lavenderose

I thought that I might dream today...

Friday, August 27, 2004

What's in a Word?

[My response to a UUF discussion. Following my response is the query that was the impetus for the this, if you care to read it too.]


What’s in a Word? Part of a UUF Dialogue.

First, I want to thank Art Edison for inviting dialogue on a subject that is sometimes difficult to approach, since people place such value and meaning in their personal beliefs. Like Art, I am optimistic about the future direction of the UUF fellowship. I smile to think that as diverse as all of our places on the religious spectrum may be, we share one thing in common—the care for our church and the people in it. Whatever it is, there is something about this place that keeps us all coming back.

I’m not sure exactly how to best describe my religious stance, since there is not yet a single word I know that embodies my beliefs. For what it’s worth, I took a quiz last month on beliefnet.com, and it calculated that I was a liberal Christian (94%), a Quaker (92%), and a Unitarian Universalist (88%). I suppose what is most essential to my spiritual self-definition is that I feel absolutely comfortable using the word “God.” In fact, I feel uncomfortable with the suggestion that I should not use the word God.

I did not attend a single church service until after the age of twenty. I was raised in an environment where religion was not an issue—my family members may have had complacent religious beliefs, but nobody went to church or really pursued those beliefs except for in the decent attempt to lead “good” lives. God was not something that was discussed unless one of the children asked a question, whereupon it was addressed in the best manner my parents knew how—by asking us questions.

This religious liberty led me in all different sorts of directions. I think I must have been a UU before I entered kindergarten! Growing up, I vigilantly read parts of the Bible, I went to The Temple, I studied just about anything I could get my hands on. I clung to my early beliefs in reincarnation, I experimented with pagan nature religions and witchcraft, and I went through a phase where I believed that religion was entirely invented by humans to explain mysteries that otherwise could not be explained. At this point, I became an atheist, and believed religion, and God, to be nothing more than a scam. Furthermore, I thought that to believe in such a scam would leave me with no authenticity or sense of self. Religion and God were weaknesses—idolatries of the spirit and the mind that limited me and prevented me from discovering the “real” truth.

But my time as an atheist didn’t last long. It, too, was vaguely unsatisfying. Since I had been on both sides of the fulcrum, I chose to commit to the belief that held the most personal power to affect a system of valuable meaning in my life. I decided that I didn’t really care if God actually exists or not, I wanted to believe in God because it makes me feel better and challenges me in a way nothing else has—because, ultimately, I believe in the prevailing force of goodness over evil, and I wanted to give a voice to that.

So I took gigantic leap. I started reading Bible passages without a hardened heart, without cynicism. I took the good and left the rest behind. I started talking to “God.” “God” started answering me. I was able to meditate for the first time in my life, and when I tried to skirt around an issue, "God" was there to remind me of my values, there to encourage me through difficult decisions.

So let me define God, as I see him. God is the infinite source of goodness. God is the force that prevails over evil. God is the truthful and abstract all-knowing source that knows everything about you and loves you anyways, encouraging you to constantly raise the level of your spiritual evolution, your ability to love, forgive, and have faith in the goodness of the world. Of these three, love is the greatest. How could I not love a God like this?

I believe in God because I am willing to believe in miracles.

I believe that this world is filled with evil forces and forces of love, and that when matched with equal quantities of both, love will always prevail. For me, God is the champion of this cause, the leader of the team called "love." For this reason, the word "God" is fundamental to my worship; worship defined as honoring that which is worthy of veneration. For me, it is worthy and necessary to gather regularly to honor that force of love that always prevails over evil. I will do so loudly and with gusto. I will sing God's praises and let my heart be restored with the beauty of God's grace and loving-kindness, my soul be filled with stories of miracles and transformation. This is how I worship. It means the world to me.

Because I am a UU, I don’t believe that God exists solely in the name or the word “God,” but that doesn’t lessen the importance of such a word. “God” is a word connected with the entire judeo-christian-islamic history, and new histories and personal meanings beyond. And while the word “God” may be new to the last 5 or 6 millennia, this history has been large enough to construct multiple various levels of analysis of just exactly what “God” means, analyses which remain continual in their construction and de-construction. I fail to see how using a different word would ever change or alter the meaning behind the particular concept that the word “God” embodies. We could adopt an entire different concept, of course, with a different word, and I would be interested to see this develop, but I am content with my functional concept of “God,” even with its myriad variations from denomination to denomination.


I don't think that "God is a ridiculous concept" either, and I think we all have our own variations and relationships with God. In our Unitarian history we have struggled to understand others' words for God; let others struggle to understand the term "God." I don't think the term "God" complicates matters or represents a communication failure with the rest of the world. Just because someone has a personal verbal hang-up with the word does not mean that it should be banished, slandered, or punished. Just because some people use the word in the name of bad things, doesn't mean we should let the word be tarnished. The word was here first, before bad people started doing bad things with it. And if you are counting, I think many more good things are done in the name of God than bad things.

As a UU, I believe in and honor multiple paths to "God," to enlightenment, to trancendence. I would appreciate it if people could find it in their hearts to try to honor "God" as one of these paths too. I'm tired of the anti-Christian backlash. It breaks my heart to feel the anger brewing in such beautiful souls, however justified such anger might be. Claiming the word "God" does not turn one into a fundamentalist, right-wing Christian. It simply opens another venue to the spiritual mystery.

I am sure that for each person, “God” means something a little different. But many abstract words are like this: freedom, justice, etc. Just because some people don’t like the word banana or have a different word for it doesn’t mean I’m going to start calling bananas something else, and it doesn’t mean that bananas don’t exist. I say banana, you say bah-nah-nah, and that which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.



------

What's in a Word? An invitation to a UUF dialogue
by Art Edison

I am very excited about the future of UUF. We have come through some rocky times over the last year or so, but my sense is that we have crossed the summit and can all look forward to building a stronger and more enriching fellowship. It is in this spirit that I write this short essay, and I hope to read and hear many other opinions on this subject, because diversity with tolerance is the heart and soul of our great tradition.

I am an atheist, and I don't feel comfortable using the word "God." About 44 years ago I was confirmed in the First Unitarian Church in Salt Lake City, Utah, and attended the youth group until I was an early teenager. My childhood church was extremely liberal and a refuge for humanist thought in a region of country with a dominant conservative religion. I have never believed in God, despite a breif six month infatuation with the beauty and serenity of the singing cloistered Carmelite nuns in a Santa Fe, New Mexico, monastery.

For nearly twenty years, I have studied and taught natural sciences, and my awe and wonder at the world has steadily increased. I am convinced that there is an interdependent web of life. I have never ceased to be amazed by the complexity and beauty of even the simplest virus or bacterium. One of the most pleasing aspects of science is that as questions are answered, even more questions are posed. It is an area of study where you constantly realize how little you know, and I find this both humbling and stimulating. Will we ever understand everything? I doubt it. However, in my opinion the gaps in our knowledge are a result of out intellectual limitiations and lack of necessary tools to probe the world. Despite the fact that I constantly need to revise my view of how much I understand about the world, I am more convinced than ever that God, in the traditional sense of the word, doesn't exist.

I think that the teachings by Jesus as relayed to us through the New Testament are some of the most important guides to living in harmony in a complex world. I firmly believe that "what goes around comes around" and that "we reap what we sow." I have also studied the Tao Te Ching, practiced Tai Chi, and had fleeting but wonderful moments where I thought I felt what I thought might be Chi. I firmly believe that there are things that we experience in life that can't easily (or ever) be explained by science. There is a spiritual side to things that is not easily distilled into a periodic table of elements or genetic code. However, the traditional idea of God doesn't fit into my understanding or experiences in this spiritual dimension of life. I believe in nature, in human connectedness and interdependence and think that it is all under the influence of physical laws, evolution, and natural selection.

Despite pleas from Revern Sinkford to reclaim the word "God" from the fundamental religions, in my opinion it is hopeless and counterproductive. Call me cynical or in need of phsycological help, but these are the sorts of things I think about when I hear the word "God": He is the (male) entity who supports the USA in our war against terror, Iraq, and any other threat to our way of life. He is in whom the nation trusts in our currency. He is Jesus' father and was likely responsible for Gainesvill being spared the wrath of hurricane Charley (although, it isn't clear who was responsible for Sanibel, Punta Gorda, and Orlando). He created the world in 6 days and is responsible for the fact that most Americans continue to question the Darwinian evolution. When the Gators beat the 'Noles in '96, it reaffirmed that God loves the Florida Gators.

When I hear the word "God" spoken at UUF, I always cringe. However, atheist and scientist that I am, I do have a spiritual side that I think is not too distant from many UUers who believe in God and who don't have the verbal hang-up that I suffer from. I don't think that "God is a ridiculous concept." I just don't believe in the "Big Christian God Sitting Up in Heaven" and feel that by using the word we complicate matters and are not properly communicating with the rest of the world.

What do you think?

(Published in the Millhopper, September 2004)

Wednesday, August 25, 2004

Recently...

1) Shocking Stove-- My stove has this horribly bad habit of sending electric wattage through my body if I accidently make a closed circuit by touching a metal spoon to the bottom of the pan while simultaneously leaning against the metal handle which runs across the top of the oven. Ouch. It feels like someone is grabbing all of your joints and stetching them out on the rack. I've been tired lately, hence leaning a lot, and boy will that wake you up! Unfortunately, if I am holding Issac he gets shocked too.

2) Lightening-- Really scary lightening is happening right outside my window. I mean right outside it, with instantaneous shaking thunder that lasts for 45 seconds, making me cringe and practically jump out of my seat. In fact, the last three strikes have made my computer screen snap off for a second. I should probably turn off my computer. Oh boy, there was just another one. I feel like a shell-shocked soldier hiding in a fox-hole. This last one sent my hiding under the blankets on the couch.

3) Weasely Registration Tactics-- My registration strategy has worked again. I've managed to weasel my way into three of the four classes I want. The fourth class hasn't met yet, and I will weasel myself into that class as well--it's required for my minor and this is my last semester. They HAVE to let me take it.

4) Cocky Attitude-- I hope my cocky attitude doesn't give me bad kharma. I was just thinking that if I don't get into this class required for my minor, that would be worse than not getting into all three of the classes I did get into.

5) Reading List-- This summer I promised myself I would read a lot of books since I will not be able to read books of my own leisure during the busy semester. My summer book reading went as follows: Prodigal Summer (Barbara Kingsolver), Anna Karenina (Leo Tolstoy), parts of The Western Canon (Harold Bloom), The Tale of Professor Fargo (Henry James), The Case for Christ (Lee Strobel), Why I Am a Christian (John Stott), Many Lives Many Masters (Brian Weiss), The Dharma Bums (Jack Kerouac), It's Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life (Lance Armstrong). I think this list is pathetic-- I am embarassed to display it. I should read more books and less smut.

6) Grandpa's Stroke-- My Grandpa had a mild stroke the other day. It was very milde and he has regained all of his faculties, but it is still scary. My grandpa is a stoic statue--he doesn't have feelings, much less weaknesses. At least that is the impression twenty-three years of knowing him have given me. Now I see that he has weaknesses, and must necessarily have feelings, after being confronted with the fact that his life is nearing an end. This scares me. I think of my grandpa grasping with the rude awareness that he is on the brink of entering his last "age," and it makes me realize that I will die someday. I usually don't think about these things. I don't want my grandpa to die. I don't want to die.

Monday, August 23, 2004

Marooned

Sometimes here in Florida the sky turns black and broody for hours at a time, and it smells like rain for hours before the torrent actually begins. I walk around outside sniffing the wet earthiness-- sensing the warm and cool drafts of air as they circulate madly in a furious dance, not quite sure how to organize themselves. I watch the leaves on the trees turn upside down, waiting, stretching, aching for the deluge. It never happens. I go inside disappointed.

Hours later, while cooking dinner, I'll suddenly hear the hard slap of rain on my roof. I think to myself, how nice of you to come. But then it won't go away. Outside my windows for fifteen full minutes, the trees are shrouded by heavy sheets of rain, twisting and shrieking in the wind. I wonder if my little house is going to be swept up in a tornado, like Dorothy's. After all, it's a freak of nature outside.

Then, as quietly and suddenly as it came, the rain stops--replaced by the sun brighter than I remembered. Outside it is only sweaty, humid and hot.

I have somewhere to be--but I am marooned. I live on a little dirt lane tucked far back into the country, and there is only one way out. That passage has become a long lake, about three yards by fifty. It forms so quickly because the soil drainage is poor. It usually takes about an hour or two to subside and sink back into the earth, but I have places to go and people to see, and am typically not so patient. Usually I make a run for it, and my heart drowns in terror as I feel my car begin to float about half-way through. I rely on my momentum to carry me through to the shallows.

The first time I experienced the puddle, I was too afraid (intelligent?) to attempt a crossing. I had plans to meet some friends, it poured for fifteen minutes, and I tried to leave the house. I ended up marching right back and calling them--telling them to pick me up because I was stuck at my house. They drove out, but by the time they got here, the puddle had shrank significantly and they thought I was a wimp.

The next time I tried to go through it. I had the old Mustang, and that puddle stranded me for three days. My car died half way through it. Water actually came in through the doors. I tried letting it "air out" for a day, and then I finally had to take off the distributor cap and dry it out with a towel.

It's not so bad being stuck inside my house. What really stinks is when I'm stuck away from my house, like I was yesterday afternoon.

Case number 104 for making my next vehicle a big humongous truck.





Saturday, August 21, 2004

Whaaaaaaaaheeeeeeeeeoyoyoyoiiee! (War Cry)

I'm hunched over the chess board, my chin on my fist. Sweat gathers on my forehead as I concentrate over the next move, but all I can hear is Matt counting "1 mississippi, 2 mississippi,...". I panic. What will I do? I don't know. Left or right? Left or right? Attack or defend? Attack or defend? Ahhhhhhhh! Just as Matt reaches the count of ten I move a pawn. It is a move of desperation, but Matt is too nervous to notice. He, also, only has ten seconds. He, too, is trying to tame his panicking inner-dialogue. His chin is also on his fist, and he too is under attack.

Chess can not be good for my blood pressure. I feel like I'm about to have a heart attack the whole time I'm playing.

It's some kind of weird macho thing that I have when I play war games. I want to win the freaking war! Although I covered it well at the time, I don't think my self-esteem has ever fully recovered since the time I got my butt kicked in a game of chess by a pair of five-year-old twins. (But that's the exact beauty of chess. A chess game is challenging no matter who your opponent--quite unlike checkers and tic-tac-toe.)

The gusto with which I approach chess and other "war" games frightens me. I'm a girl--I'm not supposed to be violent and blood-thirsty. I don't really care if my team wins or loses during a sport, as long as we tried our best. I don't care about losing at a game of cards or a round of Monopoly. But hook me up with a paint-ball gun and I'll get primitive on your ass.

I remember in our small AP high school history class we played this war game called Diplomacy. My boyfriend and I made a team--the Soviet Union--and we spent lunch hours all week trying to work out a strategy to kick the Ottoman Empire's butt and conquer the rest of the nations. It was practically the only thing I thought about. I didn't care if I was being a dork, I just wanted to win.








Wednesday, August 18, 2004

The Injured Ice-box...


Hold your breath and cover your nose, because the news I am going to reveal is not pretty and, frankly, it doesn't smell too good either. Are you doing it? Ok...(drum roll)... the big news is that I cleaned out my refrigerator today.

Yes, it sounds innocuous enough at first, but wait until I reveal exactly what was lurking on the shelves: 1) a juicy, brown, rotten tomato in a ziplock baggie, 2) a broken jar of mayonnaise, 3) juicy, wet, rotten squash, 4) juicy, wet, squishy zuchinni, 5) a shriveled up bowl of leftover salad, 5) a juicy, brown bag of decomposing lettuce, 6) some green and moldy sandwhich meat, 7) some green and moldy cheese, 8) an entire bucket of shriveled blueberries, 9) a half-used can of kidney beans from a dinner party I threw back when my 'fridge was actually still clean, about 5 months ago, 9) a tupperware full of very very old baby-food --fyi, Issac stopped eating baby food when he was a year old-- 10) numerous tupperwares full of unidentifiable objects.

By the end of the ordeal, I had two plastic grocery bags full of discarded, decomposed items. Yech! You probably will not believe me when I tell you that I found a mass of dead fruit flies under the bottom drawers when I took them out. How the hell do fruit flies get in my refrigerator? Do they come in the fruit? I understand the principal of fruit flies erupting from rotten fruit, but this fruit was fresh when it entered the domains of my refrigerator. I'll let you wonder about that.

There was a huge, slimy brown stain dripping down the right side of the inner-wall. I took a tooth-brush to the screws in the door handle and around the seals. Luckily my refrigerator is fairly new, so it all came clean and sparkling-white pretty quickly. When I poured the last remaining cup of maple syrup into the honey-bear (in order to conserve space), a big, green, slimey, goobery thing slid out with it into the bear. Ewwh! It was a green-bean, which Issac must have inserted into the jug of maple syrup long ago, since the jug was missing a cap.

Now to restore my reputation, which has surely been injured by my honest revelations, I would like to assure everyone that I am not a slob. My house is actually clean-- my friends can attest to that. What happened is that the refrigerator somehow got neglected, mostly because of the fact that when I shut the refrigerator door, nobody can see its innards. Also, because I went on cooking strike and rarely opened the refrigerator to check on its contents. Somehow, I reverted back to old patterns and figured I just didn't feel like putting out the effort. Funny how effort doesn't ever seem to go away--if it wasn't the effort of taking care of my fridge, then was confronted with the effort of feeling guilty about its demise and hiding it from friends and family. I swear, if refrigerators were human children, I would be sitting in jail right now for abandonment and neglect.

Which brings me to complain about cooking. There was a time when I loved cooking--when I was about ten and I didn't have to do it every single night. Now, if a recipe requires me to cut something up into tiny little pieces, I can almost garauntee you that I'm not going to do it. If it requires turning on my oven or stove, and thereby making my un-airconditioned house unbearably hot, I'm not going to do it. If it involves ingredients other than milk, bread, or peanut butter, chances are those ingredients are not in my house.

You see, cooking requires shopping, and shopping requires time and money, and those are two currencies I'm always missing. Furthermore, suppose you do rack your brain for tasty recipes and go shopping and buy them--then there is the challenge of starting dinner after you walk in the door at 6 pm. Imagine: a 25 lb shrieking demon clinging to your leg as you try to relax and enjoy the beauty of cutting red bell peppers--it just takes the magic right out of it.

But suppose you do manage to find some magic in the slicing and dicing of colorful vegetables, and your toddler is actually giving his attention to an object other than you-- you still have the task of using the ingredients you bought in the proper order and time limit, before they go sour or bad or shrivel or wilt. Cooking is a never-ending race against time.

For these reasons, I buy pantry items only. I am quickly on my way to becoming the empty-carb queen: the messiah of instant mashed-potatos, the brigadier general of box-dinners, the master of macaroni-and-cheeses, the rajah of ramen-noodles, the president of lipton's quick-pastas.

The bad news: box dinners aren't so healthy. The good news: after my refrigerator-cleaning frenzy, I can actually see and identify what's inside the door. Before, when I went shopping, I couldn't really think of anything to buy, because something in the back of my head told me that I already had it, or said that I couldn't possibly find room for it inside that mess. But now this problem should be quite solved--the contents of my refrigerator are: one gallon of milk, one tub of butter, one loaf of bread, one pickle in a jar.










Tuesday, August 17, 2004

Tuscon

In the desert there is no room for unkindness,
with the air so hot it shines and
the wind erodes you like a mountainside.

Yes, and that same dust rebuilds you.

You sigh upon any tender green thing,
every yellow flower.

Purple mountain mirrors reflect yourself,
taller than you knew,
but somehow smaller too,
assured only that you must keep moving.

Friday, August 13, 2004

Final Thoughts on Summer Camp

The snacks are back at the old firehouse where I was working this summer. That is to say, the free-lunch program around which our free-rec program was based, is back in business. They temporarily left the scene when the inspectors came around and discovered that they weren't doing things right. The free-lunch coordinators were quick to blame my volunteer Hank for politicking with the inspector, who showed up during our program's portion of the afternoon, and passed our program's snack with flying colors. You see, there are bad feelings between the two agencies. For some stupid reason the two programs were forbidden from working together in the very beginning planning phase of this summer. The director of the free-lunch program --I will safely refer to her as "the wicked witch" from here on out-- refused to incorporate the two separate programs, despite all of our logical arguments imploring her to do so. "My guys will do their own thing. Once they get there, you just sit back and let them operate. We don't want you interfering!" she said, with all the suspense and drama of a CIA agent in a spy-movie thriller. Interfering? How can you interfere with getting children to wash their hands and passing out lunches? Hank's indignance at this meeting was clear, and everyone knew it. So when the wicked witch and her program went down in the dust, wreaking havoc in the wake, she didn't fail to blame Hank for purposefully "tipping" the inspector's nose toward their wrong practices.

As for the secret agents she sent down to the camp, I've never seen a bunch of lazier, more worthless lunch-passer-outers. First of all, one of the most important rules for working with crazy, insane, angry kids is that structure is of the utmost importance. Everything must be structured so that the kids come to expect a routine, and to expect consequences for misbehavior. Instead of a routine, the lunch-passer-outers (ahem, role-models) threw lunches at the kids, and throughout lunch threw unlimited amounts of juice packets to kids on a first-come first-serve basis. Aside from the fact that their casual flippantness was somewhat rude (oh, you're thirsty? Well you'll have to catch it first, twirp!), their approach to the lunches led to mass mayhem that ended with thirty lunch bags and thirty pieces of sandwhiches and thirty plastic wrappers and thirty napkins and thirty drinking straws and thirty spoons and forks and sixty-eight juice packets spread all over the floor, a natural result of a food-fight. Because the two agencies weren't bound to work together, the "lunch people" did not feel that they were obligated to oversee the kids behavior during lunch, nor did they feel responsible for cleaning up the left-overs. After all, they're only the lunch passer-outers.

Only four simple rules guide the free lunch program. First, lunches are only for kids. Well, the first thing Drew would do upon delivering the cooler full of lunches into the kitchen was open the cooler and "test" two or three of the lunches. After determining that they were indeed tasty, Drew would promptly break the second and third rules (kids must eat lunch on premises/don't give more than one lunch to one kid) by giving a kid ten lunches. The kid would then promptly march out to a van full of adults, pass the lunches out to them, and then sometimes even come back for a second round for the ravenous members of the all-you-can-eat buffet, and then the van would drive off and the kid would come in for his own lunch. When little five year olds came in to get their lunch, and there was none left, Drew didn't even look guilty.

The fourth rule is that all the kids must wash their hands before eating. This never happened unless I broke the wicked witch's rules and "interfered."

At our original planning meeting, the witch never informed me that I would actually end up babysitting her agents. When Drew occassionally felt the spark of guilt from not properly performing his job duties, he would cry to me about how bad the kids are, and would even cuss and call them "little fuckers." Oh, how I wanted to slug him! One day he was purposefully thirty minutes late, and when he arrived he asked, "Did the crossing guard lady come yet?" and when I told him that she had come and gone, he said "Good! I hope she and all the rest of the grown-ups who think they can get a free-ride down here came and left! I knew it would work!" This really made me livid, because about 10 kids had come and gone too, plus he is one of those very grown-ups he was talking about. And he would often be late with the lunches because he would stop by his house to pick up his dog, which half of the kids were terrified of. Oh, and then there was the time when we were having a sharing circle and it was his turn and he told them all about how he is in school to be a lawyer and one day they can call him and he'll get them out of jail. Drew is nothing more than a condescending rich white boy.

Of course I confronted Drew several times, but I think my warnings fell on deaf ears. I knew that his actions were jeapordizing the entire lunch program. I confronted him, but what I should have done was grab him by the collar and thrown him up against the door and screamed in his face. Maybe that would have gotten through to him. Sometimes being a nice person just isn't as much of a virtue as I would like to think it is.

But all that was before I learned how to refuse to take no for an anwser. I've been getting a lot of practice at it this summer! If I could go back in time, I would, and I would make Drew listen to me! A few times I tried to demonstrate for him the proper way to pass out lunches by "interfering" and doing it myself, my own way, which worked much better than the chaos that always followed Drew's methods.

So the free-lunch program got the boot from the county because they failed to meet inspection. When they shut down, we kind of fell apart too, because giving lunches to the kids was half of our purpose for being there. How are we going to run a day camp when kids are hungry? And then Hank left for vacation, and we had that fight, and that was the end of the summer. I spent a good three or four days explaining to all the ladies around town what had happened, answering their questions, agreeing that it is a shame that there are no more lunches for the kids, yadda yadda yadda.

Then, as soon as I have explained to the entire city of Archer what has happened, the lunch program mysteriously comes back. And all of about five kids know about it. The rest are not emerging from their cartoon-laden cocoons until school starts again.

Since my car was in the shop today, I walked down to talk to Mike, the volunteer who is doing the program now. Apparently the witch blamed Drew and told him to get the program back or its his job--it's nice to know that she can really be a witch when necessary--and viola!

As for Mike, he's another top-secret agent who falls into rank with all the rest. He's been there for about two weeks now, and now the program says that snack has to be served separately from lunch. This new rule entitles Mike to get paid for picking up lunches at 10:30, driving them to Archer by 11:30, passing them out to five kids from 11:30 to 12:30, driving back to town, doing some miscellaneous task until 2:00, driving out to Archer at 2:30, and passing snack out from 2:30 to 3:00. Ridiculous! Isn't it obvious that the two programs need to work together in order for the other to properly function? Sigh.

Mike is a nice enough guy, and really cute besides. We chatted about his recent trip to Poland, free-offers, and other random things. But really. This guy has a degree in Family and Youth Services and yet he doesn't care about these kids either. The building was covered in trash (proof that the witch's program is incapable of cleaning, since Hank and I made sure to leave that place spotless), and had been vandalized the night before. When the three kids who came for a lunch were trying to flip the half-ton pool table back over, he didn't even worry that they might get hurt, and when they started damaging property, he just put his feet up on the counter and raised his hands behind his head. I questioned him about his attitude, to which he replied, "hey, that's not my job." It made me sick.

Even though it was no longer technically my job, I still had to yell at the kids and make them clean up after themselves. Then I had to leave, because I was really feeling disgusted by the general lack of concern or respect demonstrated by everyone. Blech!








Tuesday, August 10, 2004

Ballad of the Birds

It is a familiar story;
the fruit beckons, the bird obeys,
ignoring warnings of shotgun blasts, bullets
ripping past silken wings.

The bird can't be blamed,
seeing only pockets of blue from the sky,
circles of ripeness, fields and fields full.

The farmer sighs, rubs his eyes, sticks
two more shells in the chamber.
Less birds wouldn't arouse this anger.

He is willing to sometimes share with a stranger.

Locusts make him lose his senses;
he'll shoot shells as long as his gun dispenses.

The ants turn the only profit:
the decomposing husk of a bird,
yellow-tipped feathers, a
tid-bit of meat for the queen.

Monday, August 09, 2004

Crossroads

Unclasping bracelets and slipping off rings,
nothing could occupy more careful importance--
no quarrel, no eye, no feelings, no footsteps--
she is the mute, the statue, the stone,
shocking in her coldness.

And footsteps? What footsteps? That which is
in her chest, trying to escape her skin, blurs
all vision and mutes all sound. She turns,
hopeful, but he is already gone, a ghost,
a glimmer, a flickering pale reflection.



I'm not Superstitious but I Do Get Suspicious...


of Archer city hall, that is. Sometimes it feels good to get proven right, even if it means that the really nasty thing you thought was happening was really happening. It feels good, while simultaneously feeling bad, because it proves that you are not crazy. And the verdict is....(drum roll)... that I am not crazy. I knew those %&^$#s were out to get me. Last Friday, the city tried to hold my paycheck until I put the money from my Leadership Training kids' car wash into the general city account. I told them no way! Are they nuts? This money doesn't belong to them! It belongs to my kids and my program! What are they thinking?

When I told them that Leadership Training Program thanks the city for being supportive, but is not officially affiliated with the city in any way, they tried to scare me by saying that if that was the case then I was going to have to pay back-rent for using the meeting room. And, once again, I told them no! Then they shuffled me into a meeting to see the manager, who I thought I was friends with, and I told him no too! Then he reminded me to just make sure that I keep receipts for everything (duh) and account for every dime (duh) because I could get into a lot of trouble over poor money managment (duh). Then he gave me the check and winked at me.

The ladies at the office were super nice to me today, and tried to pretend like they were never minions in a city-inspired attempt to snatch up control of my program.

I will never understand politics.

What I do understand is that somehow, close observation of Issac gave me the courage to stand up and say "NO," while firmly believeing that nobody could stop me from doing what I wanted.

This one goes out to all the two-year olds!

Friday, August 06, 2004

1)Mini-epiphany. I just figured out how blogger is able to provide this service for free. They get free advertising on the banners. The amazing thing is that they are able to identify what you are writing about and base the advertisement on that. For instance, if I write about God, there is sure to be some Godly advertisement. And if I write about cowboys, there is sure to be some dude ranch advertisement. But what on earth led to the "'Hey, I'm with Stupid' and other hillarious T-shirts Store" advertisement on my banner yesterday?

2) First comment posted! Yesterday someone posted the very first comment on my lonely little blog. Thanks Patrick! The rest of you don't need to be shy. I want to know who all three of my readers are and what they're thinking.

3)Poem

Lies of a Confessional Poet

In June you forsook (insert city) in favor of me
and we strolled through the fields picking blackberries.
The dark juices stained our fingers purple.

Purple fingers on piano keys made
purple fingered melodies,
then, those same purple fingers fell
over our sun-pinkened bodies.

There was no lost religion,
but a new and stronger vision
of love, and only lovers.

The green vein of misunderstanding,
of different time and different place, the lines,
the map on the wall meant nothing.



Thursday, August 05, 2004

Multiple Thoughts...

1) General Education Classes are Stupid. Why do I have to take so many Gen-Ed classes at the university in order to get my degree? If I am smart enough to gain admission to the university in the first place, then shouldn't they assume that I already have a decent, well-rounded education in areas other than my major? There was a math and science section on the SATs and ACTs, you know. They did teach us this stuff in highschool, and they did a better job than you guys. I already know how to do all the math and science that I'll ever care to do, and some of the classes they offer to fill these Gen-Ed requirements are so stupid that I think they are actually taking away from my intelligence. For example, Man's Food, the course I am currently enrolled in, has taught me only that Dr. Marshall's frequent karaoke debacles are offensive to my ears. The other things, like the fact that spinach contains oxalic acid which prevents the absorption of calcium, will soon be forgotten after the test on Friday. What really bothers me is that I could have taken about six or seven more English classes if I wasn't required to take these useless physics and biology requirements.

2) Grammar Mistakes in the aformentioned class are killing me! If I take anything of value with me from this tedious class it will be the realization that there is a need for English majors because some people really have no clue what they're doing. For example, the lecture notes read "Too types of diseases," and "A List of Parasite's." Disgusting.

3) Funny English Snobbery. I found this tirade on my daily definition email from dictionary.com. The following is H. L. Mencken's description of President Harding's tiresome and banal use of language-- reminding us that not only grammar, but style, can also be atrocious.

"He writes the worst English that I have ever encountered. It reminds me of a string of wet sponges; it reminds me of tattered washing on the line; it reminds me of stale bean soup, of college yells, of dogs barking idiotically through endless nights. It is so bad that a sort of grandeur creeps into it. It drags itself out of the dark abysm of pish, and crawls insanely up the topmost pinnacle of posh. It is rumble and bumble. It is flap and doodle. It is balder and dash."

The string of wet sponges is my favorite part.

4) Successful, Fun Field-Trip. I'm proud to report that the field-trip was a smashing success. The morning started out a little doubtful, as we had a mild fight between emerging friends and some early attitude outbreaks. On the way to the park, this weird woman rolled down her window and started talking to us. She said "Well, you wanna hear some music or what?" and we were all stumped trying to figure out what she was talking about, half-afraid that she was going to start pumping up her bass and blasting us with some crazy old-lady music. It didn't help that there was a big truck to our other side, so we could barely hear her. We looked confused, I'm sure, so she said it again a few times and then gestured to the mini-van in front of her, which had about eight giant antennae all over the roof, including one that was square-shaped. Normally, we would not have thought that this was too unusual or even that funny, but the fact that this woman went entirely out of her way to point this out, confusing us in the process, was especially hysterical. We laughed about it for a couple miles, and W---'s imitation of the looks on our faces was great. M---- even laughed, and he was trying to pretend being mad at me, so that was good.

Once we got to the park, it was so humid that none of us felt like moving. The kids were supposed to play for a few hours before the pool opened, but it was too hot so they sat around and complained about how hungry they were. Then they discovered the merry-go-round thing and forgot all about the heat as they tried to spin it so fast that they made everyone sick, which they achieved. So then the kids all sat around feeling like they were going to puke, and weren't even that hungry when the pizza arrived. I forgot to bring plates, so we ate it off of the tops of the boxes.

Once we got to the pool, it took everything I had to keep the kids in line and keep them from rushing the door like a group of wild animals. After convincing them that we really would get inside faster if they lined up, and that the rest of the public would stop butting them once they formed an intelligible line, I payed and we were in. I taught two teenage kids how to swim (they did great) and we all had a blast in the pool. It was the most smiles I've seen all summer. No one wanted to leave. They were sharing the goggles, they were laughing with each other. It was great. Kid checks every fifteen minutes, no lost kids, no fights. A success.

5) Archer Baptist Church. Because the kids have been heckling me to come with them to their church, and because they were having a free chicken dinner, and because it's the church that most of my distant southern relatives attend, and because it's less than five minutes from my house, and because I was curious, I went to the Archer Baptist Church last night, ate dinner, and attended prayer meeting and Bible study. I could write for an entire hour on the experience, but I will condense it. I have to admit, I thought it was funny that one of the concerns on the prayer list was to keep the Bush administration in the White House. Not because it's funny that a conservative church would pray for an administration that is pro-life (that's to be expected), but for the fact that that's not what the prayer was for. The prayer was specifically for Bush. It struck me as odd, as though it precluded the conception that another pro-lifer could be a better candidate than Bush. I didn't realize churches prayed over such things. My prayers are generally more broad in scope, and less specific. Also the fact that I am NOT voting for Bush, and that there are probably equal numbers of churches praying for some other providential presidential candidate, was kind of ironic, and I had to supress giggles. I think the air coming out of my nose was enough to give myself away.

The second weird thing that happened is this very well-dressed, shiny-shoed, clean-cut guy with OZZY tatooed across his knuckles was hitting on me throughout dinner and the bible study. I don't like to prematurely judge people, but there is a gut-feeling that this guy is not someone I want to get to know as more than an aquaintance. Apparently, he didn't have the same gut-feeling as I did. To his credit, he did share his favorite bible verses with me, which was a nice gesture. But still. Why can't some people read other people's cues? I was giving him all the signs that I was listening only because I wanted to be polite, but I wasn't really that interested in what he was saying. He followed me around the whole night. I was somewhat greatful for his company, because he was really nice, but there is always a discomfort when you know that someone is seeing you in a way that you don't want to be seen. I still haven't discovered a graceful way out of such situations, short of saying "look! the building's on fire!" and running away, or some other lame excuse. I suppose I would like to hear more about his religious story, since I love to hear people's stories. Really, the main aversion I have to him is that he obviously really likes me and this makes me uncomfortable since the feeling is not returned. Sometimes it is hard to be a nice person, because things like this happen to you. One day he will ask me for my phone number and I will have to say, "Oh, hold on, I forgot my purse inside," and then run away. It makes me feel so dishonest, but what else are you going to do? Say, "look, it's obvious that you are very interested in me, but it's not really returned in the same way. So I think it's best that we don't exchange phone numbers, and just see each other as friends around the church." Or say, "Ummmm. No." I don't know. I'm afraid of what is going to pop out of my mouth.

6) Shut-In. I went to visit my great-grandmother before our field-trip. She keeps the little cartons of milk that they send her from her meals-on-wheels deal in her freezer for me and Issac, and we were out of milk at home, so I went to grab a few before we left. It was still early in the morning, and she was asleep on her bed in the livingroom. The lights were off, but there was enough morning light to see. I watched her sleeping peacefully for a few moments. She is so beatiful at 95 years. I love going to my great-grandmama's house. When you open the heavy screen breezeway door, you instantly smell plants and the fresh smell of soil and water in tin cans in her greenhouse and the smell of newspapers that she never throws away, the smell of her laundry and her polyester pants and houndstooth jackets hanging on the inside line. That house is so old, and hasn't changed a lick since 1930 except for the kitchen appliances which were redone in the sixties. The knob on the door to the house is the old kind, real heavy metal that rotates loose in its carriage, soft and smooth and polished with touch. It is never locked.

I decided not to wake her up, even though she gets mad when I don't. As I left the house, with my hand on that doorknob, pulling the door shut behind me, I noticed grandaddy's white cowboy hat was still on its peg, as though he had taken it off the night before upon entering the house.

That morning, I didn't realize that later in the same evening I would meet the pastor who presided over grandaddy's funeral last year, and that I would see grandmama's name on the prayer list under "shut-ins."



Monday, August 02, 2004



Arbeitskur

II


The toil never ends; tanning-beds and nail salons
finishing school and Senior proms--
make-up and magazines, breast-implants and cold-cremes!

One day, I'm gonna flip-out. Like, totally lose it!
With a flip of my cell-phone I will call all the men of this world
and tell them to take these god-damned tweezers and shove them up their ass!
I'll take a picture of my razor-burn and fax it to the fucking president! Hey mister!
Why don't you form a Committee on the Principle Abuses Women Suffer Due to Computer Imaging in the 21st Century?

Not that I'd want to be any less beautiful.
But what if mascara causes breast cancer?
Huh? The committee doesn't know?
That's not good enough! I want an answer!


I've Got Non-Profit Written All Over My Face


I'm going to become a corporation. I will soon be granted eternal life and a never dying body--I can taste it already. (Insert maniacal laugh). In one of my unstoppable "steamroller" moments I decided not to succumb to the pathetic bureaucracy of the city-- deciding instead, to create my own-- as I become the Executive Director and Board of Leadership Training Programs, USA. (I know, I know, the name stinks but it's explanatory and I haven't thought of anything better yet. I'm at an all-time poetic low).

I've wrote three articles and 10 sections of the by-laws tonight, and I am feeling goo-ooood.

Much better than I did last week, yesterday, and today. You see, I've been walking around with this nasty taste of bitterness in my soul. I didn't know exactly where it came from, and it was really bothering me. I felt like a gigantic rubber-band stretched far and ready to snap at any moment. I was upset with my leadership abilities, and couldn't distract myself from that upset. Even reading Tolstoy with a giant spoon and a box of chocolate ice-cream couldn't quell my distaste or release me from my turmoil. Like a monkey on my back, these thoughts just wouldn't leave me alone:

"You're a failure. One big walking, talking disappointment. You couldn't even stick it out for eight full weeks of summer camp, and you call yourself a teacher?"

"You suck. Ha ha ha! Nanny nanny boo boo!"

"You couldn't doooooooo it. You couldn't dooooooooo it."

"You should just give up and quit. What are you even trying for? It's no use. You'll never be a successful teacher. You thought you had what it takes but then you woke up! Ha ha ha ha ha ha !"

Continuing my work with some of the kids this summer through the leadership training program (LTP) made it especially difficult to confront these voices, because even LTP is a stressful, huge, pain in my @$$. I'm never thoroughly enough prepared, the kids are fighting amongst themselves, I feel like it's taking all of my energy to push these kids along, and I'm so poorly organized that I sometimes wonder if I'm doing more harm than good. I kind of haphazardly threw LTP together with a huge vision, but forgot to check in about all the little details. And I'm not just talking about details like planning our field trip, or the car wash, but details like who gets to participate and what I expect from them and membership requirements and procedure for throwing someone out of the program. I'm such a softie that I need to have these guidelines in place, or else I will let the kids plea with me and sway me off-course from my original intentions.

Anyways, I spent the majority of last week feeling like a failure and trying to tame the voices in my head and heart and soul. It was like David and Goliath--all those huge, looming voices berating me and this one little quite voice that squeaked (rather unconvincingly):

"You can do it. You can do it. Believe in yourself."

Big breath.....hold it...... AND EXHALE. I decided to believe in myself. I never took my money to those creeps at city hall--I kept it in my sock drawer-- and it's going to be just as safe in my possession. The city is not in charge of me or this program. I can make it on my own without them.

I decided to apply for non-profit status so that by being incorporated, I can't get sued so easily. Also, incorporation as a non-profit will allow the program to apply for several really awesome grants that seem specifically tailored for programs like LTP. When I came home from LTP, I sat down and wrote a vision statement, mission statement, and by-laws for the program. It was something I should have done a long time ago--now I have a detailed and specific modus operandi for every forseeable event or process that should occur. I've been in contact with several agencies about purchasing a leadership training curriculum for the kids, and I had an email in my inbox from an retailer of a reputable product who says he thinks it's great what I'm doing and he might be able to somehow get some charitable donations and free supplies for us. Plus, his going rates are better than all the others ($150/kit instead of $245). I decided that I need to participate in an adult leadership training seminar. Also, I got notice from my mom's friend saying that Micanopy had similar problems with their free summer camp and had to shut down early too, and as a result a committee has been formed to address the issues of such camps and would I participate?

I am finally able to breath again. The bitterness in my soul is gone.

When I was working at the camp this summer, I often told people that I wasn't sure if I loved it or if I hated it. I think teaching is going to be the same way--but I also think that there is a possibility as I gain experience that I will be able to turn a corner and say that I love it. What it comes down to is that I hate failure, and love success.

Don't get me wrong. There is still a great deal of anxiety associated with my job. On Wednesday I'm taking three chaperones and 13 unruly kids to the public pool for a fieldtrip. Yikes. So many disasters could strike, it makes my stomach flop.

I also think that some of the stress comes from the beef-up-your-resume factor. To get a job teaching English in this city, you have to be pretty competitive. I recognize that I have done nothing extraordinary yet and want to get hired within the next two years--so LTP is a way to gain recognition in my field. Not that that is the reason I started it--but it is one more very compelling reason not to @^&$ it up.


"The tragedy of life doesn't lie in not reaching your goal. The tragedy lies in having no goal to reach." Benjamin Mays