are we willing to put forth an undeniable truth and follow it doggedly to some sort of conclusion? On what moral authority do we believe we stand?

In the handout from today’s class, Blake gives us the answer. “The interference is grounded in a vision of the eternal that stands in stark opposition to contemporary society. It is a vision of a just and sustainable community, society and global reality. The usurpation of a covenant, of justice and compassion and its attendant abuse of power and people, drives the prophet.”

With that in mind, could we embrace the role of the prophet?

Do we not know, deep in that place of knowing, that there is a different picture of a just and sustainable community than what we are experiencing as our daily life? Must there be litany after litany of unexplained violence breaking out in the most peaceful of communities for us to understand that we could articulate a different way?

Would it really be a lonely path?

I think not. What about you?

Monday, October 02, 2006

Hit or miss

My decision to come to seminary was an abrupt one, seized when it seemed that my ties to my work responsibilities were self imposed. Perhaps, it is better defined as a twist of fate or an expression of faith. Still, on a rather impulsive decision in February, I find myself in a theological institution.

My goal in being here is finding the divine in my life. That, I believe, will only come when and if I am focused.

Focus is why I came some 3,000 miles from home. Focus is what I hope to achieve in these months that I separate myself from that which is familiar. Still, I’m well aware that we never really leave ourselves behind. In whatever we strike out to do, our distraction remain our constant. The most, it seems, that we can hope for is that a new experience or new knowledge can open up new direction in our lives and a commitment to applying ourselves to a new way.

In some ways, I’m waiting to become enlightened. I pray each night for some sort of message. Like Moses or Mohammed, I am hoping that the ultimate spirit(s) of the world will speak to me. I ask that I might be filled with some sort of ultimate understanding. I ask for some sort of sign that I am on the right track.

So far the small bits of dreams that I remember have been filled with images of dying. I dreamed that I was in a room and a gunman burst in with an automatic weapon. Knowing that this person was going to kill someone and I was there with my son Zac, I quickly offered myself up for the slaughter. I remember being filled with bullet holes and dissolving into some sort of blue ocean of bubbles.

I told my dream to a dream interpreter in the dining hall the other day at dinner.

“Was there any blood?” he asked of me. When I told him “no,” he asked: “Is there anything in your life that you think should be aerated?”

“All I know is that I wasn’t afraid of dying, and my life dissolved into bubbles,” I responded.

A few days later, I dreamed I was on a concrete bank and a school staff member was walking through water some three feet deep. I didn’t want her to fall off the concrete walkway and then looked over my left shoulder as a huge wave was gathering to inundate us. Again, I wasn’t afraid.

I can’t help but wonder if my dream was a question of ‘what can I do but drown,’ or whether it's the proverbial surrender that ultimately leads to some sort of enlightenment.

I can only hope for the latter.

Yassir Chadley, my “Introduction to Islam” professor, tells us stories of the Islamic faith every Thursday night. He said that everything in our lives has the opportunity to be manifested. For him, Allah, the merciful, the most gracious, manifests everything, included our dreams.

If that is so, I hope that I will be aerated and that those things that I have inflicted upon myself as limitations will be lifted. I pray that the good wishes that I send to those whom I love, to all who I know, and all who I don’t know will manifest themselves as well.

I'm focused on peace on earth and our ability to touch the divine in us all, as if it could be so.